Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Today we gather to remember the victims, to support the injured, to comfort the mourners and to praise the heroes. We gather to reflect on the choices before us as a country. As a sixth-generation Jewish Australian I have always felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for what this country has given my community. Jewish and Australian stories are deeply intertwined. My grandfather Sam served in the Australian Army in World War II. He was taken as a prisoner to the Thai-Burma railway. In that terrible place he drew strength from the freedom of the Australia he loved. Every week, no matter where the Australians held camp, Jewish services were held. Even in the horrors of the Changi prison camp, a place was consecrated as a synagogue. It's why, when my first child, my son whom I love, was born, I wrote:

I want James to understand the particular perspective that comes from being a Jewish Australian, a religious minority that never numbered more than one per cent of this country, in a land which almost uniquely in human history has been good to the Jewish people.

That same concept was so beautifully encapsulated by the wonderful words of the Deputy Prime Minister earlier today. There's much I grieve for today: the innocence lost at Bondi, the survivors of Bondi and the things they cannot unsee, the synagogues torched, the Jewish artists doxxed and frozen out, the university students harassed, the small businesses shut down—all of this pains me. But it is the loss of the truth that Australian is good to Jewish people that crushes me. The loss of this idea is felt by every Jewish Australian, particularly when we see our children confused and scared about what is happening in this country.

Bondi alone did not do this, but it has been accelerating in the 800 days between the Hamas attack on Israel and the Bondi attack—800 days of failure across our national life. The feeling in the Jewish community right now is visceral. It's of disappointment, of anger and of betrayal. The Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku at the end of World War II left Europe for Australia because he couldn't resolve the question: where were my neighbours? Increasingly, Jewish Australians are asking the question: where are our leaders? Today is not about day-to-day politics; it's about the type of country we want and the type of people we are. The sad reality is, if we don't change, then Bondi won't have changed anything. Bondi represents a moment of choice: will we stay in the political cul-de-sac we've been in for over 800 days, or will we tackle the sources and causes of antisemitism in this country; will our leaders continue to treat antisemitism and violence against Jews as a political problem to manage, rather than the moral and cultural problem that it is; and will our leaders drag their heels or deal with the issues with priority, alacrity and zealous determination?

If we are to change, it starts with tackling the three groups where antisemitism has taken hold. The first group where Jew hate is festering is violent neo-Nazi groups. They move in small cells which must be disbanded. They're best tackled with more funding and stronger powers for our security services. The second group is the radical Islamists. They are a danger to our Australian community, and they are a danger to Muslim Australians. In my community the Persian community have for years stood against the mullahs of Iran and all their extremism, and I honour them. We must shut down the hate preachers and their extremist prayer halls. We must proscribe Hizb ut-Tahrir—in fact it should have been done years ago—we must jail and expel the vile propagandists and their violence and we must be vigilant about those who seek to come here. The third group where antisemitism is rife in the cultural left. It's in the writers festivals that celebrate people who say their mission is to make Jews feel culturally unsafe. It is in the theatres where keffiyehs are donned and Jews are catcalled. It's in the universities where Jewish students are harassed and Jewish academics are deplatformed. It's in the conferences where Jews are silenced, shut down, humiliated and called 'mutt' and where the term Zionist is used as an insult. In all these places we have witnessed failure of moral leadership, we have seen antisemitism excused with the word 'but' and we have seen hatred framed as artistic expression.

It would be tempting to conclude with something poetic or sacred—a call, as it were, to give us hope. I can't do that today, but I will finish with a warning. We cannot continue the 800 days of neglect. Bondi will either be the crescendo to a bad chapter in our history or the midpoint to a story that gets worse. Without change—without political change, without cultural change and without a reprioritisation of antisemitism as the foundational threat to this country—what we have seen will get worse. It's naive to think parliament could sit for two days and then move on as if that's enough to deal with this issue. If we have to, we need to deal with antisemitism every day this parliament sits to get the job done, until we restore an Australia that is good to the Jewish people and free and fair for all. Our times require leadership and goodwill. If we show it—if we work for it—then we can reclaim the Australia we remember and love and, in so doing, provide some comfort for all those who have lost so much. That is the choice before us today.

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