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

Today is the last day of Pride Month, which is held around the world on the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York, where gay activists fought back against the regular police brutality they were subjected to. Of course, Australia has its own shameful history of hatred and discrimination against queer folks, including when marchers in the first Mardi Gras were brutally bashed and arrested by police; and the Salamanca protests in Tasmania, where over a hundred people were arrested simply for asking people to sign a petition at a market.

Queer communities in this country and around the world have come a long way in their fight to be free of discrimination, but there is a long, long way still to go. As we've seen from One Nation in this place, as recently as yesterday, there are still people who want to politicise and persecute queer communities for political gain.

That is why, today, the Australian Greens will be introducing legislation to create a dedicated LGBTIQA+ commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission. When discrimination and hate are increasing, you respond by fighting back and by strengthening the institutions that defend people's rights. Visibility matters. Representation matters. Having a dedicated commissioner tells LGBTIQA+ Australians that their rights deserve to be defended with vigour and to be aggressively promoted with seriousness and in the same way that everybody else's rights are defended and promoted.