Mr GEORGIOU(10.02 a.m.) —The Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 1996 represents an important development in the Commonwealth's ongoing commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights in Australia. It provides for the establishment of administrative mechanisms which will enable complaints made under Australia's anti-discrimination laws—including the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1992—to be efficiently determined and for these determinations to be effectively enforced.

The bill is, in essence, a response to the High Court's decision in the Brandy case. In that case, the court determined that the provisions within the Racial Discrimination Act, allowing determinations made by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to be enforced through registration in the Federal Court, represented an exercise of judicial power which could only be exercised by a court and was thus unconstitutional. As the same provisions which were held constitutionally invalid in the Brandy case also exist in the Sex Discrimination Act and the Disability Discrimination Act, the outcome of Brandy was to render Australia's anti-discrimination laws effectively unenforceable.

The former government initiated a two-stage response to the Brandy decision, commencing with a temporary restoration of the pre-1992 arrangements, under which the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission could inquire into a matter and make a determination. But, if this was not acted upon by the parties themselves, it had to be enforced by a de novo hearing in the Federal Court. The second stage of the response was to refer consideration of a permanent solution to a review committee consisting of representatives from the Attorney-General's Department, the Department of Finance and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which was already investigating the structure and operation of the commission.

The former Attorney-General, Mr Lavarch, announced the government's response to this review on 28 January 1996—the day after the calling of the federal election. I should say in response to the honourable member that there were quite a number of decisions made after the election was called, but they were never implemented.

The coalition's response is outlined in this bill, which provides for complaints made under Australia's anti-discrimination laws and complaints of breaches of human rights under the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 to be investigated by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. But cases which cannot be resolved through the commission's conciliation process will be finally determined in the Federal Court. This involves an extension of the jurisdiction of the Federal Court.

In generating this outcome, the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill also provides for a number of important access and equity reforms, as the Attorney-General (Mr Williams) pointed out in his second reading speech. The court will be able to adopt informal procedures, as it will not be bound by technicalities or legal forms. The court will be able to make rules of court which delegate any of its powers, apart from the power of granting injunctions to judicial registrars. Where there is hardship, either party will be able to apply to the Attorney-General for assistance for the proceedings. There will be a requirement that the commission assist complainants in completing the necessary forms to commence proceedings in the Federal Court, and the president of the commission will be able to prepare a report for the court on the complaint.

These reforms are part of Australia's ongoing and fundamental commitment to human rights: to safeguarding human integrity, freedom and equality, to opposing racism, to providing protection from discrimination, to tolerance and diversity, and to justice and equity for all Australians. Today, these basic tenets on which our human rights legislation rest are given heightened significance by the situation created by the member for Oxley (Ms Hanson).

Mr Speaker, I am 49 years old, almost 50. I was born in Greece, but I have been an Australian for longer than the majority of the Australian population has been alive. I have always been overwhelmingly confident in, and committed to, Australia. Most of my mature life has been spent at the hard end of politics fighting the Labor Party, starting off on Malcolm Fraser's staff in June 1975.

My experience has perhaps led me to emphasise political effectiveness, rather than making ringing declarations. Because my commitment to multiculturalism is well known and my opposition to the member for Oxley's stance is manifest, until now I have simply pointed out that many of the things she says are wrong and can damage Australia. But now that the member for Oxley is no longer a lone Independent but has become a leader of a political party, common decency and a concern for Australia and a concern for human rights demand that more be said.

I believe it is important that we get the facts about Hansonism right. The first is that a number of people are superficially attracted to some what the member for Oxley says. The second fact is that the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) is right when says of those attracted to her that `a few, no doubt [are bigoted, narrow-minded and racist. Most, however, are not'.

The third fact is that, if any of the member for Oxley's opponents think she is not a real politician but a simple fish and chip shop lady, they are quite simply wrong. The member for Oxley is not just a real politician; indeed, she is a political manipulator and a disseminator of division of the kind we have rarely seen in Australia.

Hansonism is two faced. One face tries to entice Australians who are neither racist nor bigoted by presenting the member for Oxley as an ordinary Australian, a woman who has had her share of hard knocks and who is just speaking her mind. The second face of Hansonism is the ugly face—the face that attracts the racists and the bigots. It attracts them because it reflects their prejudices, their resentments and their hatreds. This is the authentic face of Hansonism—the one she tries to constantly hide because it is unacceptable to the ordinary, decent Australians she is trying to enmesh in her movement. This needs to be exposed, not with rhetoric but with the member for Oxley's own words—and her own words do expose her.

The member for Oxley has said again and again, `I am not a racist by any definition of that word.' Yet in her very own words she has said:

My fear is that if we keep on going the way we are going . . . the yellow race will rule the world . . .

Again in her own now notorious words, she said:

I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians . . . They have their own culture and religion, form ghettoes and do not assimilate.

The member for Oxley has said:

I want my critics to listen carefully, I want them to read my lips! I am not saying that I want all Asian immigration to cease.

But it is from her very own lips that the following statements were issued:

Maybe I do come in like a Sherman tank, how else am I going to say that I want a halt on Asians coming into the country. You tell me. How would you say it?

Let us turn to the member for Oxley's attitude towards Aboriginals. The member for Oxley says she is not anti-Aboriginal. She has said:

I've never denigrated the Aboriginal person, I'm saying the system is not right.

Just listen to her denigrations:

What Aboriginals have to learn is you don't go spending your welfare money on grog and you're getting round the place and you can't feed your kids.

