Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My heart is so heavy. But it is really important that the parliament meets today, under this weight of profound loss. On 14 December at Bondi Beach, 15 innocent people were murdered, including 10-year-old Matilda Bee. This badge is a symbol of Matilda. I have not met her, but she sounds like an extraordinary young girl. She clearly had so much love and happiness to share into our world, and I'm so sad that she won't be able to do that. But the truth is that her story will live on.

This attack was an antisemitic terrorist attack carried out during Hanukkah, a time that should have been marked by light, family and hope. To the family and friends of those who were murdered, particularly the Jewish Australians who are grieving: I just cannot fathom what you're going through. We cannot restore what has been taken, but we can honour the truth that these lives were precious and their loss will be felt nationwide.

Terrorism aims to intimidate communities into retreat and to divide. I remember when September 11 happened. I was 21 years old, a student at Curtin University. Curtin had a memorial soon after, and the thing that I remember clearly from that memorial is when the Jewish student leader got up and shared a Jewish teaching. The teaching was that there is value in every single human life, and whoever destroys a single life destroys an entire world. The Bondi shootings did not just take 15 lives; they took 15 entire worlds.

Antisemitism is unique, and it is a dangerous form of hatred. It draws on a history of persecution. It spreads through conspiracy, scapegoating and dehumanisation. When it is minimised it does not fade; it mutates and escalates. No matter the form it takes or where it hides, we must eradicate it. A parent should never have to explain to their child that strangers hate them. That type of hatred has absolutely no place in Australia. We know of some schools overseas where children learn what to do in a mass shooting. I don't want to have an Australia where kids have to go through security in order to feel safe. We need to think about what kind of country we want to be, and we must demand more.

In the aftermath of Bondi, Australians showed who we are, with courage. We saw some of the best of what Australians can do in crises, whether that be first responders, hospital staff, lifeguards or ordinary people doing ordinary things. I remember going to the Lifeblood Cannington Donor Centre, which opened at 11 o'clock on the Monday morning. What was interesting was that at 10.30 a line was already forming. They don't typically do walk-ins, but Australians wanted to step up and do something. The Red Cross server broke, and they ended up accepting walk-ins. The local cop station wanted to do a group donation. They had record donations. The thing that I recognised is that, yes, we stepped up, but we need to make sure that we don't do so only in the wake of a crisis; we need to continue to step up in the future. I have my second donation scheduled for later this month.

I spoke with Daniel and Michael—also known as Beardy and Mouse—two Waverley lifeguards who were there at the scene on the day. It's interesting. We've sometimes been told that the lifeguards weren't prepared for mass shootings, but when I was speaking to Michael he said that he was ready, and the reason why he was ready was that he had done training for mass blood losses due to shark bites. He explained that he knew exactly what to do there at the forefront because he had been trained in how to deal with blood loss. Michael had built the muscle memory to respond to that situation. What I think we need to do, as a nation, is build up our muscle memory to make sure that we call out hatred.

This is stuff that I've seen happen in my community of Swan, where there were community-run workshops post Christchurch. We saw the Vic Park Collective, the Star Street Uniting Church, the Islamic College, the queer community and the Aboriginal community saying that hate was unacceptable. They did a two-part workshop. The first part was about sharing pain and lived experience. The second was to teach people how to build that muscle to make sure that we stamp it out. I recognise that my government needs to make sure that we look at the systems.

To everyone that has written to me in relation to this, thank you, and I will work hard to make sure that we stamp out antisemitism and racism.

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