Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) condemns the murder of Mrs Jo Cox, Member of Parliament in the House of Commons for the constituency of Batley and Spen, killed in the course of performing her responsibilities to her constituents;

(2) expresses its deepest sympathies to Mrs Cox's family, colleagues, and to all who knew her; and

(3) pays tribute to Mrs Cox's extraordinary contribution to public life.

On 16 June this year, a woman was brutally murdered while she was at work in the course of doing the job that she loved. Her name is Jo Cox. She was the Labour member in the House of Commons for Batley and Spen, amongst many other things. Today we remember her in this place, Australia's parliament. This is the least we can do. I hope this motion can be the start of a response, not simply a statement of respectful condolence. This motion follows motions in the House of Commons and other legislatures, including the United States House of Representatives. I note that many Australian members of parliament, along with parliamentarians around the world, have signed a statement expressing our shock, our horror and our sympathy.

I stand here with colleagues to pay respect and to extend deepest sympathy to Jo Cox's husband Brendan, her children, all of her family and friends, to all who knew her and to all who loved her. I do not presume to understand what they have been going through. My words here cannot of course compare to the incredibly brave words and thoughts of her husband. In his moving editorial for The New York Times entitled 'Brendan Cox: carrying on Jo's work against hate' he said:

… I’ve thought about what we can do to advance Jo’s beliefs. While she worried about the direction of politics in many countries, she was never despondent. She knew from a lifetime of activism that most people are good, and that human empathy is a powerful force for change.

I am in awe that he could say such generous words at such a time, and I am inspired to do justice to those words and to their spirit. I never met Jo Cox. I cannot speak today of her life from personal experience—I am grateful for the advice of those who did know her—but it is so important that her life and work are spoken of here. It is clear to me that her work and the way in which she did it made a great impact on those she encountered. I am aware of the extraordinary regard in which she is held by former colleagues from the humanitarian and not-for-profit sectors, and how deeply her death has affected so many in those fields and in the Labor Party more generally.

Jo Cox was born on 27 June 1974. She studied at Cambridge university and then at the London School of Economics before working for Oxfam and in significant political roles. She was elected to parliament in May 2015 with an increased claim a majority. In her sadly too short time in that parliament she made an impact, through both the work she did and the manner in which she did it. Across her working life she was a consistent advocate for equality, for a more peaceful world, for women's rights, against poverty, for inclusion and for strengthening our democracy. At the time of her murder Britain was in the course of a bitter and too often rancorous debate about its future in Europe. Jo Cox spoke out bravely for her vision against those forces seeking to divide, in particular against the growing recourse of populists to mobilise insecurity by promoting hatred.

I make this contribution at a time when we confront great challenges to our democracy. On the one hand, there is a pervasive cynicism about the way in which political processes work, or don't. On the other hand, there is a rejection of pluralism, indeed of democracy itself. In her life and her work, Jo Cox confronted these challenges head on. This must continue. I note the memorial fund established to honour her has been supporting HOPE not hate, an organisation challenging extremism in alienated communities—hope not hate. In Jo's first speech, speaking with pride in representing a diverse community, she said, 'We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.' And we do.

Here in Australia, as in the United Kingdom, we must continue to choose hope over fear in how we carry on our representative work every day and in standing up against the voices of division and despair. It is necessary but not sufficient that we call out and stand up to the voices of division wherever we hear them. But we must also strive throughout our work for a kinder politics—through how we conduct ourselves, through demonstrating by listening attentively and leading our concern for those whose lives are insecure, and by instilling across the community a sense that politics still matters, that it is how people can come together to expand opportunities in their lives and in the lives of others.

Brendan Cox, Jo Cox's husband, whose heartbreakingly beautiful piece referred to earlier, began that article by saying, 'All our lives, Jo and I had been optimists,' and ends by returning to that optimism. If this brave man can do this then surely all of us here, with the chance and the duty to speak for others, can and must. Jo Cox demonstrated politics at its best. As her husband wrote, it is our job to realise her vision. We should continue to remember her and do this by striving to live up to the example she said. Rest in peace.

See this speech in context