Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

The day of 14 December 2025 will now be marked in Australian history, partly for all the wrong reasons—as the deadliest terror attack on Australian home soil. But, for the families and loved ones of the 15 Australians who died that day, it is etched in history because it was the day that their loved one died. For the people who assisted on that day, from the everyday Australians who ended up becoming first responders to the first responders themselves—the police, the ambulance officers, the health workers and the surf lifesaving people who were on hand—it will also be etched in their memory because of the trauma that they witnessed and the devastation that they saw. Their lives will be changed because of what happened on that day. So many lives rippling across Australia were impacted. The day of 14 December 2025 will be one of those days that Australians remember where they were when they heard.

It reminds many in my home state of Tasmania of that dreadful day in Port Arthur. It reopens many wounds for Tasmania about the discussions that were had at the time about how we could come together after such a tragedy, how we could show kindness and empathy, and how we could rebuild. I know that the scars for those who were impacted by Bondi will be there not just for days and weeks but for months, years and decades to come. To those families that are grieving their loved ones, I say: our thoughts are with you. So many Australians send to you kindness, empathy and condolences, and I speak on behalf of my electorate and the people of Tasmania when I say that our thoughts truly are with you.

These events remind us all that we should be focused on the things that unite us and that we need to show each other more love, more kindness, more empathy and more understanding of how each other lives. We should be able, in Australia, to feel safe. All Australians have a right to feel safe, and today Australians are asking, 'What will it take to feel safe again?' as this reverberates around the community. To feel safe again, Australians need all of us in this place, in this building and in parliaments across the country to come together in unity, in kindness and in love and to do what we can to make sure that more Australians feel safe—safer than they do today and safer than they did on 14 December last year.

It is a dreadful thing that happened, but out of dreadful things also come heroic actions that bring us all together. We should remember the heroes of that day—as I said, the ordinary Australians who stepped up on that day: the heroes who tried to stop the atrocity from happening, and the first responders, who didn't know that they were going to be in a place that would be etched in history for Australia. It is an incredibly difficult time, I know, for all those that are healing, but we should be coming together as a nation and as a country. I'd urge this parliament to seriously consider our responsibility to make sure that this country remains united.

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