Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Everyone who has visited Paris cannot help but fall in love. All of us who have been privileged enough to visit Paris have our stories. Often we were there for the first time when we were young, full of promise and often short of money, wandering around the cobbled streets and lanes, being overwhelmed in the galleries, awestruck by the palaces and the places of worship and mesmerised by the sheer beauty of what is almost certainly the grandest and most gloriously designed city in the world. All of us from this new land marvel at the magnificence of the Ancien Regime.

There is perhaps no other city like Paris that demonstrates that what we individually accumulate does not really matter beside what we accomplish together as people. The pinnacle of achievement and accomplishment for the people of France is their spectacular capital. Its exciting history, its style, its cuisine, its vibrancy, its splendour, its grand boulevards and its joie de vivre are a celebration of human achievement and of the glory of the civilization we have built. It is the most visited city on the planet. One million Australians visit Paris every year. It is a place that so many young people scrimp and save for and dream of visiting—some with a sketchbook in hand and inspiration in their heart. So many stories are told, for generations, of finding love there. It is that kind of city: it moves you, it captures you and it lifts your gaze from the ordinary to the possible. Paris is a city of lights and a city of dreams. It is a place of glorious history and a future made bright by the hopes and aspirations of all those who make their home there for a lifetime or who make a visit that they will never forget.

Emma Parkinson, the articulate young woman from Hobart, who is studying in Paris and who attended a concert on a Friday night at the Bataclan, told her story on the weekend. Her smiling cheerfulness and her determination to keep enjoying life, no matter what, is the perfect embodiment of all those who have visited that great city. It will always be this way. She dismissed the bullet wound inflicted by the ISIS terrorists who attacked the crowd of unarmed young concert-goers—even targeting people in wheelchairs. With a smile, she dismissed the bullet wound as a mere—with a typically Australian phrase—'pain in the arse'. She insisted that she was incredibly lucky. She understood what this murderous scum were all about:

They were targeting young people who were having fun, laughing and being happy and doing what young people do … to incite hate and fear and make people afraid and escalate … racism.

She stated what she is about and what we are about. She said:

I won't give in to fear. I won't give in to fear.

I doubt we have had a greater ambassador for our nation than this young, poised, hopeful, cheerful and cosmopolitan woman from Hobart. She is touring the world. As an Australian, she showed strength and decency and calmly told her story infused with Australian values. Her parents must be so very proud of her.

It is popular in American politics to speak of that great country and its many great cities as a 'shining light on the hill'. It is, of course, a biblical reference, not in my tradition but in others, in Matthew 5:14:

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

Now more than ever and more than in any other place in the world right now, because of the recent obscenity inflicted on it, because of the stoicism, the steady resolve and the strength shown towards what it has endured, because its future's brightness is powered by the hopes and dreams by all those born to it and drawn to it, Paris is indeed a shining light on the hill. From that light on the hill, we will keep burning brightly long after we have crushed IS, long after we have held those who funded and enabled it to account and long after we have done our bit to bring peace and tranquillity to all of those who dream of a better life in the Middle East and death and destruction to all of those whose evil threatens not just the Christians of Mosul but the Muslims of Melbourne and the Jews of Manhattan.

I hear a lot of loose talk about Islam. I hear it on talkback. I hear it sometimes from some constituents. I hear it a lot. I want to make clear my views on this not only as a member of the opposition but also as a Jewish member of the Australian Parliament. Just because a murderer claims to represent a certain cause does not mean they do. We have seen ample evidence that the Paris terrorists, indeed the 9/11 terrorists, were not religiously observant people. They led troubled, often debauched lives. Mass murderers can try to cloak their evil in a shroud of religion or ideology, but their crime and slime always soak through. They do not represent Islam for me any more than the Branch Davidians responsible for many deaths in Waco, Texas or the supposedly worshipful militia who blew up US government buildings in Oklahoma represent Christian Protestants. Religion has been used and abused this way—as evil's excuse—for many centuries and it will probably continue for all time. Evil's creativity is, sadly, boundless.

Australia must be tough on terror, but we must never be afraid. We must be mercilessly tough on terror because the safety of our citizens depends on it. This Parliament has responsibility for many matters, set out in our Constitution, and frequently enlarged since Federation, but none is more important than national security and keeping Australians safe. We cannot build a strong economy and we cannot educate our kids, heal the sick and address disadvantage and injustice unless we keep the nation and all its people safe. We must do Emma Parkinson proud and be able to look ourselves in the mirror. Racism has no place in Australia. History tells us societies that indulge in it pay a very high price indeed. In tolerance there is remarkable strength.

We value the separation of worship from politics. We value a respect for the faith of others and its free practise as long as it does not interfere with the rights of others. We respect the traditions and decent values that underpin the great faiths of the world, many of which happen to have shared and consistent values. Everything we know and love about Australia is embodied in tolerance. We must be ready to fight, with all our resolve, with all the weapons at our disposal, weapons of war and persuasion, to fight all the enemies of tolerance, however frightening or amorphous, foreign or domestic, Mullahs or media, Daesh or demagogue, in order to keep our tolerant, inclusive and diverse nation safe from bombs and bigotry in our time and for all time.

I want to conclude by echoing the words of that wonderful Englishman, the BBC broadcaster Andrew Neil, who this week in a broadcast that almost shattered the Twittersphere said that this is:

the week in which a bunch of loser jihadists slaughtered 132 innocents in Paris, to prove the future belongs to them rather than a civilisation like France.

Well, I can't say I fancy their chances. France: the country of Descartes, Monet, Sartre, Rousseau, Camus, Renoir, Berlioz, Gauguin, Hugo, Voltaire, Matisse, Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saens, Bizet, Satie, Pasteur, Moliere, Zola, Balzac.

Cutting edge science, world class medicine, fearsome security forces, nuclear power, Coco Chanel, Chateau Lafite, coq au vin, Daft Punk, Zizou Zidane, Juliette Binoche, liberte, egalite, fraternite, and creme brulee.

Versus what?

Andrew Neil questioned—

Beheadings, crucifixions, amputations, slavery, mass murder, medieval squalor and a death cult barbarity that would shame the middle ages.

Mr Neil concluded:

Well IS or Daesh or ISIS or ISIL or whatever name you're going by—I'm sticking with IS, as in Islamist scumbags—I think the outcome is pretty clear to everybody but you.

Whatever atrocities you are currently capable of committing, you will lose. In a thousand years' time, Paris, that glorious city of lights, will still be shining bright as will ever other city like it. While you will be as dust, along with the ragbag of fascist Nazis and Stalinists that previously dared to challenge democracy and failed.

Vive la France.

See this speech in context