Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I think we will all remember where we were on the evening of 14 December, and I certainly will. I was at the Newtown Synagogue's Chanukah in the Park event. I want to acknowledge that Rabbi Eli Feldman, who organised that event with his beautiful wife, Rebbetzin Elka Feldman, is here in the gallery with us today. I was at that Newtown Synagogue event, Chanukah in the Park, in Hollis Park in Newtown. I think one of the most lovely things that Rabbi Feldman told me that night is that the neighbours there in Newtown had wanted to have their Christmas party at the same time as Chanukah in the Park, and, in typical Australian fashion, they worked out that the neighbours would have their party a bit earlier and then go to Chanukah in the Park and the people organising Chanukah in the Park would go to the neighbourhood party first, and that celebration was combined.

This is a celebration that I've attended over the years. There were children, music, doughnuts, face painting and clowning. It was a beautiful, uplifting celebration, and then something changed. The messages started coming through on the WhatsApp group through the security guards, and Elka Feldman came up to the stage and told us that there had been a security event in Bondi—that was the first message we got—and that we should hurry things along. The next message we heard was that there had been gunshots. Rabbi Feldman finished the lighting of the menorah, and we dispersed.

It wasn't until I got into my car to drive home that more news started coming through about what really sounded fanciful when we first heard it. We couldn't believe the news that was coming through. Sadly, as the night progressed, it became apparent that the first disturbing reports that we'd found were only the very beginning of the horror that unfolded that night. As the minutes turned into hours, we heard about the worst of humanity—a terror attack against our Jewish community, an act of violent antisemitism, carried out at one of our nation's most cherished landmarks that horrified the world.

Arthur Miller wrote that there are moments when an individual conscience is all that can keep the world from falling apart, and, as the horror unfolded, we also saw something else distinctly Australian: people doing whatever they could to help. I believe that it is within the conscience of Ahmed al-Ahmed, who put himself in harm's way to end the violence, and within the consciences of Boris and Sofia Gurman, who were fatally shot attempting to disarm one of the gunmen, and within the police officers, the off-duty lifeguards and the first responders who rushed to the scene and within ordinary people, like Jessica Rosen, who covered the bodies of children with their own bodies to protect them from the barrage of bullets, and within the thousands of Australians who donated blood or gave money or simply comforted their Jewish friends that we saw the true character of this nation.

In the last few weeks, I've watched people reach out across religious, social and political divides to comfort each other and mourn together, and I've sat with Jewish families as they've searched for hope in the face of unimaginable grief. I got to apologise to the family of Leibel Lazaroff, who came from Texas to be with their young son and brother. He was catastrophically injured; his only thoughts were to protect the people around him, to staunch the blood flowing from the wounds of the person who fell next to him. I was able to stand with Rabbi Elimelech Levy as he lit Sydney's longest-standing public menorah just days after the attack. It was a ceremony I've been to before in Martin Place, in the open. Instead, this year we had to have it inside, in Sydney Town Hall.

I listened as 10-year-old Matilda Britvan's friends remembered her radiant smile and infectious laugh at her funeral. Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, who only days before had buried his own son-in-law, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, read her eulogy, asking that Matilda remain not only in all of our hearts but in our deeds and in how we live our lives. I've known Matilda's family for decades, and I know what a loss they have suffered.

It is within these acts that our shared humanity lives. To have the moral clarity to choose courage over hate, to defy darkness and to engage in even one mitzvah is no small feat. It's one of the key lessons of Hanukkah which, as we honour the 15 victims of Bondi, warrants reflection. The eight flames of the menorah have come to symbolise light, not fire, because the story passed down by Jewish teachers over centuries is one of renewal, not vengeance. Historian Thomas Cahill argued that it was the Jews who give us the outside and the inside of our moral world, and that most of our best words—freedom, progress, spirit, faith—are the gifts of the Jews.

Another idea born of Jewish culture is the idea that love is the foundation of justice. Love as the foundation of justice is so important. How hard it is to ask that of us right now. Yet Australians will continue, in the shadow of this heartbreak, to face a choice. Will we allow one evil act to divide us, to erode our principles, or can we remain steadfast and resolute in our commitment to love? In choosing the latter, I believe we not only heal but will find a better country waiting for us on the other side. It falls on us in this chamber to embody those values because, as JFK reflected, the job of a nation's leader is not to curse the darkness but to light a candle through the darkness to a safe and sure future.

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