ANDREW GILES MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CITIES AND URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE
SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP
MEMBER FOR SCULLIN
The Acting Prime Minister, Michael McCormack's continued attempts to compare the violent attack on democracy on the US Capitol with the Black Lives Movement is offensive, wrong and must be withdrawn.
The Acting Prime Minister has referred to the Black Lives Matters movement as 'race riots', demonstrating an unwillingness to understand the aims of BLM to end racially motivated violence and racial injustice.
In Australia, the Black Lives Movement has played an important role in creating greater awareness of the significant disadvantages faced by First Nations people.
More than 430 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are known to have died in custody in Australia since a royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody delivered its final report in 1991.
Both Scott Morrison and Michael McCormack refuse to condemn Craig Kelly and George Christensen for spreading lies and conspiracies about the attack on the Capitol, the coronavirus and vaccines - this is a total failure of leadership.
The images of armed men and women rioting in the home of American democracy, forcing democratically-elected representatives to flee, shocked and appalled Australians. It was an all-out assault on democracy.
Yet, the Morrison Government, unlike many other Western democratic governments, has barely criticised the violent insurrection let alone President Trump's responsibility for inciting the violence.
Drawing a false comparison between a violent insurrection aimed at overturning a democratic election, and a global movement aimed at ending racially motivated violence and racial injustice is wrong and offensive. The Acting Prime Minister must withdraw his remarks, immediately.