STATEMENTS ON SIGNIFICANT MATTERS
Dr ALY (Cowan—Minister for Small Business, Minister for International Development and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (10:40): I congratulate the member for Moreton on her excellent contribution on this occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Racial Discrimination Act. It is, indeed, an honour to serve with her in this parliament. As the member for Moreton mentioned, today we mark the 50th anniversary of the RDA, or the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
It was the first law to recognise and protect the right of everyone in Australia to be free from discrimination based on race. Fifty years on, Australians take great pride in our free and democratic country, where all of us have the right to live without fear of discrimination and free from acts of intimidation and violence on the basis of race, ethnicity or cultural heritage.
Modern Australia is a migrant nation. It is who we are. The Racial Discrimination Act underscores and protects this vital part of this proud nation.
Our multicultural success belongs to all Australians, every single one of them, no matter where you came from, no matter where your parents came from and no matter how you came to be here. Half of all Australians were born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas. My story is one of those stories.
I'm an Australian, but I'm also a migrant. At the age of two, my family chose Australia, settling in the western suburbs of Sydney. We quickly became a part of our local community.
We had neighbours from Britain and New Zealand but also from China, Greece and the former Yugoslavia. My Australia is defined by my childhood in the suburbs, where we would gather under the hot sun to play a game of legendary Aussie driveway cricket. We improvised wickets out of garbage cans, pausing only intermittently to move the wicket to allow cars to pass by.
There we played for hours under the hot sun on the hot tarmac, interrupted only by the cry of parents standing on the front porch letting us know that it was time to come inside for dinner. And, as each child's name was called out into the dusky sky, a different accent could be made out—Greek, Italian, English, Irish, Indian, Swedish, Chinese, Arabic, Australian.
Nobody made fun of each other's strange names or the funny way our mothers or fathers would call out for us. Under this 48th Parliament, our House of Representatives is the most diverse it has been in the history of this nation, and it is richer because of it. At the 2025 election, Australians across the nation voted overwhelmingly for a parliament that looked like the community it represents.
A study by the Scanlon Foundation earlier this month found that 83 per cent of Australians think that multiculturalism is good for our country, and they're right. The Albanese Labor government unequivocally stands for multiculturalism reflecting our national identity. I am honoured to be appointed as the first standalone cabinet minister for multicultural affairs.
Honourable members: Hear, hear! An honourable member: You're a fantastic minister too. Dr ALY: Thank you to my colleagues for their interjections there.
Mr Hill: Make sure they're recorded in Hansard! Dr ALY: With the launch of the Office for Multicultural Affairs, we now have a means to truly drive a cohesive and renewed approach to multiculturalism that fits in with our modern multicultural Australia. It's an opportunity not only to celebrate the richness of our diversity—the member for Moreton spoke so eloquently on what that means.
She spoke about how we move beyond celebration and how we move beyond the valuing of food—as long as it tastes like chicken!—colours and festivities to valuing and acknowledging multiculturalism as a fundamental aspect of who we are. Multiculturalism is the mainstream. It's not a 'semicolon-and'.
It's not a postscript. It's not a nice-to-have. It's not an afterthought.
It is Australia and it is Australians. Today, it is woven into the social and cultural fabric of a modern Australia, from Lunar New Year to Eid or Diwali or Rosh Hashana. These events are celebrated in small towns and big cities from coast to coast.
For 50 years, time and time again, the Racial Discrimination Act has helped us strengthen our multiculturalism and strengthen our identity as a multicultural nation. The act has made enormous strides in improving racial equality, including by shining a spotlight on wage theft from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and invalidating laws that discriminated against First Nations land rights.
It also set the foundation for future antidiscrimination protections on age, sex and disability. In that regard it was quite revolutionary—a watershed moment in Australia's history. Unfortunately, there are still those who are made to defend their very presence and belonging in Australia, which harms not only those directly involved but also our whole society.
I want to go back to my first term in parliament. I was elected in 2016. Mr Hill: Hear, hear!
A good year! Dr ALY: So says another class of 2016 person sitting next to me, the member for Bruce! One of the very first debates that I got to participate in in this place was the debate to protect section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful to undertake any act that is reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a person or a group because of their race, the colour of their skin or where they were born. In a country that prides itself on Australian values—the values of mateship, a fair go and equality—this should not be controversial.
It should not be controversial that we take a moment to ensure that we are not offending, humiliating, insulting or intimidating our fellow Australians because of their race, the colour of their skin or where they were born. This should not be controversial. At the time of that debate in 2016, the Attorney-General—appointed by Prime Minister Turnbull at the time—said that people have a right to be bigots, and those opposite mounted an argument against section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
It was an argument that pitted Australian against Australian and rights against rights. They argued that the right to free speech trumped the right to feel safe and trumped the right to live your life without offence, without being humiliated, without being insulted, without feeling like the 'other' and without being made to feel like the lesser. I'm incredibly passionate about this, as is anyone who has been on the receiving end.
If you have been on the receiving end of discrimination, if you have been insulted, if you have been humiliated and if you have been offended because of the colour of your skin or because of your race, then you know how deeply it cuts. You know how it carries you. You carry it inside you like a little piece of a broken bone your entire life.
You know how much it impacts you. So we went to that debate in 2016, and I'm proud to say that we won the debate and that section 18 remains a vital part of the Racial Discrimination Act. As I said in my first speech in this place, I will fight for every person's rights.
I will fight for the right of free speech for every Australian. But I will not stand by and watch others get browbeaten into accepting second-class citizenship because of the colour of their skin. This government believes in the right of all people to be protected from bigotry, from vilification, from discrimination and from hate.
We will continue to foster respect, belonging, understanding and inclusion, and we will continue to create real change in the lives of Australians, because, while the Racial Discrimination Act has guided us for 50 years, we need to make sure we have the right measures in place to protect multiculturalism in Australia for the next 50.