Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I move the motion relating to the victims of terrorism overseas in the terms in which it appears on the Notice Paper:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) since the devastating terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001, over 100

Australians have died and many others have suffered injury as a result of terrorist attacks overseas;

(b) the victims of 'September 11', the two Bali bombings, the London and Jakarta bombings and the Mumbai terrorist attacks, were targeted because they were citizens of countries where people could choose how they lived and what faith they might follow; and

(c) 12 October 2012 will mark the tenth anniversary of the 2002 Bali bombings;

(2) recognises that:

(a) many Australian families continue to suffer as a result of their loss and injury from overseas terrorist acts;

(b) victims of overseas terrorism have not been entitled to compensation such as that received by domestic victims of crime under the various State and Territory victims of crime schemes; and

(c) the Government did not support amendments to the Social Security Amendment (Supporting Australian Victims of Terrorism Overseas) Bill 2012 which would have provided assistance for any action after 10 September 2001; and

(3) supports the Coalition's request that the Minister make the appropriate retrospective declarations so that all of the Australian victims of overseas terrorism acts since 10 September 2001, or their next of kin, can receive this important, but modest, help.

I do regret that the member for Hume has had his speech interrupted, because it sounded like it was going to be a very thoughtful contribution. I look forward to hearing more from the member for Hume when the debate is resumed.

For me, the matter now before the House is not political; it is personal. I am moving this way because I believe it is right and also because of the personal experience and the personal contact which I have had with some of the victims of terrorism arising from the happenstance of my being in Bali back in 2005 when the second bomb went off. I was the Minister for Health and Ageing at the time and it seemed to me that an Australian health minister in Bali at a time when Australians had been the victims of a terrorist atrocity could not just enjoy a holiday as usual. So I went to the Sanglah hospital, where the victims were being treated. I met up with a remarkable doctor, Dr Adam Frost, a Newcastle doctor who had been travelling with a party which included many of the victims. I spent the next 15 or so hours with Dr Frost and with the then Australian consul to Bali, Brian Diamond, who did a remarkable job, until all of the Australian victims had been safely evacuated either to Singapore or to Darwin.

For me, this is not just another matter before the parliament; it is something which I feel very deeply and very personally. In the course of that day I got to know some of those victims, and since then I have stayed in touch with some of those victims, in particular Mr Paul Anicich, who at that time was the Senior Partner of Sparke Helmore Lawyers, the well-known law firm. He has subsequently been largely unable to work. Paul Anicich is comfortably off, but many of the people who were caught up in that tragedy are not as financially secure as Paul and Penny Anicich. Sure, they have been able to access the Australian health system. Sure, where necessary, they have been able to access the Australian social security system. But many of them have suffered financially and all of them have suffered physically and psychologically, and I believe that we as a nation owe a debt to them, because they were targeted because they were Australian. They were targeted because they were citizens of a country where people are free to choose their own way of life and choose which god they wish to worship. That is why they were targeted. They suffered because they are Australian. I think we need to acknowledge the fact that they were targeted for that reason.

The proposal that evolved in my mind in discussions over many months with Paul Anicich was that we should have a federal scheme that would offer to the victims of terrorism overseas the same kind of financial assistance which is typically available to local victims of crime under the state and territory victims of crime schemes. Every state and territory has a victims of crime scheme, and people who have been the victims of crime can usually access up to $80,000 or thereabouts under those schemes. If I had been the victim of a savage assault, or some other crime of violence, typically, that is what would be available to me. It would not be to compensate for any specific thing; it would nevertheless be a recognition of the way I had suffered. Typically it is provided because the perpetrators of these crimes cannot be sued by victims in the way that others who have been damaged might be able to sue people. So all I have sought is assistance for the Australian victims of terrorist atrocities overseas which is entirely comparable to the assistance which is ordinarily available to the victims of domestic crime in Australia.

I moved this way before I was the Leader of the Opposition. I regret to say that the last parliament terminated before my private member's motion was able to be considered. So I have moved again in this parliament on this issue. I do not believe the government was particularly sympathetic towards it the first time, but, in fairness to the current government, I did raise this in the last year of the Howard government and the Howard government had a bit on its plate and nothing happened. So I do not want to be too hard on the present government for its dilatory approach to all of this.

But, to their credit, the crossbenchers were interested in my private member's bill, and, once it became apparent that the crossbenchers were going to support my bill, the then Attorney-General, Mr McClelland, the member for Barton, indicated that it would be adopted by the government. I thank and congratulate the member for Barton for his magnanimity in taking this approach. Unfortunately, while the government did substantially adopt my bill and incorporated it into a social security act, the whole point has been missed, because the declarations that my bill provided for—that would give this important but modest assistance to the actual, existing Australian victims of terrorism—were not made.

So we have this legislation on the books, we have the capacity for the relevant minister to make a declaration that a terrorist act overseas is a relevant act for the purposes of making these modest payments, and the government is refusing to make the declarations that would mean that the terrorist acts of September 11, Bali 1 and 2, Jakarta 1 and 2, Mumbai and London would attract, at least for the Australian victims, these modest but important payments. What is before the parliament tonight is a motion calling on the minister and the government to make such a declaration so that the 300 Australians killed or seriously injured in overseas terrorist acts can receive this modest help. The help will go to them or, if they are deceased, their next of kin.

We are talking about a quantum of money which would make a difference for the individuals and the families concerned. If all the 300 Australian victims thus far were to receive $80,000, we would be talking, with administrative costs, in the order of $30 million—not an insignificant amount of money but very modest in the scheme of Commonwealth government spending and, I would say, the least a decent nation can provide for people who have suffered in our name. They have suffered in our name: they were targeted because they are Australian.

I say to the government—and I say this free of any partisan rancour: do the right thing by those 300 Australians who have so far suffered as a result of overseas terrorism. If this is right for people who might suffer in the future, it is surely right for the people who have already suffered. I say to the crossbenchers: thank you for supporting the original legislation. Let us now finish the job we started and pass this motion, and then, I think, the government will have to make the relevant declarations. (Time expired)

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