I move the following motion: That the Senate
1. acknowledges the historic action of the Holt Government, with bipartisan support from the Australian Labor Party, in initiating the dismantling of the White Australia Policy;
2. recognises that since 1973, successive Labor and Liberal/National Party Governments have, with bipartisan support, pursued a racially non-discriminatory immigration policy to the overwhelming national, and international, benefit of Australia; and
3. gives its unambiguous and unqualified commitment to the principle that, whatever criteria are applied by Australian Governments in exercising their sovereign right to determine the composition of the immigration intake, race, faith or ethnic origin shall never, explicitly or implicitly, be among them.
 
Yesterday in this chamber we saw a speech which was not worthy of this Parliament. We saw a speech that did not reflect the heart of this country. We saw a speech that did not reflect the strong, independent, multicultural, tolerant accepting nation who we are.
We saw a speech that did not reflect a nation which has been built by people from every country, every part of this world, a strong, independent, multicultural nation.
Instead we saw a speech that sought to divide us. We saw a speech that sought to fan prejudice. We saw a speech that sought to fan racism. And I say again, and I know this is a statement that so many in this nation support, a nation that is divided is never safer. A nation that is divided is never stronger and making others lesser, fanning prejudice and discrimination, has never made a nation safer.
It is so important, it is so important, that we in this chamber express our view, our positive view about what values matter to us. Because we have built this country, a country that is the most multicultural nation on the face of this Earth, not because we have allowed prejudice to persist, not because we have allowed discrimination to exist, not because we have accepted division, but because we have stood against it.
We have built this country because we have stood for unity, for a collective, for community, for values of acceptance and respect, Values that are intrinsic to who we are.
And what we must do as a Parliament, and this is what this motion does, is assert those values again.
There are many times in this chamberand we saw them in Question Time yesterday and no doubt we'll see them againwhen we have a bit of a barney, when the partisan system is at its finest or perhaps at its least fine.
But the times in our history which have been of most importance on these issues have been because our parties have worked together, because our parties have stood for the values that have built modern Australia, because our parties have stood for values of acceptance and respect and have stood against discrimination and prejudice. That is the history of Australia, and it is your history as much as it is ours.
So today let us demonstrate that again. Let us demonstrate again that it is with bipartisan support for those Australian values of inclusion, acceptance and respect; a belief in equality; the rejection of racism; the rejection of prejudice; and the rejection of divisionand instead the support of tolerance and acceptance of respect and equality. Let us stand for that because that is the best of this country.
I want to say something on a human level. Think of what might be happening in some of the schoolyards in Australia today, because those of us who have been on the receiving end of racism know what it feels like and know that what leaders say matters.
Because to be prejudiced against a group the first thing you have to do is diminish them, is to say that they are somehow less and not deserving of the empathy you would want for yourself and your family.
That is the worst thing about the speech we saw last night, because it sought to make one part of Australia less worthy of empathy. That is the first step in prejudice.
So I ask this chamber to support this motion and I ask us to reflect on what is the best of who we are and why it is so important that we do not allow any of our fellow Australians to be as diminished as they were in yesterday's speech. But more importantly, why we must go forward, particularly the parties of government, adhering to the central values that are at the heart of the Australian nationtolerance, respect, acceptance, equality.
Authorised by Noah Carroll, ALP, Canberra.