Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since the first colonial ships landed on this continent, First Nations people have been sent a very clear message: that their lives are not valued, that their safety doesn't matter and that their fear and trauma are not worth listening to. That message was solidified last week when, in Boorloo, a bomb was thrown into a crowd of First Nations people and their allies on the day of mourning, and the government, politicians and the media barely batted an eyelid.

Let me repeat that: a bomb was thrown into a crowd of First Nations elders and children and their allies. It was an attempted terror attack, and yet there was no outrage. There was no mass media coverage. There were no urgent statements made about community safety. There were no calls for action. If a bomb had been thrown into almost any other crowd, the response would have been deafening, but when First Nations people are targeted, exercising their right to mourn, to protest and to speak truth about this country's violence, there is silence. These double standards are not accidental. This hate is cultivated and stoked. It is used as a distraction from billionaires holding wealth, from fossil fuel corporations destroying the planet and from a system that exploits workers and communities alike.

First Nations people have a right to live in safety. They have a right to protest. They have a right to exist without fear. We can't change history, but we can—and we must—tackle all racism head on, remembering that there can be no racial justice without First Nations justice.