Finally, someone tells it like it is.
ED: From my inBox.
During the November 2023 session of Federal Parliament, Senator Pauline Hanson read to the Senate a comment from her Facebook page posted by ‘Rebecca’. Read it and see if you think what “Rebecca” says ought to be headlines all over the country.
“Can we stop using the term Traditional Owners?” Senator Hanson quotes the post as asking. “Aborigines did not and do not own Australia. They were original inhabitants, and that is it. Mother Nature provided all what Aboriginals claim as theirs. They did not build Ayer’s Rock, the Three Sisters, Kakadu, the river systems, the mountains etc.”
“They used the land and its natural resources and structures that were already there. They did not construct or design one single thing and, just as they continue to do today, they used and took whatever was available to them.”
“A lot of Australians feel nothing has changed.”
Senator Lidia Thorpe interjected: “Not all Australians”.
Senator Hanson continued. “‘What people tend to forget, like Senator Thorpe, is that I was born here too and so were millions of other Australians whose parents came as migrants and have made Australia their home All I have asked for is equality for all Australians. If you need it you get that helping hand. If you don’t need it, then fine you don’t. If you work hard for what you need, you can earn it, and that’s been proven by the 11 Senators in this Parliament who actually are of Aboriginal descent, and yet you, Senator Thorpe, want special treatment.”
The shouted interruptions increased until Senate President Sue Lines intervened and told both Senators to take their seats. After a pause she told Senator Hanson to resume but to address remarks to her as the chair.
Senator Hanson resumed and asserted that “Australia does not only belong to the Stone Age hunter gathers discovered by the British explorers and settlers, but to all who have made their home here.”
“I have to ask the question what special or unique contribution entitle Indigenous Australians to special or unique rights greater than anybody else. The answer is none whatsoever,”
“There has only ever been one nation on this continent founded on the first of January 1901 so there cannot be a legitimate treaty and this means there is no requirement for so-called ‘truth telling’ ”
“This is rewriting history to maximize settlements in a treaty, just forget it. We are all Australians together and should be treated equally.”
Earlier in the same speech Senator Hanson had singled Senator Thorpe out for special mention.
“There is no war on Indigenous Australians as Senator Thorpe pretends,” Senator Hanson said. “That she sits in parliament along with other Indigenous people shows this claim for the lie that it is. Senator Thorpe is no victim on her taxpayer funded salary, and most Indigenous people reject the idea they are victims.”