QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator THORPE (Victoria—Independent VIC Whip) (15:27): I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to a question without notice I asked today relating to Indigenous Australians. It was disappointing to see Minister Wong say that asking about genocide on this continent is making a political point. It is not.

It is about real history that has occurred here. This new research shows over two million First Peoples from this country were wiped out in the first years of invasion, and yet we still have a government that is in a state of denial and that cannot use the G-word. Minister Wong clearly called for a truth-telling process and said she would support this.

Now, I've been calling for the truth-telling process for years before that terrible referendum. We need truth-telling on a national scale through a truth and justice commission with royal commission powers—you mentioned the Yoorrook; that's what they did—one that can properly investigate the crimes that have occurred in this country and repair the harm done. The Albanese government came to power on a promise of truth-telling, but this was a promise they soon broke.

It was a betrayal of First Peoples in this country, and it was a betrayal of the truth. The 1997 Bringing Them Home report, which my mother was a part of, says that child removals constituted genocide. The Yoorrook Justice Commission found that the colonisation of Victoria involved genocide.

Again, just last year, Minister Wong mentioned the Yoorrook Justice Commission but couldn't bring herself to say the word genocide. Last year, former Labor senator Pat Dodson said the ongoing jailing and stealing of our children is genocide. The evidence has been known and available for decades.

My people have been calling for truth-telling and justice for over 200 years, but this Albanese Labor government can't even acknowledge the basic truth of what happened here. We saw Labor politicians join the National Walk for Truth. We saw the Prime Minister join the National Walk for Truth.

We hear speech after speech from Labor politicians about truth-telling, but they're just empty words. They don't want the truth. They want to continue the lie that this place is founded on.

Question agreed to.