Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In this day and age, it is so frequently the case that we find that time marches on. It is also too frequently the case that when matters are overtaken by more recent matters, people turn their attention elsewhere. That is the reason why the motion before the House, which has the bipartisan support of the chamber, is so fundamentally important. It builds on a global commitment to make sure that this parliament and other parliaments around the world, together with the United Nations through UN resolution 1701, maintain a focus on the absolute necessity of recognising that terrorists must never be permitted any oxygen or any chance to continue the kinds of atrocious activities that they undertake.

I congratulate the members for Indi and Mackellar for the motion that is before the House today. I know that the member for Melbourne Ports is, as of right, a very good friend of the state of Israel, and likewise the member for Barton. As Chair of the Australia-Israel Friendship Group, I stand in wholehearted support of this motion. The sad reality is that groups of individuals like Hamas and Hezbollah, who often portray themselves as in some way men of peace or people attempting to obtain some kind of justice, smack that very notion down when they engage in this most egregious activity. The two instances among many that we are talking about today are, of course, the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit from Gaza by Hamas on 25 June 2006 and the abduction of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in southern Lebanon, but in the Israeli state, on 12 July 2006 by Hezbollah.

I welcome Shlomo Goldwasser, who is in the public gallery today. I hope that he takes comfort from the fact that we in this parliament and so many others around the world, together with the United Nations, will not turn our backs on these kinds of activities but will continue to apply the diplomatic pressure that is such a necessity. At a time when there are so many events taking place, let us never lose sight of the fact that Israel remains the only truly functioning democracy in the Middle East. Let us not lose sight of the fact that, as free peoples, Israelis have the right to defend themselves. And let us not lose sight of the fact that the crimes that are undertaken by Hamas and Hezbollah are absolutely among the most rank types of crimes that can take place. Others have gone through the scenarios that took place with respect to these abductions, but I turn my mind back to when I was in Israel in 2004 together with the member for Indi. We travelled to the northern border of Israel and stood a matter of metres from the Lebanon-Israel border—literally metres from the concrete barrier and the high fortifications. There we stood and looked not at a nation state army that was patrolling the border in southern Lebanon but at a terrorist organisation that commanded those posts.

As we looked across no-man’s land, a space of perhaps 50 to 100 metres, we saw members of a terrorist organisation that manned that outpost—members of a terrorist organisation that, in this instance, crossed across into Israel and abducted both Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. They took them forcibly from Israeli sovereign territory back into south Lebanon and now continue to refuse access by the Red Cross to ensure that those soldiers are safe. That kind of terrorism can never be countenanced. Those kinds of activities must never be forgotten. I say to Shlomo Goldwasser, who is in the gallery, that he should take comfort from the fact that we will stand in solidarity with him until such time as we know that these men have been returned safely to their nation-state and until such a time as Israel can live in peace and not be under sustained attack from terrorist organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah.

See this speech in context