Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the devastating cost of human conflict. Last week, a long commemorative roll of paper—15 metres long—was installed on a wall in Adelaide. Artist Phil Buehler's Wall of Tears was brought to our city by a prominent Palestinian, Dr Sam Shahin. Sadly, it was pulled down just a couple of days later, but Mr Shahin has undertaken to have it reinstalled. It is a powerful memorial showing the names of over 18,457 children killed in Gaza before July 2025. Many more have died since. Dr Shahin, along with other South Australian citizens, stood at the wall and read out the names of the children, a sombre moment of sorrow, acknowledgement and reflection for children's lives lost, for the lifelong sorrow visited on their parents and their communities.

Attacks on citizens, like we have seen in Iran this week and in that genocide in Gaza are the acts of famous men. We know their names—Netanyahu, Trump. We know the names of their enablers, some of them prime ministers in middle powers, who repeat their shielding lies as the basis of illegal attack, but we don't know the names of the 165 Iranian schoolchildren, as we see their tiny child sized graves being dug as we sit here or the razed homes of their parents, who will never recover from their losses. Of course, we'll never know the names of tens of thousands of brave Iranian citizens murdered by the brutal Iranian regime. These all deserve their own walls of names and memory for their courage and sacrifice. We are capable of holding both sets of tragedies, all of their names, in our hearts and minds. One tragedy does not offset or justify the other; we can mourn all loss of life. (Time expired)