Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today, on behalf of the National Party, to honour the memory of the 15 innocent Australians whose lives were lost and stolen in the Bondi beach terrorist attack on Sunday 14 December 2025. This was the deadliest attack of terror on Australian soil, and the first mass murder of Jewish Australians in our nation's history. This atrocity was not only an assault on individuals and families; it was an assault on faith, on the very idea of Australia as a safe home for Jewish people—a community that, for generations, had believed itself immune to the hatreds of Europe.

Today this parliament speaks their names. We speak of them with reverence and we speak of them with love. Fifteen lives were lost. Edith Brutman, 68: a pillar of the Sydney Jewish community; vice-president of B'nai B'rith New South Wales antiprejudice committee; a woman who spent her life working to reduce hatred between people. Dan Elkayam, 27, a young French Australian IT analyst and a promising footballer, whose whole future lay in front of him. Boris Gurman, 69, and his wife Sofia, 61: a couple known for their warmth, generosity and courage, witnesses said they acted instinctively to shield others when the shooting began. Alex Kleytman, 87—incomprehensibly a Holocaust survivor who rebuilt his life here in Australia as a civil engineer. Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, 39: secretary of Sydney Beth Din; a scholar, a man of compassion, a father of young children. Peter Meagher, 61: a retired detective sergeant who'd given decades to public safety, he was also a talented photographer, beloved by friends for his humility and his humour. Reuven Morrison, 62: businessman, husband and father. Marika Pogany, 82: born in Slovakia, Marika had devoted her life to community care and volunteer work. Matilda, the youngest of them, Ukrainian born, an innocent child whose parents fled another war. Rabbi Eli Schlanger, 41, assistant rabbi, Chabad of Bondi, and a Corrective Services chaplain who ministered to some of our society's most forgotten people in our jails. I had the privilege of attending a packed service of Rabbi Eli's funeral in Bondi, a heart-wrenching event for a man the loss of whom has left an enormous chasm for thousands of people that he served, not to mention his incredibly young family. Adam Smyth, 50, a Bondi local remembered for his kindness. Boris Tetleroyd, 68, a father, whose final act was to protect his son. Tania Tretiak, 68, a Randwick resident, mother and grandmother. Tibor Weitzen, 78, an automotive engineer and mentor to young tradesmen. He died shielding his wife from gunfire.

Fifteen lives lost for what? So that Islamic extremists could send a message to the world? Their loss is a wound across our whole nation. This was a crime against Australia motivated and perpetuated by Islamic extremism—the deliberate targeting of Jewish Australians at a peaceful public celebration. It was not only an inexplicable tragedy for the families of the dead but also a tragedy for our great country. The world already knew that we had a problem with violent antisemitism because of what happened after October 7 2023 on the steps of the Sydney Opera House over two years ago. Three of Australia's most iconic globally recognised locations, our most famous building—the Sydney Opera House—our most famous bridge—the Sydney Harbour Bridge—and our most famous beach are all being used by Islamist propagandists to beam anti-Jewish hatred around the world, to say 'we are even here on the shores of the most peaceful, celebrated, diverse country in the world'. It was to tell the world that they are here and they will find their hate and their violence anywhere across the globe. That is why, when the news broke that Jewish Australians had been murdered at a Hanukkah celebration, the nation was shocked.

But too many were not surprised. For two years, we had witnessed Jewish children under protection, under armed guard, attending schools in Australian suburbs in our capital cities—spat on, harassed on trams in Melbourne daily, unable to wear their own uniforms. They are Australian kids. We stood in this place and spoke about it; we bore witness to that. Everyone heard it. If you didn't experience it personally, you knew it was happening—Jewish students harassed on Australian university campuses; Jewish lecturers shunned, their offices urinated on; in publicly funded university campuses, Jewish businesses boycotted and targeted violently; Jewish entertainers in the arts community silenced and doxxed.

