Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the Minister for Foreign Affairs's response to Senator Farqui's question today.

I want to start by making some general comments about racism in Australia. We need to be honest, and we need to be truthful, about the role that racism has played and continues to play in our country. Remember, when Europeans colonised this place, this country, it was done so on the basis of the racist lie of terra nullius. That is a racist lie that this was an empty land and that no humans were present, when, in fact, the simple truth was that there were a lot of people present in this land and they had lived here for a long, long time. The racism that underpinned the colonisation of this land has been entwined in the fabric of our society and our structures ever since and that remains true today. We remain a country in which racism is entwined in the very fabric of its being. Senators like Senator Faruqi and others like Senator Thorpe face racism out there in the community, as they do their job as senators and as they simply live as Australians, and they face racism in this place on a regular basis.

Of course, the political embodiment of racism in contemporary Australia is Senator Pauline Hanson. She is relentlessly platformed by mainstream media in this country, given a boost to spread her hateful rhetoric, and the media and, for that matter, the Australian Labor Party and the coalition have repeatedly failed to call her out for her racism and failed to strongly respond to racism when it occurs, not just in our society but here in this place. I remind folks that Senator Hanson, when Senator Faruqi took an action against her for telling Senator Faruqi she should 'piss off back to Pakistan', was found by a Federal Court judge to have engaged in a racist attack on Senator Faruqi. She was also found by a Federal Court judge to have a tendency to make negative, derogatory, discriminating or hateful statements in relation to, about or against groups of people relevantly identified as persons of colour, migrants to Australia and Muslims and did so because of those characteristics. You don't engage in racist attacks and you don't have those tendencies the Federal Court found that Senator Hanson does unless you are a racist.

Off the back of Senator Hanson telling Senator Faruqi to 'piss off back to Pakistan', the Australian Greens moved a motion in this parliament to censure Senator Hanson. This was a moment where the Senate could have actually sent a strong message to Senator Hanson that her racism and her instruction to Senator Faruqi to 'piss off back to Pakistan' were not going to be tolerated. But what did this Senate do? It squibbed it, because Senator Wong, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, along with the then leader of the opposition in the Senate Senator Birmingham, moved an amendment to the censure motion, which removed the censure provisions from the motion. So instead of sending the strong, absolutely required message to Senator Hanson that her racism wouldn't be tolerated, we did no such thing. If the government is serious about addressing racism in Australia, it could start by engaging with the blueprint, the National Anti-Racism Framework, and by making sure it is fully funded in the budget. That is the bare minimum we expect the government to do.

Question agreed to.