Just listen to her assertion that she is fighting for `the white community, the immigrants, Italians, Greeks, whoever—it does not matter—anyone apart from the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders'. Just hear her demand that the reconciliation process should be abolished because of what she says is a historical background of—and I quote her—`the massacre of blacks by blacks', `the virtual genocide of one Aboriginal tribe by another' and `Aboriginal cannibalism'.

The member for Oxley has recently said:

I have been accused of saying Aboriginals are not disadvantaged. That is clearly nonsense.

Anyone who says that Aboriginals are not disadvantaged is clearly speaking nonsense. But this is the nonsense that the member for Oxley does speak. She said:

People are saying they are a disadvantaged race . . . what way, I would like someone to tell me are they disadvantaged.

I quote her again:

I . . . challenge anyone to tell me how Aboriginals are disadvantaged when they can obtain three and five per cent housing loans denied to non-Aboriginals.

I could go on with a litany of such distortions and deceptions, but I will take two more cases. At the launch of her One Nation party, the member for Oxley said—and she was shown on television saying this:

Do you want race riots, religious fanaticism, gang and drug wars? Do you want civil war?

On 60 minutes , the member for Oxley was asked whether she really thought we were going to have civil war. She replied:

No. And I didn't say those words either . . . let's clarify that `civil war'. That was an editor's headline.

Finally, let us look at why the member for Oxley detests Australia's multiculturalism. She says:

A truly multicultural society can never be strong and united. United States President Bill Clinton pointed out when he was in Australia that the world is littered with the bodies of people killed in failed and tragic attempts at multiculturalism.

Nothing could more totally, utterly and transparently misrepresent President Clinton's views. President Clinton did speak of ethnic, racial and religious conflicts, but he concluded by saying—and I quote the president's words because they are important:

There is a lot of evidence that we can all do better than that. And when the world comes to Sydney they will see that. So think about that.

Think about how every day in every way when you bring in people who are those, like me, who trace their roots to England or Ireland or Scotland, to various Asian countries or South Asia or Latin America or the Middle East, every day you do that when the world is looking at you, you offer a rebuke to all those who would take away the lives and the futures and the fortunes of the children of this world, because they are different from them.

And I cannot think of a better place in the entire world, a more shining example of how people can come together as one nation and one community than Sydney, Australia.

Mr Hardgrave —Terrific words.

Mr GEORGIOU —They were terrific words and they were delivered much more effectively than I could.

The member for Oxley's record raises two questions. The first question is: why is she doing this? The answer is straightforward: she is a manipulative politician who thinks she was elected because of her race appeals and who wants to be re-elected and carry more people like herself into the parliament on her coat-tails by continuing to incite racism while extending her base beyond hardcore bigots.

The member for Oxley first gained her political reputation by attacking Aboriginals. She soon moved to attacking Asian Australians. This is the way that racists extend their range of scapegoats. They start off by attacking one vulnerable group, then they attack another and soon other groups become vul nerable. All Australians—not just Aboriginal Australians, not just Asian Australians, not just Australians of non-English speaking descent, but all of us—need to ask: who will be next?

Which of us is the member for Oxley talking about when she says:

There are so many people who do not think of themselves as being Australians.

Of whom does she speak when she asks:

Where will they stand in any future crisis? Beside us or behind us or will they themselves be the crisis?

Whom will she next accuse of `seeking to create more than one Australia'? Of whom will she ask:

Are you a citizen of Australia or a citizen of the world?

The second question is: why does the member for Oxley believe that she can get away with her distortions; her denials of what she has said and of what has been published; and what she has built her notoriety on? I believe that the answer is contained in a statement on the back cover of her book Pauline Hanson: the truth . This is the book on which she owns the copyright, on which she receives the royalties and of which she has said again and again:

I've put my name to this book and I have backed this book.

This is what her book says:

We Australians are easily led. We are in more ways than one a nation of friendly and docile sheep.

I do not believe that the member for Oxley is going to succeed in her attempts to deceive and divide Australia. I do not believe that the Australian people are docile sheep. I believe that Australians are a clever, confident people and that we can stand on our feet and think for ourselves.

I believe that the vast majority of Australians support the multiculturalism that we have created in this nation, and that we support reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. I believe that most Australians are coming to understand that the member for Oxley is inciting racism. I believe that those people who are superficially attracted to Hansonism and those who say, `I don't agree with everything Pauline Hanson says— but,' do need to reflect on what Hansonism really stands for.

Hansonism does not stand for them and it does not stand for Australia. Hansonism is not about Aboriginal programs that have not fixed real disadvantage. It is not about the rate of immigration. It is not about foreign investment. It is not about tariffs. It is not about jobs. Hansonism stands for racism and bigotry, and these descriptions are not politically correct catchphrases. They mean that Hansonism stands for dividing Australia, for scapegoating vulnerable groups because of their race and ethnicity, for spreading fear and resentment and for sowing mistrust and suspicion amongst Australians about one another.

Over the last 50 years, Australia has become a home and a nation for five million immigrants from over 130 countries. Out of the mass migration of the last half century, we Australians have created an admirable, decent and harmonious nation. Together we have created a society fundamentally based on fairness, on the appreciation of racial and cultural diversity, on tolerance and mutual respect and a commitment to reconciliation. In a world of racial, ethnic and religious conflict and violence, we have shown the way and impressed other nations. But that is less important than the fact that we have got it right. Hansonism rejects all this. If we want to be a decent, tolerant and united Australia, Hansonism needs to be rejected. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr MELHAM —On indulgence, I congratulate the member for Kooyong on his excellent speech. I wish to be associated with everything that he has said and I endorse everything he has said. There should be more of it. I know that that is shared by everyone on this side of the House, and on the other side of the House. We all want to associate ourselves with what he has said. It was an excellent speech, and he is to be congratulated on it.