MARK DREYFUS MP

Labor will always work to keep Australians safe and, at the same time, we will ensure that the rights and freedoms enjoyed by all Australians are upheld.

We support the bill because it will provide greater legal protections for our schools, for our universities and for our libraries and cultural institutions to operate efficiently in the digital age. At the same time, this bill balances the interests of rights holders with those of the important educational and cultural institutions that will benefit from the extended protections provided under the expanded safe harbour scheme.

There is no doubt that among the most rewarding cases I argued as a barrister were those that involved a fight for justice. The Stolen Generations Casein particular was a matter that I fought for at a very personal level. It was a case about redressing a deep injustice, and I remain very proud of having worked on it.

Australians rely on a compact between business and consumers, but in order for that compact to work consumers need to have enough money to spend on goods, and businesses need to be honest and act in good faith when trading.

While the redress scheme provided for in these bills is late and falls short in some important respects from the scheme recommended by the royal commission, I have no doubt that it will provide a measure of justice to survivors.

Today I speak as a former shadow minister for the arts but also as a Melburnian to express my shock and sadness about the burning down of the much-loved La Mama Theatre on Faraday Street in Carlton.

This bill, like many similar bills that have come before successive parliaments, will not set the world alight, but they are a necessary administrative task of the parliament, and the Labor Party supports them.

Labor has for over a century demonstrated its understanding that it is a paramount responsibility of all parliamentarians to keep our community safe and our nation secure. We in Labor have demonstrated this commitment by working in a bipartisan way, whether in government or in opposition, to ensure that our security and law enforcement agencies have the powers and resources they need to keep our communities safe.

Australia is not merely an ally of Israel. We are a friend.

And this is a friendship has stood the test of time, through the upheavals of our political cycles here in Australia, and though the ever-changing diplomatic and political conditions of the world in which we live.

Australia has a proud history of passionate political expression, and last week, when Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia, threatened to 'beat up' Australians who protest his visit to the ASEAN Summit in Sydney next month, he was rightly condemned by thousands of Australians both within and outside the Australian Cambodian community.