Bill Shorten has challenged Malcolm Turnbull to ask government MPs to sign up to a new code of race ethics, which Labor has proposed in an effort to counterbalance the return of One Nation to the federal scene, and send a positive signal in the wake of the bitterly contested US presidential election.
The Labor caucus has recently approved the proposed code, which echoes an initiative advanced by the ALP and the Australian Democrats when Pauline Hanson was last in the federal parliament.
In a letter to the prime minister seen by Guardian Australia, Shorten said the 1998 code of race ethics was introduced to counter “a climate of fear and heightened racial anxiety at that time”.
“We believe the time has now come for an affirmation of that code and the pledge contained within it,” Shorten writes to Turnbull.
The proposed code covers eight principles including one very high bar – that MPs agree “to speak and write in a manner which provides factual commentary on a foundation of truth about all issues being debated in the community and the parliament”.
As well as the requirement to be truthful, the code would require signatories to “act in a manner which upholds the honour of public office and the parliament”.
The code encompasses respect for the religious and cultural beliefs of all groups living in Australia in accordance with the universal declaration of human rights, and it says the signatory will “uphold principles of justice and tolerance within our multicultural society, making efforts to generate understanding of all minority groups”.
It also requires signatories to “recognise and value diversity as an integral part of Australia’s social and economic future; to help without discrimination all persons seeking assistance”; and “encourage the partnership of government and non-government organisations in leading constructive and informed debate in the community”.
It also references a recognition of the significance of Indigenous culture “and to promote reconciliation with and constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians”.
Given all Labor parliamentarians are now signatories to the code, Shorten has challenged Turnbull to take the document to his own party room.
The Labor leader noted in the letter to Turnbull that the two worked constructively on a parliamentary motion on racial harmony that passed the parliament in mid-October, and the code would build on that gesture.
Shorten’s move follows a recent speech from Labor’s Senate leader and opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, where she argued that Hanson’s anti-immigration and anti-Islam rhetoric had the potential to damage key relationships within the region.
Wong’s intervention followed a strong speech from the Victorian Liberal backbencher Russell Broadbent in the House of Representatives during the last parliamentary sitting week in which he blasted some colleagues for “cuddling up to Hansonite rhetoric”.
Broadbent warned that “diatribes” against Islam, such as interventions from the LNP backbencher George Christensen would eventually only harm the Coalition politically.
“Those propositions and policies will only hurt the Coalition parties in the long run in the same way the once-great Labor party now is the captive of the Greens, relying on their preferences to win 31 of their seats in this House,” Broadbent told the chamber.
“Right here, right now, we can turn to the high road. Let this nation be the circuit-breaker, and travel the road of the wise, leaving the foolish to perish in division.”
Broadbent’s intervention triggered a sharp rebuke from Christensen, who described the Victorian Liberal backbencher as a “politically correct hand-wringer” and a member of an “elitist set” in Canberra who failed to respond to the feelings of their constituents.
The Liberal senator Cory Bernardi has also recently called for the government to halve the migration intake and reconsider the refugee intake or face the further rise of anti-establishment parties including One Nation.
“Pauline Hanson is speaking directly to many Coalition voters and drawing them away because she’s tackling the issues that many would suggest the Coalition should be dealing with,” Bernardi said.
A spokesman for the prime minister told Guardian Australia the Shorten letter had only recently been received by the government, and would be considered in due course.
Turnbull’s spokesman was critical that the conversation between the two leaders was now in the media. “Of course the government takes racial discrimination seriously but if Labor was actually serious, it wouldn’t be attempting stunts through the media,” the spokesman said.
