Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is now almost a decade and a half on from 11 September 2001, when we witnessed one of the worst international terrorist attacks involving four separate but coordinated aircraft hijackings, used very strategically to cause huge damage in the United States. I remember it very well because that was the year that my son Nicholas was a first-year apprentice electrician. I remember him waking me up at around 4.30 or quarter to 5, when he was up to go to work, as he had just seen this unfolding on the television. It was almost with disbelief that we then witnessed what had unfolded at the World Trade Centre. More than 3,000 people died on that day. Citizens of 78 countries perished at the World Trade Centre in New York. This bloody attack was the beginning of a new kind of war. I am not saying that it was unprecedented in terms of the style of attack or the fact that it was terrorism, but this was global terrorism declaring war on the rest of humanity.

These terrorist groups, which include al Qaeda, ISIL, ISIS, have strong designs on creating a caliphate and have instigated a spate of attacks on foreign countries to achieve that aim. In fact, as we have been reminded, only 12 days ago we saw the deadly series of attacks that occurred in Paris. In a matter of hours, in six different locations, militant terrorists carried out coordinated shootings and suicide bombings that killed 130 people and left about 190 people seriously injured. These innocent people were killed at random in a bustling urban area while going about their normal business enjoying a night out at a concert, going to the football or simply socialising at a restaurant. They were going about their normal life. These are absolutely devastating crimes, and you can see the sense of awe, shock and sadness that lingers at the crime scenes, and in the cafes and marketplaces, among the people of France. What we have seen there has resonated throughout the rest of the world. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of France, people of a Western culture who were targeted because of that. Seven terrorists involved in the attacks were killed, with one identified fugitive still on the run. Clearly, there are more out there planning attacks, many within the safety of their bases in Syria and Yemen. They have networks which clearly extend across the globe.

A day before the Paris attacks, Beirut experienced one of the deadliest bombings since its civil war ended 25 years ago. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up on a busy street in the southern suburbs of Beirut, killing 43 people and wounding over 200 people. The bombings came at a busy time in the evening when the streets were full of people, including women, children and the elderly, gathering after work and socialising.

In fact since 2013 much of the southern part of Beirut has witnessed a string of deadly suicide bombings. This occurred after the proactive engagement of Hezbollah in Syria in its fight against ISIS and other terrorist groups. Therefore, these are reprisals against the people of Lebanon. Just a few hours after that attack, it was ISIS that issued a statement to say that they were behind those bombings. Russia has not been spared from these calculated terrorist attacks, either. A Russian airbus was downed over Egypt on 31 October with what appears to have been a bomb placed on board. It exploded in midair, killing 224 people. I suppose everyone in this place and no doubt most Australians, watching through the electronic media, saw the shocking images of the mangled wreckage of the Russian airliner and the personal possessions strewn across the desert floor—absolutely horrific scenes. Last Friday jihadists continued to press their attack in Mali, where gunmen stormed the Radisson Blu Hotel and took up 170 hostages, before killing 19 people—six Russians, three Chinese, two Belgians and one Israeli among them. They were indiscriminate.

These high-profile attacks have targeted people simply going about their normal lives—people congregating together enjoying sport, arts, culture—in fact, doing things in places that we would all take for granted as being part of our involvement in normal society. However, this also highlights the growing vulnerability to extreme violence and terrorism, but more than that it indicates, in my opinion, what these terrorists want to change—our normal way of life. In all these atrocities, the extremists took lives of civilians with inhuman ferocity and without discrimination. This is the same sort of terrorism and violence that Syrian refugees are currently fleeing. No injustice, no matter how serious, can justify such barbaric acts of terrorism.

Here in Australia we are not immune to terrorist acts. Since last September, we have seen three home-grown terrorist attacks inspired by ISIS on Australian soil—the stabbing of a Victorian police officer and an Australian Federal Police officer in Melbourne in September 2014; the Martin Place siege in December 2014, which took the lives of Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson; and the recent fatal shooting in Parramatta of the New South Wales police employee, Curtis Cheng. These show that we are not immune to acts of terrorism.

With terrorism escalating across the globe, it has become more important than ever for international communities to come together to share our beliefs in freedom and liberty and to work together to disrupt these barbaric organisations, which purport to extinguish the values that we hold dear. My deepest sympathies go to all these victims of these atrocities and their families. There, but for the grace of God, we could also be subject to atrocities of that magnitude.

I must pay regard to our law enforcement agencies. From personal experience I know how hard they work to ensure that we are protected. I must say that it does take a very special person with very special courage to wear the police uniform. On behalf of a grateful community, I thank them for what they do to keep our society and our people safe. We must exercise a global solidarity when it comes to terrorism and we must always have the commitment to never allow our freedoms, and liberty and our way of life to be put in jeopardy by these terrorist based organisations.

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