Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There's rightly been a lot of focus in this parliament on the events of 14 December, and there should continue to be. We witnessed 15 of our fellow Australians killed—Jewish Australians targeted because of their faith—a depravity carried out by ISIS inspired terrorists. Their act has written an incredibly dark chapter into our nation's history. The grieving will continue for some time, and, while this occurs, we have another task to pursue. We need to have a clear understanding of how this occurred. What are the lessons we can learn to avoid a repeat of this on Australian soil? This is why I never hesitated in expressing my belief—supporting the member for Macarthur—that a royal commission into this awful, horrific event be undertaken. Besides getting answers and clarity, it can also play an important role in healing and bringing us together. The growth of extremism needs to be confronted regardless of what corner it emerges from.

I've been concerned about this for sometime, but it crystallised further in 2019—the year an Australian white supremacist travelled to Christchurch, New Zealand, and killed 51 people on the basis of their religion. That terrorist's acts against people of the Islamic faith was livestreamed over social media. His 74-page manifesto was later used to inspire attacks on a synagogue in Poway, California; a supermarket in El Paso, Texas; a mosque in Baerum, Norway; and another synagogue in Halle, Germany. This was a hateful cancer that spread.

When I recently stood on that footbridge at Bondi and looked at the park where Jewish Australians had been celebrating Hanukkah and were targeted for attack, I felt the exact chill I experienced visiting those two mosques in Christchurch. In both cases innocent people were hemmed in, and, with little room for them to escape, tragedy ensued.

Again, I supported a royal commission into the events of Bondi because, as I have said before and restate now, whether it's an Islamist or a far-right extremist, anyone that poses a threat to the safety of our fellow Australians must be dealt with head-on using every resource we can muster. We must stand up to terrorism, but tough should join with calm—resisting threats while unifying.

Post Christchurch, then New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern was praised for doing whatever she could to comfort and rally New Zealanders. At a time of grief and mourning, she consoled while also being prepared to respond strongly to terror, including setting up a royal commission into the horrors of Christchurch. Notably, she did not beam herself in via Australian media to blame our nation for the terror that occurred on New Zealand soil. Prime Minister Ardern worked with then prime minister Morrison to set in place laws to prevent social media giants from live-streaming terrorist acts. The response to Christchurch is a salutary example of how societies traumatised by terror can and should rally, comfort and unite.

But, since the terrible events of Bondi, I've often reflected on the contrast between 2025 and 2019. I think it's important we reflect and contrast because, during the last parliamentary sitting, we heard a number of times from the coalition of the need to confront hard truths. In fact, the opposition leader made it a feature of her condolence motion, stating:

To do so, we must face uncomfortable truths. Radical Islamist extremism caused this. I repeat: radical Islamist extremism caused this.

After that, during condolence contributions and debates and via questions on notice, parliamentarians referred to 'radical Islamists', 'radical Islamist extremism', 'radical Islamist extremists', 'radical Islamist ideology' and even 'radical Islam' nearly 90 times. They didn't even blink associating 'radicalism' with an entire faith. Let's reflect and contrast. Let's, as the opposition leader invites us to do, 'face uncomfortable truths'.

One person that has to do this on a daily basis is the person who heads ASIO, Mike Burgess. In February 2020, nearly a year after Christchurch, Mr Burgess highlighted the growth of right-wing extremism and the threat it poses to Australia. He warned how small cells of right-wing extremists were meeting across the country and saluting Nazi flags in homes nestled in our suburbs, where they hid weapons caches and trained in combat. A month later, one year after Christchurch, he appeared before Senate estimates, and what happened was instructive. He was grilled by coalition government senators who were not asking about what ASIO was doing about the threat but, rather, objecting to the label of 'right-wing extremist'. Let me quote then coalition senator Connie Fierravanti-Wells to Mr Burgess at Senate estimates. She said:

'Right' is associated with conservatism in this country, and there are many people of conservative background who take exception to being tarred with the same brush.

