Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm a little bit out of breath. I ran from another meeting to get here. I was quite the sight, running across the courtyard in heels! On a more serious matter, I want to talk about community safety and confronting the environment in which hatred grows. Violence doesn't begin with a weapon. It begins with words. It begins with choosing to focus on what makes us different from each other rather than looking for our shared humanity. It begins with the normalisation of othering, the quiet everyday act of reducing a person to a single attribute, whether the colour of their skin, their faith or any other marker, and then assigning value or judgement on an entire group on that basis.

Racism grows when division is normalised. In the last week, we have seen distressing acts of racism reported by players of the Fitzroy Stars Football and Netball Club. We've seen Senator Hanson make abhorrent comments against Muslims. Her comments were outrageous, and they must not be normalised. Yet, just yesterday, the coalition refused to support the censure motion that named Senator Hanson explicitly.

Honourable Senator:

An honourable senator interjecting—

Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sure—not all of it, just the part that called her out.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not all of us.

Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not all of you. That is true. Thank you, Senator Scarr and Senator McLachlan. I want to acknowledge you both. It was disgraceful that this parliament couldn't come together in calling out Senator Hanson. Words absolutely matter. When people in positions of power speak in ways that exclude or target whole communities, it affects how people treat each other out in the community. We all have responsibility to call out racism and to build a culture of respect and inclusion, and, as parliamentarians trusted with shaping the country we live in, we cannot shirk away from that responsibility. When leaders lack the courage to draw a line, it sends another message—that this type of rhetoric is okay in our country. But we, this government, do not tolerate racism. It is never ever acceptable.

I am a First Nations woman. I know what happens when dehumanising language goes unchecked. When identity itself becomes grounds for suspicion or exclusion, the consequences are not abstract; they are real and they are generational. Community safety means more than responding to acts of violence after they occur. It means preventing the conditions that allow extremism to flourish. It means challenging vilification early, before it escalates from slur to threat, from threat to harm. Hatred does not start at the point of violence. It starts small—a stereotype repeated, a community scapegoated or a public figure amplifying fear for political gain. If we're serious about keeping all Australians safe—Jewish Australians, Muslim Australians, First Nations Australians, migrant communities—every single one, then antiracism work must be central to our national agenda. That includes education, strong community partnerships, countering online radicalisation, and leadership that is unambiguous in its defence of dignity and equality.

To every community that has felt targeted, you deserve to be safe. You deserve to feel safe. You deserve to be respected in this country that we all love. And, to this parliament, our responsibility is clear—not only to condemn hatred when it erupts but to prevent it from taking root and to call it out when we see it, without hesitation and even when it occurs in this building. We must stand for respect, dignity and inclusion. That's how we strengthen community safety, and that is absolutely how we strengthen our nation.