Thursday, 18 May 2023

Voice to Parliament

Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (09:48): I would like to share some thoughts on the Voice to Parliament which may have been overlooked. This nation is in great need of reconciliation. Sixty years ago when Martin Luther King Jr delivered the world-shaking I Have a Dream speech he said:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Not only was this speech the benchmark of reconciliation and equality, but MLK himself, a hero of the civil rights movement, in fact said it was a demonstration of freedom. From this we see that when we begin to divide along racial lines there is intrinsically linked with that a loss of freedom, yet now somehow our nation is considering doing a 180. If we are not careful, the notion of being judged not by the colour of your skin but by the content of your character could simply become just a cliché, when in reality I believe it is one of the most important mindsets that we could ever adopt. When we are divided along racial lines, we risk repeating the hideous mistakes of the past. In my opinion we could get rid of section 25 of the Australian constitution. If we are going to amend our constitution, I believe we should be removing race from it, not putting race in it.