Just over 11 years ago, I stood in this Parliament and gave my inaugural speech. I spoke about the alarm I felt as a 15-year-old girl hearing Pauline Hanson's first speech to the Australian Parliament. Even then, I recognised it for what it was: a dangerous attack on the multicultural and inclusive Australia I loved. It was a sinister, racist attack on the idea that people from all across the world can live together and successfully build a common future. All these years later, the danger of that sinister, racist attack has not gone away. Last week's National Press Club address from Pauline Hanson was not a new vision for Australia. It was the same divisive playbook we have seen for decades, dressed up and reheated.

We heard migrants picked on and blamed yet again for housing, for rising costs and for pressures they did not create because it is easier to scapegoat communities than deliver real solutions. We heard attacks on transgender Australians, framed as some kind of "insurgency"—language that dehumanises and leads to real‑world harm. It is the same targets and the same script but zero solutions. We heard a broader narrative that pits Australians against each other—migrants against citizens, communities against one another, and difference cast as danger. It is the same pattern: Identify a group, blame them and substitute division for policy. Every time a national platform is used to single people out to question their legitimacy, their rights and their place in this country, it lowers the bar of what is acceptable. It tells people that it is okay to exclude and to ridicule, and that some Australians are less deserving than others.

That kind of rhetoric does not stay in speeches at the National Press Club. It seeps into workplaces, into classrooms and into communities. It emboldens those already looking for permission to marginalise others. It gives licence to discrimination and normalises exclusion. That is the real danger. We also heard rhetoric that questioned the value of working people, suggesting that they are the problem. One cannot claim to stand with battlers while calling workers lazy and backing laws that make them easier to sack. We heard proposals to dismantle trusted institutions and services that millions of people rely on, like the ABC and SBS. We do not strengthen our democracy by weakening scrutiny.

We heard reproductive rights framed in the most extreme terms and rhetoric that diminishes women's economic security, suggesting that if women are on leave from work caring for their newborn children, they should not be paid. That is not about facts; it is about creating a pretext to take away rights, like paid parental leave. Ultimately Pauline Hanson threatens to wind back women's and family rights, which have been fought for over generations and that Australian women expect and deserve. Let us be absolutely clear, that is not about protecting women and children; it is about political opportunism.

What have we heard from Opposition members since Hanson's address last week? No clear rejection and no line in the sand—just hedging. From most, just silence because when it comes to One Nation, they want the votes without owning the consequences. My inner west community proudly knows that multiculturalism is not a threat to Australia. It is one of our greatest achievements. Walk through the streets of Ashfield, Marrickville, Dulwich Hill, Haberfield, Hurlstone Park or Ashbury and it can be seen every day—generations of families from all corners of the world who built businesses, raised families, volunteered in community organisations and strengthened our beautiful neighbourhoods. They did not weaken Australia. They helped build it.

Division is not inevitable. We do not build a better country by turning people against each other. The answer is to build something better—a future where people feel secure, and where they have a stake in our society and belong. The New South Wales Labor Government is delivering that. It is delivering more housing, fairer renting laws, record investments in our schools, hospitals and public transport, and stronger protections for working people—not slogans but real improvements to people's lives. When people have security and opportunity, the politics of fear is less powerful. When I gave my first speech in this Parliament 11 years ago, I said I wanted to help build a better Australia—a fairer, confident and generous country that understands our diversity is one of our greatest strengths and an Australia that faces the future not with fear but with hope, not looking for someone to blame but working together to build something better. I will keep doing that.