Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

We can all remember where we were and what we were doing when we first heard about or perhaps even saw the terrible 9/11 terrorism tragedy, an event which changed the course of world history. I heard on the television news about the first plane, American Airlines Flight 11, crashing into the World Trade Center's north tower. To my horror, I then watched on the live telecast the second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, going straight into the south tower.

As editor of the Daily Advertiser newspaper at Wagga Wagga, I headed straight back to the office. As many of the other newspapers, certainly the country editions, had already gone to press, I knew it was the job of the Daily Advertiser to bring our readers the awful reality of the breaking news. The Daily Advertiser published a special late edition wraparound and then printed a rare afternoon edition to cover the moments of madness. The accompanying editorial, written within hours of the horrors which unfolded half a world away but in reality so close to home, summed up the feelings then and the words still ring true today. Headed 'My God, why did this have to happen?', I wrote this:

Hell on earth. The worst acts of terrorism against mankind were perpetrated overnight.

As people awake this morning to the devastating and frightening news of the sickening events in the United States of America just hours ago, the world stands on the brink of another awful war.

The retaliation by America, its heart ripped out by the series of attacks, will be swift and deadly.

The land of the free and the home of the brave will not take such an assault on its nation and its people without a reply of unbelievable military might.

The US believes in democracy, freedom and prides itself on being the world's superpower and policemen.

What happened last night was a calculated, murderous and savage campaign of terror, the likes of which have never been witnessed on this planet.

The ramifications of such an all-out use of force against America will be far-reaching and will, undoubtedly, change the course of human history.

Indeed, history was changed forever last night.

World peace has never been in such a fragile state.

Not when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was gunned down in Sarajevo in 1914, not when Adolf Hitler's tanks rolled into Poland in 1939, not when President John F Kennedy stood ready to overthrow Fidel Castro's Cuban Government in the 1961 Bay of Pigs crisis.

The date September 11, 2001, will forever be blotted … a date of infamy branded on the consciences of a bereaved nation, a bereaved world.

To say the world will never be the same is surely an understatement.

What will transpire in the days, weeks, months and maybe even years to come is anyone's guess but sadly it will involve untold heartache, misery and unprecedented retribution.

The thoughts and prayers of all those able to comprehend the tragedy and enormity of this horrible day must go out to the countless thousands of innocent victims.

Will it ever be possible to know how many died so one group of inhumane killers could vent its will against global peace?

Sadly, one has to ask how a country—the US—which can send people into space to live in orbit around the Earth, which can develop and mass produce such a powerful communication device as the internet, which can spy on, listen in on and know so much about anyone and everyone it cares to carry out surveillance upon ,can be so ill-prepared and not know in advance of such a calamitous event as this?

Why is this so?

Indeed, why was it so? We should have been better prepared, but how can you ready a nation for something such as this? No-one could have imagined that anyone, no matter how deep their hatred of the freedom so cherished in Western civilisation, would be mad enough or bad enough to do such a thing. We now know differently. If it was an attempt to strike fear into the Western world and everything that civilised people represent, it backfired. The world is a far different place than it was a decade ago—not necessarily an altogether better place and not necessarily an altogether safer place, but a different place. Some of the globe's worst evil-doers are gone or on the run. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the 'Butcher of Baghdad', is dead, as is Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda, the jihadist organisation responsible for the September 11 attacks and many other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. Muammar Gaddafi, former autocratic ruler of Libya, has recently been overthrown. The United Nations has referred the massacres of unarmed civilians to the International Criminal Court, which on 27 June issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi.

The Bali bombings, one year and one day after 9/11, resulted in the deaths of 202 people, including 88 Australians. Of those, three were from the Riverina—all fresh-faced young men in the prime of their lives. Killed were David Mavroudis, age 29, whose parents, John and Colleen, used to live across the street in my home town of Wagga Wagga; Clint Thompson, 29, of Leeton; and Shane Walsh-Till, a mate of mine, who was 32 and from Coolamon. The cowardly, heinous, senseless acts of bastardry in Bali resolved Australia's determination to rid the world of those who sow the seeds of evil—those who wreak havoc upon innocents in the name of religion.

Australia has played a significant military role but has also paid a heavy price for its involvement in the war on terror. Our losses have been particularly high this year. In 2011, eight diggers have made the ultimate sacrifice, among the 29 brave, selfless men we have lost in Afghanistan since 22 October 2001, when the first contingent of the Special Forces Task Group was officially farewelled in Perth as it departed to assist the US-led international coalition against terrorism.

We are making progress. It is slow. It is difficult. It is dangerous. But we must stay the course. That is what our troops want; they know there is still work to be done. It is also what Afghanistan needs. United with our American friends, we must and will reduce the threat of terrorism. The price of peace is eternal vigilance. May those who have died because of terror, and those who have laid down their lives fighting against such wickedness so that we may live free, rest in peace. Lest we forget.

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