She went on to tell the director-general:

So I think the time has come, Director-General, especially from you, to ensure that you are very careful with the terminology that you use …

Labels sting, huh? Do we think we should be a bit more careful about how we throw labels around, or should we just 'face uncomfortable truths'?

What happened after this was also instructive because, 12 months after that exchange, under a coalition government, ASIO determined it would no longer refer to right-wing extremism or Islamist terrorism. From that time forth, the terms 'religiously motivated' or 'ideologically motivated' terrorism would be used. That was under a coalition government, a move overseen by then minister for home affairs Peter Dutton, and former ministers of that government are now telling us to confront uncomfortable truths—members like the member for Canning, who previously declared it was 'time for the Australian Muslim leadership to systematically and clearly make the case that Islam is a religion of peace'. So let's be clear then: when some coalition MPs advise us to face uncomfortable truths, are the only truths we confront the ones conservatives find comfortable to confront?

Not to be outdone, we had but last week coalition senator Andrew Bragg muse:

… the Australian Muslim community has to take some responsibility for the behaviours we've seen exhibited over the last couple of decades.

He opined:

The West has probably been too nice for its own good …

Perhaps he should have a chat about whether a Victorian imam and his wife thought it was nice that they were run off the road in Melbourne and attacked and had racist abuse and rubbish hurled at them. Or is it nice for Muslim Australian women to have their hijab torn off or be labelled, with an expletive, 'terrorists' or be spat at? Is it nice to see pigs' heads in Muslim sections of cemeteries or impaled on the fences of places of worship? Maybe we should refer to any of the work undertaken by Action Against Islamophobia or the Islamophobia Register that tracks examples of what 'nice' looks like to many Muslim Australians on a near daily basis. Antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism across the board—all these behaviours should not be tolerated, full stop. We should be appalled by all of these acts, not selectively concerned or occasionally responsive. Let me go to words expressed in this parliament to underscore that point. In April 2019, then prime minister Scott Morrison said:

We must strive to see the 'us' in our national life and to celebrate it, an Australian 'us' of different faiths, of different ethnicities, of different ages, genders and sexualities, an Australian 'us' that rejects the hate, the blame and contempt that grip too much of modern debate.

Those words are those I can stand by.

Disappointingly, those words are a far cry from the Scott Morrison of today, who wants to have practitioners of just one faith be singled out for registration and accreditation and for them to somehow prove their fidelity to our nation because the starting-point assumption is, 'Until you do this, you might be suspect, deficient, not to be trusted.' So much for the 2019 call for an Australian us that rejects the 'blame and contempt'. What's the end game here? Once imams are accredited and their loyalty proven, do we get them to wear armbands? Are we more relaxed with that—replicating a more abominable chapter of world history? Once we start down the path of uncomfortable truths, we need to know exactly where we're headed.

It's worth noting that not one Australian was required to prove their fidelity to the nation post Christchurch, when a white supremacist Australian slaughtered 51 New Zealanders. No practitioner of the Christian faith was asked to do likewise after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. And here's the thing: nor should they. It's a ridiculous and divisive notion, because we do not sheet home blame and responsibility to entire communities for the acts of extremist individuals. Surely we can agree. Surely we can rally around that compelling logic, because dividing people and shoving them into dark corners to nurse fear and grievance is not the way we build and sustain a strong nation.

This is the crux of my call to parliament. In a time of fear and grief and anger, we all as parliamentarians have a critical role to play. Scapegoating, wielding a broad brush to tar—that stuff's easy to do. That's the political equivalent of instant gratification—Red Bull politicking: quick hit then a slump. I come back to the words delivered by a rabbi to me post Bondi: 'We choose our hard.' Jacinda Ardern chose her hard and showed the world how to build a better, cohesive, stronger nation in the aftermath of unimaginable grief. That's the task before us all—the hard and patient and vital work to bring people together at a time when Australians want and deserve calm, determined leadership from us all.

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