Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

In commemorating the terrible and tragic losses of 11 September, 2001, I begin on a different day in a different place. I have had some close association with the events of 12 October, 2002. Four years ago next month, I represented Australia and the Australian government at the fifth anniversary memorial service in Bali for the 88 Australian victims of the Bali bombings. These are victims of the same course of action, the same movement, the same motivation as that which led to the even greater—although no greater in each individual case—tragedy of 11 September just a year before the Bali bombings.

I met the families five years after their terrible loss, and they said to me that those five years had been both the longest time and the shortest time in their lives. The sense of pain was almost undiminished, but they had to live their lives in order to celebrate those whom they had lost: their sons, daughters and—in some cases—their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and loved ones. These families recognised that for them the pain and the loss would be eternal. As long as they lived, the loss would live because that was in fact their way of keeping alive the memory, the connection and the human dimension of the very people to whom they were closest but who were taken from them on 12 October.

That is a reminder that what occurred on 11 September was neither the start nor the finish of a great global challenge. It proceeded with Bali a year later and it continued through London and Madrid with the terrible bombings there and, as we have seen, with so many other bombings throughout Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, particularly in Egypt and Iraq, and in many other places.

That tells us that it is not just the Western world that has suffered losses—although we have suffered terrible losses—but people of all origins. Whether they are black or white or of any other racial description; whether they are Christian, Muslim or a nonbeliever; whether they come from Australia, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom or from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan or Indonesia, there have been terrible human losses. As John Donne said: 'Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.' That is the context in which September 11 occurred. It occurred in the form of the most notable, striking and profound element in the great struggle between extremist Islam and moderate Islam and between extremist Islam and all other forms of belief, whether political or religious. This is literally a war against everything other than itself and a war against everything other than a totalitarian caliphate—a caliphate with a vision steeped in the most extremist forms of wahhabism. It is not a representation of Islam. Islam is rightly regarded as one of the world's great and enduring religions. Its practitioners, who represent the mainstream, represent a religion which has a great belief in tolerance, diversity and, above all else, compassion and care. But this perversion of the wahhabist stream is an enduring threat because it represents a form of nihilism and a form of totalitarianism which is willing to play itself out through supreme violence.

When I look at the last decade and put it in context, what do I see? I see that it was part of a continuing battle and that there have been terrible tragedies since. And I fear that there will be continuing tragedies in the next decade. But I make this point: when we look back to 12 September, a decade ago, we could only have imagined, as we did, that the subsequent decade would have been far worse than it turned out to be. So this decade has seen loss, but on 12 September we rightly imagined that the loss would be far greater than it has turned out to be. The reason is that there has been a concerted battle in terms of both the soft power and hard power to deal with the sources of threat in the homelands, whether that is in the United States or Australia, as well as in the source countries of those who would seek to bring harm to the entire world and anybody who disagreed with their extremist form of religion and their extremist view as to how we must live. Having said that, I think the extraordinary vigilance and powerful action which has been taken in the West and in other countries have meant that we have had a better decade than might reasonably have been imagined on 12 September, 10 years ago. But the threat remains, and this brings me to the second part of my condolence.

We cannot lose our concern for what might occur in the future. Let me start with the greatest of all threats. The threat of a dirty bomb remains. There is no doubt that there are elements within al-Qaeda who to this day seek to acquire nuclear capability in such form as can be deployed with a conventional mechanism for detonation but with the ability to distribute and spread radiation in the form of what is colloquially known as 'a dirty bomb'. That is a real, tangible and genuine threat. It has receded during the last decade; but, whilst there are those with not just murderous but also genocidal intent who have no internal constraints, only hard action can be taken to defeat that process. That means difficult decisions in terms of security and difficult decisions in terms of military conflict. But without those difficult decisions there will be a tragic legacy for future generations.

Sadly, I remember standing in this very chamber prior to the Madrid train bombings and warning of bombings to come in Spanish cities if we did not take strong and immediate action. Unfortunately that came to pass. I do not know whether we could have stopped those bombings, whether the murderous intent, carried out in secrecy and silence, could ever have been detected. But I make the point now that we face a similar threat going forward, although the likelihood has receded, which is a good thing. But let us not delude ourselves for one moment into believing that the architects of such attacks, along with their motivation and degree of murderous intent, are anything other than galvanised and continuing.

Therefore the question remains, as we look at the future: what is their intention? Their intention is to create, over the course of the next century, a caliphate based on the very practices which the Taliban put into being, which were oppressive in the extreme to women, to intellectuals, to anybody who varied from the most brutal of world views. That would mean, ultimately, destabilising one of the great Islamic states—whether it is Pakistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia or Egypt—and taking control.

Indonesia has been a model of what we could hope for, with the way it has developed a pluralist democracy over the last decade. The great majority of people in Indonesia deserve our thanks and congratulations—in particular, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Indonesia is an exemplar, along with, in large part, Turkey, as to the way in which Islam and democracy can both coincide and flourish.

Pakistan is a work in progress. There is a battle for the soul of Pakistan. We must do all we can to be smart about the way in which we help to ensure that that country is able to remain both stable and democratic.

Saudi Arabia has not democratised, and I think sometimes in Australia, on both sides of the House, we turn a blind eye to the degree of rough justice which is carried out in Saudi Arabia. It is an ally, but we should not be silent about any abuses of human rights and we should not be silent about the fact that it is not a democracy and it is not on the path to democracy. We must support that path to democracy.

As we see in other countries involved in the Arab Spring, Egypt is on the path to democracy. It faces a binary choice. We do not know how the elections, when they come, will turn out, but we do know that they will in all likelihood be genuine elections and that it is the young people and people from throughout that society who have put Egypt on this path—not just the Muslim Brotherhood, as we had feared. There will be a battle for the soul of Egypt, but I think that the forces of plurality and democracy are winning. In my judgment, they are more likely than not to succeed.

Going forwards to make sure that we do all that we can to effectively remove and diminish the threats, we have two tasks. Firstly, we have to engage in soft diplomacy, soft power, both at home and abroad, to encourage moderate elements, to provide educational opportunities, to provide a path for personal development and fulfilment. That applies just as much in Australia as abroad. Secondly, we have to engage, from time to time, in hard power activities, because we cannot simply hope that those who are of murderous intent and unbridled brutality will just curb their ways. We have to confront that head-on but recognise that the great majority of people, no matter what their religion, are exactly the same: they seek freedom, they seek hope, they seek personal responsibility, they seek independence. That is the lesson of the last decade: that the extremists must be confronted and the moderate elements must be allowed to flourish.

As we see from the Arab Spring, there is great cause for hope but a responsibility for eternal vigilance. In light of September 11, October 12 in Bali and the losses in Madrid, in Spain, we should never forget the terrible price paid by our society for being free and open and democratic.

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