Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I thank my good friend and colleague the member for Berowra for initiating this important motion, I acknowledge the member for Melbourne Ports for his warm words and I acknowledge the presence in the gallery today of Jeremy Spinak's family. Behind me in this chamber is a portrait of Sir Isaac Isaacs. Sir Isaac Isaacs was a great Australian and he was also a very proud Jew. He represented what the member for Melbourne Ports, the member for Berowra and I try to uphold in this place, which is a commitment to our Jewishness and a commitment to our country.

Jeremy Spinak was not someone I knew well but was somebody whose deeds were known to me. He was a proud Australian but also an active and important leader within our Jewish community. Passing away aged 36 and leaving behind his wife, Rhiannon, and his twins, Grace and Michael, and many, many other friends means that he will be very sadly missed. He attended Woollahra Public School and Emanuel School. He was a former president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies. While he was there, as the member for Berowra said, he dealt with some difficult issues and showed great leadership, including on the Kashrut commission issue as well as the Gaza conflict.

He was described by those who knew him as a man of great warmth, intellect and civic duty. The reference to the speech by Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins is very powerful, but it is a quote that the rabbi used in his speech which I would just like to dwell on. It was from a congregant who wrote to the rabbi:

It's so hard to accept why someone who created so much good in his short years and could make such a positive difference in the future should be taken away so young.

This is the 'why?' that we never have an answer for. In our lives, all of us lose people who are close, but to lose someone so young, with a life so full of promise, is even more devastating. I say to his family: it's hard to forget someone who gave you so much to remember, and Jeremy's life will be remembered for all that he did for the Jewish community.

As the member for Melbourne Ports mentioned, Premier Berejiklian described him as an outstanding community advocate and an amazing human being, but it's also the fact that he was a mentor to others that has shone through his life. Rabbi Kamins remembered how in December 2011, speaking at the Emanuel School speech night and reflecting on those years, Jeremy had given insight into how he lived life and what he valued. He had told the students that to be successful one should live a well-balanced life focusing not just on work but also on one's interests, one's relationships and one's community. These were lessons he had learned from his family that were now more deeply understood and internalised. His grandparents, like those of many of us in the Jewish community, fled Europe just before the Shoah, and this helped engender in him a great pride in his faith and his family history.

Finally, I would like to quote from a message from Lesli Berger and CEO Vic Alhadeff, who talked about Jeremy joining the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies in his 20s and about how he was a driving force behind so much that was done. I would like to put on record our great appreciation for Jeremy Spinak's life— (Time expired)

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