Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity tonight, as others have welcomed it, to speak on the events of 10 years ago, on September 11. As other members have mentioned, we all know where we were on the night of September 11. In my case, I guess I had the slight advantage of being in Perth, at my desk at the headquarters of 13 Brigade, the Army Reserve brigade in Western Australia. Being the brigade major, the full-time army officer that did management tasks for the brigade, I was at my desk when a very interesting thing happened: one of the soldiers came into my office and said, 'Sir, a plane has struck one of the Twin Towers in New York.' I immediately thought that a light plane had accidentally flown into the tower. You would have thought that was most likely. So I got up from my desk and I went into another room, where a TV was on. I stood there trying to comprehend what was going on, and a number of other headquarters staff were there as well. As I was watching, I asked what sort of plane it was, and it was as if it were in slow motion—the vision of a huge hole in the side of the building, black smoke pluming out of it. And then the plane appeared to the side of the picture and flew straight into the second tower. From that point on, there was no doubt anymore what the world was facing. There was no doubt at all that this was a premeditated attack and that terrorism was behind it.

But we were watching on a TV screen from the safe distance of Perth, sitting in its secure and safe environs—a big difference from being one of the commanders of emergency services or US defence on the ground in New York. The fog of war most certainly applied. The differences in perception between the moment when we actually saw that second plane hit the other tower and what we knew an hour later, two hours later and 24 hours later were extremely substantial. It would been exceedingly difficult at the time to know what was going on. The vulnerability of the buildings was not well known at all. When those aircraft flew into the towers, taking out those lateral beams, they terminally weakened the buildings—but that was not something that was known at the time.

Again, at our defence base, Irwin Barracks, Karrakatta, on the night of September 11, it was very easy for us to take precautions, to lock down the base and worry about the security arrangements. In the days and weeks that followed, the security arrangements for all government buildings and all our bases around the country and indeed around the world were seriously upgraded. There is a huge difference between the security arrangements we had before September 11 and those we had after September 11. As has been said by so many speakers in this debate, it is clear that there was a substantial change in the world that night.

From the timing of the attacks—a Tuesday morning just before nine o'clock and, for the second plane, around nine o'clock, then the Pentagon and flight 93, suspected to be heading towards the Capitol building in Washington—there was no doubt that it was not just a demonstration of al-Qaeda's capacity to conduct an attack on the mainland United States but, very clearly, an intention to kill as many innocent people as possible. And, if that was their intention, then they most certainly achieved it: almost 3,000 people died in the towers, beneath the towers, in the Pentagon and on flight 93. And isn't that really the hallmark of terrorism around the world? Never do terrorists seek to take the fight to their alleged enemies, to take up arms on a field of battle against their opponents. It is never like that; it is always about finding the weakest, most defenceless, most vulnerable and most unsuspecting people possible. It is always the case that these cowards, these subhuman people, will look for opportunities that will cause the most terror and that involve attacking those who cannot fight back. That has always been the way and it will always be the way. We know that these are not the sorts of people that you can turn the other cheek to. These are not people to whom you can offer the hand of friendship. Osama bin Laden—may he rest in hell—described afterwards the motivations, the reasons why September 11 was justified: the US presence in Saudi Arabia, the holy land; the abuse of Muslim people in the Middle East by the US; the support of the Western world for Israel; all those reasons. But if it was not those reasons, if none of those reasons existed, there would have been some other reason, because we know that, apart from the cowardice and the subhuman brutality of people like al-Qaeda, what really motivates them is hatred of the Western democracies and liberalism—anything that does not conform with their very negative, destructive view of the religion of Islam.

These people are not good advocates for Islam. As I said, they are subhuman, they are barbaric people, they are cowardly people. As I said before, you cannot offer negotiation to these people, you cannot offer the hand of friendship or take a step back with these people. There is only one way to deal with these sorts of people, and that is to fight. It is a sad reality that it will always come down to that. We must fight. We must be prepared to take up arms. It is in the national interest. It was in the national interest to do what needed to be done to take away the home bases, the safe havens, of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, to take the fight to them so that terrorism cannot operate with impunity across the world. We will always have these examples of terrorist attacks. But if we think that we could have just apologised after September 11 for our Western values or whatever and all would have been forgiven or that the Americans could have pulled out of Saudi Arabia and all would have been forgiven then we are sadly mistaken. We would have had far worse terrorism issues on our shores than we currently have.

Some people cast a very negative view of Afghanistan and of its future. I think the reality is that if all the Taliban can do is persuade the weak and feeble minded to conduct suicide bomb attacks, it really suggests that it has no capacity to conduct any form of military operations against NATO, the forces of liberation and the Afghan national government. If that is all it has got then it really does not have much to hold on to, and the fight, in my view, has certainly been won. In any case, what we get down to is that we must always be prepared to fight and take it to these people, because that, in the end, is the only way to deal with them. You take a step back, they will take a step forward; you offer the hand of friendship, they will cut it off.

I have ranged widely tonight. I would like to finish by extending my condolences to the families of those who died on the day of September 11 and of those who died afterwards through injuries, and to those who suffered as a result of their proximity to the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and that Pennsylvanian field. Flight 93 is held out as an example of great courage; it most certainly is an example of great courage. Realising in the end that there was no hope, that there was going to be no mercy from these people, the passengers on that flight did what they needed to do. They knew that their survival chances were extremely remote but they knew that either they took control of the plane or they would be dead and others on the ground would be dead. So they sacrificed, they fought and they died with honour and dignity, as did all those who died on that day who were not terrorists. The terrorists involved there and the terrorists who continue to fight, the al-Qaeda leadership around the world, are not people of honour. They are not people with integrity, they are not people with courage; they are merely cowards. They are a disgrace to the world. They are subhuman. In the end there is only one way to deal with such people.

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