Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too am pleased to be able to rise in this place and take this opportunity to send my deepest condolences to the people of France and to everyone affected by the recent attacks in Paris, but also, as we have seen since Paris, in Mali. We recognise that they continue to mourn in respect of the tremendous loss that has occurred.

On 14 November Australians awoke to the devastating news that Paris had been attacked with hundreds injured and more than 120 killed. It is news that felt a little bit like deja vu, as 2015 had marked 14 years since the devastating attack on the World Trade Centre towers in New York, taking thousands of lives.

In the past 12 months, the people of Australia have also felt the mortifying sting of extremist attacks. This year, sadly, we lost NSW Police Force employee Curtis Cheng, who was murdered by a radicalised teenager. Our nation paused in disbelief as the Lindt cafe siege in Sydney took the lives of Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson. They are devastating losses that we will never forget. I, along with all other Australians, condemn in the strongest possible terms these acts of terror.

Paris is a famous city that thousands of Australians and millions of people from around the world travel to every year. It is a city known for its beauty, romance, food, fashion and, above all, freedom. The extreme act of terror on the people of France and visiting tourists by ISIL is a determination to attack and suppress that freedom not just in France but throughout the world. Australia and Western nations in general around the world have fought for freedom in the past, and every time we have prevailed.

In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, 'Terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong but of the weak.' ISIL are weak. They seek to assert some form of religious tyranny, a threat in the name of God, but instead they commit the work of the devil. As I touched on in a contribution in this House yesterday, Roger Scruton, in the foreword to a book on Islamic philosophy, makes the point that it is a belief system that is in need of reformation—something that Christianity went through several hundred years ago, coming out the other side all the better for it.

Australians are solid in their support for freedom and, when faced with terror, death and loss, we have always seen the best in humanity rise from the devastation. The freedom and values that we enjoy in this country unite us. We live in one of the best places in the world. Our multiculturalism and our shared love of freedom are what bring us together—the freedom to live where we choose, follow any career we desire, travel the world, study, practise a religion and celebrate cultural traditions.

When the French people left the stadium, the Stade de France, after that shocking attack, they were not cowed. They sang their national anthem, proudly. That is how all free people should respond to these attacks. For every act of terror, we have seen people respond in ways that restore our faith in humanity and encourage us to further unite against the fear and devastation that terrorism brings. The best defence against terrorism is not to allow fear to win but to focus on uniting as a community to seek to defeat those who would bring that fear into our communities.

Australians should be reassured by the fact that we have some of the finest security agencies in the world. We have a government—and an opposition, as this is the position on all sides of politics in this House—that is utterly committed to protecting the safety of Australians at home and, as far as it can, abroad. We have some significant mechanisms in place through our intelligence and policing agencies to keep our community as safe as possible. Our country will not let fear take over. Australians should not fear going out to dinner, attending a concert or going to a football game. We should, and we will, live our lives every day in the same way we always have: with freedom—the freedom of democracy, the freedom to choose, the freedom to live our lives the way we want.

While the alert level remains high in Australia, as it has been since September last year, we should all be reassured that our government and hardworking security agencies are doing their utmost to protect us all. Recently we have seen the parliament pass additional legislation, in the form of updated counter-terrorism legislation, to continue and strengthen their ability to do that.

Unfortunately, we have seen many other terrorist attacks around the world over the previous few years. The recent terrorist attacks by ISIL in Paris, Mali, Ankara in Turkey, as well as other places throughout the Middle East, are the latest examples. We have even seen attacks by Palestinians on Israelis in the streets of Israel which could equally be classified as terrorist attacks.

In closing, I leave the House with another thought from Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, whose profound spirituality and belief in justice inspired the world:

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

We should continue to remain vigilant in the face of the threat from organisations like ISIL, but we should always reflect on the wonderful values and culture that we have in this great country that people from the four corners of the world have come to live in, to celebrate the freedoms and the opportunities that it presents. Those opportunities are still before those people, and we should focus on those opportunities, because they are what make this country great now and will continue to make it great into the future.

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