Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution to this debate, knowing that my words will be small consolation but hopefully some consolation to those of the Jewish community but also to the families who have lost so much out of this brutal event that occurred on what was supposed to be a happy occasion for Australia's Jewish community—the commencement of Hanukkah, on 14 December last year. I offer my condolences to the families of those 15 innocents who were taken so brutally from us and to the broader Jewish community.

The fourteenth of December will forever be a day where this country changed forever, with 15 people murdered in cold blood because they were Jewish—where antisemitism and hate invaded one of our most symbolic locations, while the Jewish community were celebrating light over darkness for the commencement of Hanukkah. We have to acknowledge the confronting nature of this attack, driven by the hatred of antisemitism. This is not the country that I thought it was. This is not what I thought we would see in our communities. But we are now forced to confront that this is who we are, because of those events. Antisemitism and hatred live in this country, in our communities, to our national shame.

We're now forced to confront what we will do and how we will confront and manage this evil of antisemitic hatred that has taken hold in our country. It is an enormous challenge, but we must do that to honour the lives of the 15 who lost their lives, by making and taking the appropriate actions. How are we to make Australia a safe place again? How is it that those who escaped the Holocaust and came to Australia because they thought it was safe were to lose their lives in such a savage and evil antisemitic attack? How do we ensure that the security guards are no longer required outside our synagogues and our Jewish schools, kindergartens and aged-care facilities? That must be our priority if we are to appropriately honour the loss of life that occurred at Bondi on 14 December.

We all say that this is not who we thought we were. This is not the sort of horrific act that we thought would happen in our country, yet a world with global information flow means we are all exposed to the horrors of antisemitism. It is a philosophy that we must all now work together to ensure, for those mown down by the evil events perpetrated by those two humans on 14 December, can be stamped out. We are all going to have to act in that sense. The leaders of our Muslim communities are going to have to decry Islamic extremism. The leaders of our Christian faiths are going to have to decry Christian extremism. And it goes for every other faith and community in the country—for all faiths. We must all eschew the hatred of radicalism and the hatred of evil. It can have no place in our society.

As Australians we all must do what we can to ensure efforts to stamp out antisemitism and all racial extremism in our country. Calls for unity cannot be just words. They must be accompanied by actions that actually bring us together in unity—genuine actions that help us to, together, design and implement the tools that our society needs to oversight our values. Those calls for unity must not be just words used to silence opinions or perspectives of politics or be of one particular view. That will not bring us together in the way that we must come together. We must bring to our country a unity of action in condemning radicalisation in all its forms and to particularly root out antisemitism. As I've said a couple of times, anything less is a betrayal of those 15 innocents who lost their lives in this murderous, evil attack. It is also a betrayal of all Australians who, in good faith, expect that in this country we can come together again and become a place where we all feel safe.

As happens so often in this wonderful country, when we are confronted by evil, our hearts are warmed and gladdened by what is so good. We saw it again at Bondi—in effect, and in the spirit of Hanukkah, we saw light prevailing over darkness. Many have mentioned those who ran towards danger: those who, despite the danger, ran to help others, those who tried to stop the slaughter and paid the ultimate sacrifice and those who put their bodies over others to protect them. Then, of course, there were the police, other first responders, medical teams, counsellors and even those Australians who gave blood.

It is clear that the Australian community spoke very loudly with respect to what they want to see in terms of Australia trying to recover some of what it lost through the tragic events of Bondi. When it comes to those good actions that we saw—something we also should consider when we're thinking about what we do now, in terms of legislating the reforms we might want to legislate and in some of the pronouncements that we've heard, particularly with respect to some cultures in this country, since 14 December—I'm reminded of the words of Ahmed al-Ahmed, a refugee from Syria. If you listen to some of the rhetoric that I have heard in the few weeks since Bondi, and the pronouncements of what some people might like to see occur, you'd wonder how Ahmed might go getting into this country with what's been pronounced. And yet his words speak so much about how he sees his actions as a member of the Australian community. He said:

My soul and all my everything in my organ, in my body, in my brain, asked me to go, and to defend and to save innocent life … I didn't think about it.

Those are the words of a Muslim man who is now, globally, recognised as one of the heroes of Bondi. We all must remember his actions and where he comes from when we're considering what we do into the future. He said:

My target was just to take the gun from him, and to stop him from killing a human being's life and not killing innocent people.

A wonderful Australian individual who we should celebrate—and clearly we are.

The reverberations of this horrible event will continue for some time. We must ensure that those reverberations maintain a determination to stamp out antisemitism and hatred from our community and from our nation. To the families directly affected, we trust that the warm memories of your loved ones that we know you hold so close in your hearts can provide you with some comfort at this time. We know those 15 innocent souls can never be replaced. We owe it to them to ensure our actions are appropriate.

To the families of Edith Brutman; Dan Elkayam, Boris and Sofia Gurman; Alex Kleytman; Rabbi Yaakov Levitan; Peter Meagher; Reuven Morrison; Marika Pogany; Matilda, the innocent of innocents, who was named for this country; Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Adam Smyth, Boris Tetleroyd, Tania Tretiak and Tibor Weitzen, we offer our sincerest condolences at this terrible time.