You can't say that cohort of Australians are hard right wingers. All of this was part of a rampant rise in antisemitism directed not at the State of Israel—a Jewish state created as a home for Jewish people across the globe in the wake of what happened after World War II—but at Jewish Australians just living out their daily lives. The nation cannot and should not look the other way from hatred without inviting tragedy. It jars the present view of our nation, and we cannot look away from what has been happening. It has been easy to do that for a lot of people, to pretend it is not happening. It has been happening, we have been speaking about it, and you cannot ignore it.

Australia was meant to be safe. After the Second World War, Australia stepped forward; we opened our doors to Holocaust survivors and to Jews who sought a safe harbour. We supported the establishment of the State of Israel. Like my home city of Melbourne, Sydney's eastern suburbs became one of the great centres of Jewish life here in Australia—vibrant, proud and peaceful. The promise offered to Jewish Australians was simple and sacred: this is a country where you will be safe. On 14 December 2025, that promise was broken. The Holocaust survivor killed that night, Alex Kleytman, was living proof of what that promise meant. He rebuilt, after the worst horrors of humanity. He trusted our country; he trusted us. It is a stain on our national conscience.

The day after the atrocity, I drove down to Melbourne to attend Caulfield Shule with a lot of colleagues. The synagogue was full—overflowing, in fact—with families, with children, with grandparents, with people who'd not slept, who were grieving, exhausted and afraid. Yet they sang, they prayed, they lit the candles of Hanukkah. They stood together in defiance. The resilience of the Jewish people, always spoken of, was made very, very visible in that shule that night, because their forebears have seen this before. They know, tragically, that they'll see it again, but they refuse to be bowed or broken. They refuse to surrender their identity and their joy in that moment. They are an example to all of us who stand against evil. I walked home from the shule and was reminded that Jewish history is full of not only darkness but also miraculous endurance.

I walked out with a deep conviction that it is up to us, here in this parliament, in this peaceful corner of the earth, to ensure it doesn't happen again. The 15 Australians we mourn today were murdered because hatred was allowed to go unchecked, in silence, uncomfortable questions never answered. We honour them not only with our grief but with our resolve, and that's going to take courage. There's a lot of talk of kindness, but it has to have courage to face what we've been previously unprepared to face because we might be called racist, because we might be called mean.

You cannot turn your face away from this. Resolve to restore that belief that Australia is a safe place to be Jewish, to worship freely, to raise your children without fear. Fifteen families and their community will never be the same. Their loss is bottomless. But, from this place, the national parliament, we must resolve to fight the scourge of antisemitism and Islamic extremism that has visited us. To the families of the dead: we will remember your loved ones, we will speak their names, we will honour their stories and we will fight the hatred that took them. We will not be silent.

To be naive enough to think that there weren't homes in Australia that were celebrating what happened on Bondi Beach is to, again, fail to recognise the extent of the evil that we are dealing with. There will be homes in suburbs across our country who celebrated this terrorist attack that night, who continue to say it was a good thing. I see senators shaking their heads at what I'm saying. Again, you fail to understand the significance—unless you are understanding the significance of what's happened and pretending it's not true. Of course not every Muslim Australian is an Islamic extremist, far from it. We should not let this become an attack on our Muslim community, but I can stand here and tell you: you need to be able to say that every single Islamic extremist is Muslim. So we need to have a serious, upfront reckoning with how this happened, why it happened and who perpetuated it—where they are—without demonising law-abiding Muslim Australians who have also sought a better life here for them, their families and their future.

We will also resolve never to forget. May the memories of Edith Brutman, Dan Elkayam, Boris and Sofia Gurman, Alexander Kleytman, Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, Peter Meagher, Reuven Morrison, Marika Pogany, Matilda Horovych, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Adam Smyth, Boris Tetleroyd, Tania Tretiak and Tibor Weitzen be a blessing.

May the light of courage, kindness, faith and family shine brighter than the darkness that tried to extinguish it.