I want to start by sending my love to Helen, to Phil, to their kids and to Helen's whole team. And I hope, Helen, that you get the chance to see or to read all the speeches that we're making here today, because, if you do, you'll see in them just how much we all love you, how much we all admire you—all of us—and how much we all wish we were half as good and decent and kind as you are.

Everything that everyone's already said here today about Helen is true. She's all that and more. That's I guess what makes this so hard to understand. I think, if we're honest with ourselves, most of us have worried at some time that something like this could happen, that one of us was going to get hurt. I admit I have. But I don't think any of us ever thought something like this could ever happen to someone like Helen. Why would anybody want to hurt her? We don't know why—not yet. But just the fact that this could happen means we've got to ask ourselves some hard questions about how we do our job, about the sort of country we are today and the sort of country we want to be. We're not like America or even the UK. We haven't had anything like the political violence they have had. But that doesn't mean that it's never happened.

I told the story last week, for the first time in a long time, about the night John Newman was gunned down. John was a state Labor MP in New South Wales. I worked for him. I was with him the night he died. I said goodbye to him in the car park of a local club. We got in our cars and drove home. When I got home I started work on a uni assignment. When John got home he was shot dead in his driveway. I live that night a lot. I remember hearing on the TV that a politician had been shot, and then the news that it was John. I remember rushing to his house. I remember that the street was all shut off. I remember the police everywhere—the ambulance. I remember the screams—one scream. I didn't sleep that night. That was more than 30 years ago. I'm still haunted by it, and I think I always will be.

Now, what happened to John is different from what happened to Helen. I get that. But I'm telling the story again because I just want us to remind ourselves that we're not immune. We haven't been for a long time. The truth is, it's got worse since COVID, it's got worse since 7 October, and it's made worse by the internet—by algorithms that feed our fears, that force-feed us the same thing and can keep us trapped in the one place, where they fester and make people angry and make people hate each other, hate themselves, and maybe even turn sick people into monsters.

In my own local community this year, my local mayor had her family car firebombed outside her house in the middle of the night. Almost every day someone here gets a threat of violence sent to them. And for every threat that blokes like me get, female politicians get 20 or 30 more. And it's not just us. As everyone has said here today, it's teachers, it's nurses, it's retail workers, it's people who work in hospo. And there are no easy answers to any of this. Changing it is hard, but we've got to try to change the sort of people we are, and not just us as politicians but us as Aussies—in here, out there, online, everywhere. Phil said this morning that we've got to break the fever that's infecting our democracy. He's right.

This year has been bookended by speeches we've made in this place about two unfathomable acts of violence: first Bondi, and now this. As I end my remarks here tonight I thought I should share with you what Helen said right here in January. This is Helen:

Here in this hallowed parliament of Australia may we as leaders in our communities, as national leaders demonstrate that we can be a beacon of light. That we model the social cohesion we seek of our citizens. Not that we shy from the difficult and passionate debates, not that we wave through law without earnest endeavour but that we engage with graceful intent to do everything we can to respond courageously, powerfully and decisively to terror.

May light guide us all towards a stronger community, one that is more compassionate, curious of difference, courageous and kind.

That's Helen. Don't we desperately need more of that? Don't we desperately need her back here? Come back, Helen. We need you.