Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

Can I start by thanking the member for McPherson for bringing this motion to the chamber for the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism. That day was established to be 21 August by the UN General Assembly in 2017.

I want to talk about victims of terrorism because as a professor, before I entered parliament, one of my research projects worked very closely with victims of terrorism. I've been honoured to have met many victims of terrorism over the years through my work. What many of them said to me was that there was no voice and no place for victims of terrorism in the construction of counterterrorism policies or in counterterrorism responses. So a lot of my work was looking at ways in which we can bring the voices of victims into how we respond to terrorism. Obviously, I got distracted by a political career, but I'm very proud to say that my work was continued by my PhD student Carmen Jacques, who last year completed her PhD very successfully on victims of terrorism.

I do want to talk a little bit about some of those groups that I met, because I worked very closely with a number of victims, associations and groups over the years in looking at how victims' voices can be brought into counterterrorism legislation and policy. I first want to mention the Omagh Victims Support Group, which was set up in response to the Omagh bombing in 1998, which killed 29 and injured around 200 people. The head of that is an amazing man named Michael Gallagher, who lost his 20 year old son Aiden in the bombing. Aiden's last words to his father were, 'I will not be long, Dad.' That was the last time that Michael saw Aiden. I urge everyone unfamiliar with the story of the Omagh Victims Support Group to watch a movie simply titled Omagh, which very accurately documents the struggle of the survivors and the families of victims of the Omagh bombing to get justice for that act of terrorism.

Among the other people I've met, apart from Michael and the Omagh Victims Support Group, I've also had the pleasure of working with victims of the Bali bombings. Much of my research was on victims of the Bali bombings. Victims of terrorism respond in different ways to their trauma. Some of them become advocates for peace as part of their healing; not all of them, but some do. Indeed, the Bali Peace Park association was comprised of victims and survivors who, together, wanted to come together and establish a peace park on the site of the Sari Club. As we all know, the Bali bombings killed 202 people, 89 of them Australians. Every year on the site of the Sari Club—up until COVID hit—89 candles are lit for each of those Australian victims. I have had the honour, along with my husband, David, of being there with the victims and survivors of the Bali bombings, lighting those candles for the 89 Australians who died. There is a group of survivors of the Bali bombings and victims of the Bali bombings for whom that Sari Club site is sacred land. That is where their loved ones died, that is where they lost their loved ones and that is where their loved ones spent their final hours. I don't think we can underestimate the significance of terrorism sites for those who have survived and the ways in which they provide healing for those victims.

I also want to pay tribute to Gill Hicks, who lost both her legs in the 2005 London bombings. Gill has become a tremendous advocate for peace and reconciliation and for building bridges and coming together. I also want to mention Alpha Cheng, the son of Curtis Cheng, who was killed in a terrorist attack and whom I also worked very closely with in undertaking that work of building bridges, understanding and tackling the social issues that lead a young person down the path of radicalisation to violent extremism. On this day of remembering and paying tribute to the victims of terrorism, I think it's also important to remember that their voices are important, that their voices deserve to be heard, and that we need to listen to how they want to heal.

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