Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to associate myself with this motion and the comments made by all members of this place. I believe this is an incident where we will look back—we even do that now—and know the place, the moment, we were when we learnt that this terrible tragedy had begun.

Going to my diary, I see it very clearly. I remember—as many of my colleagues would—it was a Monday morning, and a lot of us would have been attending school presentations. I left my office and went to Seven Hills Public School. Somewhere between going to Seven Hills Public School and Schofields Public School, straight after it, I happened to check my phone and saw the headline that a siege was taking place in the middle of the city.

I did what I think thousands of people did: I rang my loved one. When I did not get an answer I panicked, and I kept ringing. Finally, when my husband called back—his office being literally down the road from where these events were taking place—I screamed at him, 'Where are you?' He said he was fine. Unfortunately for so many people, too many people who made that call did not get an answer. They were attempting to call loved ones who had been taken hostage.

I raise these things not to presume that anyone is particularly interested in my day-to-day movements but simply to emphasise that this was a normal day. This was a normal day for Sydney. It was a normal day for everyone, including us members of parliament. When we went to bed that night we went to bed uneasy. We went to bed after having watched the live footage. We went to bed praying for a peaceful end to this outcome. It was not to be.

For me, and I am sure for a lot of Australians, I could not stop thinking about Katrina Dawson's children, more than anything else. There is that awful moment—I know it—for some of us when you wake up and remember that your mother has died. I remember that having happened as a child. It is the worst feeling I believe you will ever feel. I felt so much for those three children.

As it transpired, when we learnt the identities of the two deceased, Katrina Dawson was well known to my husband. He was at Mallesons before becoming a partner at Corrs Chambers Westgarth. He knew Katrina in her capacity as a solicitor and barrister. He attended the service for Katrina and came home with the service booklet. Just to see the photos from that booklet, there was a woman so full of life. There were photos from her wedding day. A photo with the love of her life, her husband, and a photo of her in her wedding dress holding a cat—a cat that obviously meant something very important to her.

Something that I think a lot of people were considering at the time was how Sydney was going to react to this terrible tragedy. Above all else, this was a perpetrator who sought to divide us. But instead I do not think even he could comprehend how much he brought us together. On the Wednesday, along with a lot of other people who had been doing so for some time earlier, I happened to be in the city and I managed to obtain some flowers. It was actually very hard to find flowers in the city. As I came up through Martin Place Station, I just wanted to place them on the side quietly, which I did, and walk away in silent prayer. But you could not help but be moved by seeing the number of people and the sheer scale of that floral tribute to Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson in particular. I was in the city again last week and I happened to be walking down Martin Place at the moment when I saw the scaffolding being taken down around the Lindt Cafe. Even then the people of Sydney stopped with reverence and paused and I believe that in their hearts, just as I did, said a prayer for Tori and Katrina.

One of the things to come out of this aside from the fact that this unified our community rather than divided it was that we got to know what beautiful people Tori and Katrina were and what beautiful families they had. It actually comes as no surprise to learn that this is how the children of those families grew up. The inquest, of course, started very recently, and it would be a very difficult time for all those involved, just as it was obviously a very difficult time for those who were in the gallery yesterday.

For the soul mates of Tori and Katrina, for Katrina's children, this is going to be, obviously, a very difficult time. It will also be a very difficult time for one of my constituents: Marcia Mikhael, a 43-year-old mother of three from Glenwood, where I live, who was one of the victims. It does raise the issue, I believe, of how one as a member of parliament conveys the feelings of one's local community to the families and the victims. I do not say this to trivialise the issue but to point out that it was actually quite a vexed question. Do I send flowers to her home? Do I send flowers to the hospital? Do I send a card? Do I put a message on social media? The reality is that, at the end of it, I believe that all those victims ended up knowing that they were in the hearts of all Australians. I believe that all Australians demonstrated the best of themselves and the best of our country in their response.

At the memorial service for Katrina Dawson it was reported that Ms Dawson's mother made the comment, 'We are adjusting to sharing our wonderful daughter with the world.' Both Katrina and Tori Johnson have indeed been shared with the world. They have been shared in the most wonderful way of remembering them, remembering the fruitful lives that they led. In associating myself with this motion and the comments, I would like to conclude by praising all personnel who were involved in bringing this incident, this tragedy, to an end—all of our police force and everyone involved in caring for the victims, all those health professionals and all those professionals who will still have a job to do from here on, including everyone from the inquest to the ongoing care of the victims and their families.

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