Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

Above all else, I express my deepest condolence and sorrow. I bring to this place the heartfelt sympathy of the Fremantle electorate community for the victims, and for the families and friends of the victims, of the appalling terrorist attack at Bondi on 14 December last year. It was an attack that targeted Jewish Australians celebrating the first day of Hanukkah, an observance with the triumph of light over darkness as its theme and a tradition that, when practised here, occurs in the brightness of summer. Of course, it originates in the Northern Hemisphere, where it spans the winter solstice—the shortest day and the longest night—as the year turns from coldness and suffering towards warmth and renewal again. From that awful tragedy—from its cruelty, bigotry, madness and violence—Australia embarks on that difficult but necessary journey towards healing through grief and compassion, and towards the renewal of our core values through our unity of purpose.

It is unimaginably tragic and against everything that Australia stands for that 87-year-old Alex Kleytman should survive the Holocaust and yet have his life ended by antisemitic violence at Bondi Beach. It is heroically wonderful and a personification of the Australian experience and character at its best that Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian refugee, stood up to violent terrorism, taking a grave risk and being shot himself in order to save the lives of others.

Earlier today there was a gathering co-hosted by the members for Kingsford-Smith and Wentworth to honour the contributions of the surf lifesaving community on that terrible day. The president of the Bondi surf club, Liz Webb, reminded us that there were 10 minutes of awful gunfire, but that, in every minute since that time, Australians have reached out to support the victims and their families, to support those injured and traumatised, and to support the broader Australian Jewish community.

The fact that there has never been a method or a means, be it secular or divine, to eradicate the capacity for wickedness in humankind does not stop us from striving towards the greatest possible peacefulness, harmony, togetherness and shared wellbeing. That is what we're seeking to do here in this place this week, with parliament recalled so that we can begin taking steps that occur alongside an ongoing process of reflection and response. The motion for this debate is part of that. Through the resolute, tempered and deeply compassionate leadership of the Prime Minister, those steps in response began in the first hours after the tragedy at Bondi. To the extent that combating prejudice in the form of vile antisemitism is a vital part of our response, that work is being pursued on a focused and unprecedented basis by this government.

The approach required to enhance safety and peacefulness in all our communities is guided by clear imperatives. We want to strive against the ignorance and intolerance that lead to prejudice and violence. We want to reduce and control access to the means by which wicked people can do harm to others. We want to identify and interdict those who show the rudiments of dangerous hate. Those three imperatives—against prejudice, against the dangerous proliferation of guns and against groups and individuals who are inclined towards hate and violence—are all necessarily cast in the negative. As Australians we overwhelmingly reject prejudice and violence. We are against those things, not, if we're honest with ourselves, from the purity of past conduct but rather from the pain of past experience—especially with respect to First Nations Australians—and happily, and more recently, from our cherished evolution as a remarkably cohesive, fair and peaceful multicultural nation of many ethnic and national threads and of people from a variety of religious or spiritual traditions, or from none.

Yet, in truth, while we reject prejudice and we reject violence, our strongest defence against the worst human delusions and depravities is actually not the delineation of what we are against, but our practice and our promotion of what we are for, of the best in human qualities and the best in human character: kindness; peacefulness; sympathy; understanding; generosity; the courage to care for one another, even as strangers; and love. Like the irresistible Australian summer sunshine overcoming darkness, we saw those qualities at Bondi on 14 December. We have seen them every day since. And we must resolve to lean into those qualities in the days ahead.

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