Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

On a hot Sunday afternoon, someone living a couple of kilometres from my place had a call from his friend and said, 'Let's go to the beach.' It's a fair way to the beach from my part of Sydney, so they weren't sure which beach to go to. Their options were to go to either Brighton or Bondi. They tossed it up and Ahmed said: 'I haven't been to Bondi for ages. Let's go there.' They went there for a coffee. The first coffee shop said, 'No, we're closing down, about to shut shop.' The second coffee shop—the same story. The third—the same story. He noticed that there was something going on in the park. As he walked across the road, a rabbi issued the most beautiful Australian invitation. He said, 'Yes, this is a Hanukkah celebration that we're having here, but you are welcome to join us.' That's why Ahmed al-Ahmed was there. He was invited by the rabbi to be part of the celebration of Hanukkah. He walked around the different stalls. He enjoyed himself a bit. He still couldn't find the coffee that he wanted, and he started to walk off into the car park. And then the shots were fired.

A lot is said about faith, and there have been some different lines dropped in different speeches so far. I simply say this: no-one is going to tell me that Ahmed al-Ahmed was of the same religion as the gunmen. He was there on the invitation of a rabbi. And then, the moment the Jewish people of Bondi were under threat, he did not care about his own safety. He went forward in the line of fire, and we know what followed. When I visited him in hospital, his explanation of what he did was very much about the hand of God—a story that you could have heard from somebody of almost any faith. I just think this is important: as we work through the horror, the hatred and the evil—the unspeakable evil of those gunmen—we need to not lose what's best about Australia and not assign it on the way through to the wrong people.

I was asleep. My wife and I were celebrating our anniversary, and the phone rang. It was the secretary of my department to say that gunshots were being fired in Bondi. We didn't yet know the cause, but there was a Jewish celebration and we thought it might be connected. Thanks to some quick conversations with Qantas, Skye and I were able to get on the next plane home. At the first opportunity, both the police commissioner and Rabbi Zalman Kastel were good enough to join me laying wreaths at Bondi when I was back in the country.

The days that have followed have very often involved a man who will not be known to many members of parliament here but who is in the public gallery: Rabbi Mendel Kastel. I first came into contact with him after the horrific antisemitic comments that came out of Bankstown hospital. I reached out to him straight away—we'd done the condemnation; the response had happened immediately—to talk through how we could provide better safety for Jewish patients. I wish it hadn't been that that started the relationship or 14 December that deepened it. But Mendel has been a pathway through to any family that has needed help effectively in a moment like this, to make sure that people weren't having to deal with government and that they could deal with a trusted friend. Mendel has very much been the pathway, and I want to acknowledge that. In fact, the kosher pantry had been established at St Vincent's Hospital only weeks before—not realising the extent to which it was going to be so immediately needed.

The message from those who hate is to tell people that they don't belong. The message from Australia needs to be that we are all here together. We need to respond to hatred with the ferocity of laws that are carefully targeted. I must say, in terms of hate speech, that I wish we were going harder than we are able to go tomorrow, but we deal with the parliament we have. I acknowledge the member for Wentworth, who has also been arguing on hate speech laws for a very long time.

But I just want the parliament to know there is no greater response to people being told they don't belong than for Australia to say, 'You are welcome here forever.' Dan's partner, Krystal, made contact with Senator Duniam and said, 'I want to stay in your beautiful country,' but she had applied for a spouse visa, a partner visa, and no longer had a partner. She's now a permanent resident of Australia. Rabbi Yaakov Levitan's parents didn't realise that they were going to be asked to come from South Africa to be constantly helping with the grandchildren. They thought they'd only visit. They're now permanent residents of Australia. Geffen Bitton, who joined Ahmed al Ahmed, who rushed to the exact same scene, had only been awake for a day when Rabbi Mendel made sure that I was there to conduct the ceremony.

The ceremony is a very weird one. We have to cancel someone's visa and put them in detention, and that gives me the right to give them whatever visa I want, to give them permanent residency, which made people smile in different ways. Krystal joked about whether she would have to be put in handcuffs. Geffen, who'd only been awake for a day, had the slightest smile about it. The Levitans, for everything they were going through, still insisted on putting berries on the table as a sign of hospitality, as though they had to offer more.

But, in this moment, Australia has a chance to respond more loudly than the evil of the terrorists and to simply say they don't speak for us. Our voice is you are welcome here forever. We will make it safe.

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