David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this condolence motion and I acknowledge the contribution of my colleagues. This attack shook the community to the core. It was a violent antisemitic attack by two men armed with legal lethal firearms, and it truly has shaken our country. The lives that were taken that day—15 lives—are mourned here today. Their families and communities will continue to hold them in their hearts.

In those few violent, awful minutes on a beautiful beach in Sydney, those lives were lost were Adam Smith, Tania Tretiak, Dan Elkayam, Alexander Kleytman, Tibor Weitzen, Peter Meagher, Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, Marika Pogany, Edith Brutman, Reuven Morrison, Boris and Sofia Gurman, Boris Tetleroyd, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, and 10-year-old Matilda. They were parents, children, friends, colleagues and members of our community. Many of them came from around the world to make their home in Sydney, Australia, and they should have been safe here. It is particularly painful for this attack to have been committed on the first day of Hanukkah, the day the community gathered in joy to celebrate light over darkness. It struck at all of us. I know this attack has heightened the feelings of many in the Jewish community of fear and grief and vulnerability.

But I also know there is a commitment across the community to end violence and division, to ensure that all communities, including and not least our Jewish community, feel and are safe. This awful attack happened in my neighbourhood, at my local beach. Many of my team members and their families live in that area. Some of them were on the beach that day. The fear and the shock were real, and I know that, for so many, it will continue for years with the memory of the phone calls, the urgent messages flooding in, checking on friends, family and neighbours—too many of which in the Jewish community were not answered on the night and will never be answered. It is one of the many reasons why I joined with my state colleague Amanda Cohn, Greens MP in New South Wales of Jewish heritage, and thousands of others that morning after the attack to lay flowers at the site—the beautiful historic Bondi Pavilion. The great diversity and unity of those who did that with us stays with me. I remember walking towards the beach with Amanda and flowers, people walking back with tears in their eyes, and the sense of grief—but a sense of community, too.

It's also important to remember that in the midst of the fear and the horror so many ran towards danger and acted to protect their neighbours and strangers. I acknowledge the courage of Boris and Sofia Gurman—incredible, intense bravery; the courage of the first responders like the police, the paramedics and the lifeguards who placed their duty before their personal safety; and the courage of Ahmed Al Ahmed, a father, a fruit shop owner and a man who was born in Syria but who made his life and his home in Australia. He wrestled the gun off one of the shooters—unarmed himself—and in doing so undoubtedly saved many lives. Again, he saved his neighbours, he saved his friends, he saved strangers. He acted in the spirit of Australia.

There are also so many ordinary people who met this moment with outstanding courage and kindness. They sheltered children with their bodies. Young people ran to use their first aid skills in circumstances they could never have imagined when they took the course. Medical teams worked tirelessly to save lives. They should not have to show this bravery, but I know we are all glad that they did. Let's collectively pay tribute to them.

There is real power in people coming together after horrific attacks like these. The queues at blood donation sites were a particularly powerful example of how people from across my beautiful home city of Sydney, in particular, felt this savagery attacking their city and their neighbours and wanted to—and did—show their solidarity in that moment.

I also recognise those community members who showed humanity in the darkest moments. There were those who knitted teddies and handed them out at the site of the attack in the days are followed, and those who brought down water and snacks for people paying tribute. They came from every religion and every walk of life in this country. They provided simple comfort and connection and that—that was political leadership.

But we need to remember, too, that the same hate that was directed against the Jewish community could equally have been directed at other vulnerable parts of our community—at women or the LGBTIQ community. We need to respond with that in mind. Let's resolve to meet hate with compassion, calls for division with acts of solidarity and unity, and, collectively, with compassion, condolences and love for those 15 vibrant lives that were stolen by hate.