Page 990 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 March 2019
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This debate must be about much more than the acceptance or tolerance of our Muslim brothers and sisters. It should not be confined to them. It should be extended to all in our society. The Greens, both nationally and locally, have always believed that all of us deserve to feel safe and have equal opportunities in life, no matter what our background, ability, gender, sexuality, income, postcode, religious belief. We believe that this can be achieved not by adversarial, aggressive or divisive discourse but rather by calling out discrimination, bias and bigotry. We should not be using the current national discourse on multiculturalism as an opportunity to have a go at one another.
It is worth noting, as Minister Steel did, that today is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which of course is an apt day for this matter of public importance to be discussed. In Australia, since 1998, it has become known as Harmony Day. This, I fear, has the effect of watering down the true import of the day. As Minister Steel said, this day was declared by the United Nations because in 1966 the police shot at and killed 69 people at a peaceful anti-apartheid demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, on 21 March 1960. It took a really extreme event to prompt this action of the UN declaring this day, just as the extreme events over the Tasman last week have prompted this debate in the Assembly and much more broadly across the nation.
Australia, I am afraid, has always had a deep problem with racism. Our country has been built, unfortunately, on the genocide of Aboriginal people and propped up by decades of assimilation policies, black deaths in custody, restrictions on immigration, brutal refugee policies and an often racist political discourse. This has to stop in order for us to become a truly tolerant and inclusive society. (Time expired.)
Discussion concluded.
End of Life Choices in the ACT—Select Committee
Report
MS CODY (Murrumbidgee) (3.43): I present the following report:
End of Life Choices in the ACT—Select Committee—Report, dated 21 March 2019, together with the relevant minutes of proceedings.
I move:
That the report be noted.
As chair of the Select Committee on End of Life Choices in the ACT I am pleased to present the report of the select committee to the Assembly. The select committee was established by the Assembly on 30 November 2017. The committee’s terms of reference were to inquire into and report on a range of issues which arise in considering end of life choices, including current practices used in the medical community to assist in managing the end of life, including palliative care; the views of the ACT community on the desirability of voluntary assisted dying being legislated in the ACT; risks to individuals and the community associated with voluntary assisted
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