Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

On 10 October this year, the following tribute notice appeared in the Adelaide Advertiser:

GOLOTTA, Angela Sylvia Rose. Killed in Bali on October 12, 2002 by Islamic Terrorists Aged 19 years old. Lovingly remembered by her Granny and Grandpa and her entire family. My darling granddaughter, we lovingly remember you, each and everyday. Your sunny nature and your care and dedication to both people and animals brought a ray of sunshine into many lives. We should have been celebrating your 33rd Birthday next week. We can only imagine the heights you would have reached by now. You were bubbly, happy, ambitious and clever with a large circle of friends, and you had a such a marvellous sense of humour. You are so badly missed by all the family and friends. Granny and Grandfather, Mother Tracey, Father John and Brother Michael, and the entire Taylor family.

A similar message was placed only a couple of weeks later when Angela would have turned 33. A similar message has appeared, I believe, every year since Angela was killed in Bali in 2002. Her family still grieve her loss. They always will. Angela was 20 years old. She was in Bali with her family: her mum, her dad and her brother. They are good people, and they were there on a family holiday together. Angela is one of the tens of thousands of innocent people who, in recent decades, have lost their lives because of the actions of extremists. Those killed or injured come from all walks of life, cultures, religions and ages and all parts of the world.

We have entered a period of global war, but, unlike World War I and World War II, the war is not between nations but between ideologies and cultures. In today's globalised world, ideologies and culture transcend national borders. What is common to previous wars and today's war is that they are equally caused by power and greed. The desire for power to control the people of the world is, in turn, driven by greed in most cases but masked behind slogans of democracy, freedom, religion or injustice. In a world with a rising population and diminishing resources, the fear for survival also becomes a cause of conflict. Of course, the international affairs experts will each have their explanation of causal factors, as will those who either will benefit from or have a direct interest in the conflict. Global politics has become more tangled than ever before, and the motives and instigators of each terror attack are becoming less and less clear. What is clear is that men, women and children are being brutally killed, tortured and enslaved by people to whom they have done no harm, whom they have never met and to whose safety they pose no threat. Even more disturbing is the sadistic nature of those who participate in terrorism and extremism. Just as confusing is that those very people who commit the atrocities, who participate in terror attacks, do so knowing that they, too, will very likely die, as so many of them already have. Yet, for all of their bravado, after committing their cowardly acts of cold-blooded killing, they flee in desperation, in search of refuge and safety for themselves, unlike a true soldier, who confronts his foe front-on.

The extreme cruelty is not only proudly depicted on YouTube videos or reported in newspaper stories. Many of us also hear of it from the relatives, friends and countrymen of those killed who now live in Australia. I have listened to and seen the sadness in the faces of people in my own electorate whom I personally know and who have lost family members in both the New York twin towers attack and the Bali attacks. Those families still grieve for the innocent lives lost—in just about all cases, young people who lost their lives well ahead of time, suddenly, deliberately and without any explanation as to why. I also hear of it from people I represent who come from areas of conflict and who relay to me their personal experiences of brutality and cruelty beyond what any decent person could ever comprehend. I have joined some of those people in solidarity at services where they mourned their losses and prayed for the souls of those lost.

Only two weeks ago, I attended a candlelight vigil held by the Hazara community of Adelaide in response to the beheading of seven Hazara people in Afghanistan just days earlier. The seven people included four males, two women and a child. They had been kidnapped for no known reason and, for no obvious reason other than being Hazari, were then killed. The Hazara people are a minority Shiah group who make up about 20 per cent of the Afghan population and who seem to be persecuted wherever they go. As several of the placards held up at the vigil read, 'It is not a crime to be Hazara.' Yet it seems that it is for no reason other than being Hazara that so many of them are being killed, tortured, raped or abused. The Hazara people in Australia have reached the safety of our borders, but their anxiety continues for the lives of family members and friends who remain in Afghanistan and other parts of the Middle East and whose lives are at risk. The plea of the Hazara people of Adelaide to the Australian government is not to forget or close our eyes and ears to the Hazara people in places overseas where they are still being persecuted, where they are defenceless and where their lives are still at risk.

I bring their pleas to the attention of the Australian government, as I promised I would do. The Hazara people are not alone in being persecuted or in being victims of extreme ideology and brutality. I have spoken in this place on previous occasions about other groups who are being treated in a similar way. Again, they too plea for assistance from decent people around the world.

National security across the world has become a political priority for most governments. Indeed, here in Australia in recent days, we have had legislation addressing security matters, and in recent weeks and months there has been other legislation doing the same—all in response to trying to counter the threat of extremists and radicals. It is legislation that in days gone by would perhaps never have been contemplated, yet we have reached a point where we as a parliament believe that we need to act in order to try and protect the people of this country. Indeed, the people of Australia expect the government and the parliament to act, and so the government does whatever it believes it can do. Only yesterday, the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition made statements on national security and what we as a nation can and should be doing. Those statements were made in response to what is happening around the world right now and what Australia's role may well with be in any response that occurs. We do have a responsibility as a good global citizen to join in with not just Western nations but other nations who take this issue seriously and who believe that the only way that this issue can ever be managed is by nations working together. I agree with that. I believe that is the only response that you can embark on when you are dealing with a war that has been from the outset fought not between nations but between ideologies and cultures.

Perhaps what is lesser known is the massive additional costs that are being borne by society, including here in Australia, as a result of the counter-terrorism responses. If we look at the efforts that have been made by governments in the last decade alone there have been more staff placed in different areas of national security, more police on the streets, more screening processes, more document security systems put in place, more elaborate tracking devices and more highly sophisticated military equipment. All of these things cost money. Indeed, they cost millions and perhaps billions of dollars. They add to the cost of government and take away from society that money which could otherwise be spent on more essential things that are needed by the people of this country.

Terrorists and extremists have indeed changed the world. They are impacting on everyday life in pretty much every part of the world. Right now, none know this more so than the people of Paris, France, who have been affected twice in the space of a year: firstly, the Charlie Hebdo killings, where some 11 people were killed; and then more recently in Paris, where 130 people lost their lives. As other speakers have said, it has occurred in Ankara, where 103 people lost their lives; in Mali, where 21 people lost their lives; and in Beirut, where some 43 people lost their lives. It is suspected that a terrorist bomb downed the Russian aircraft, with 224 people losing their lives. Here in Australia, we are also very aware of the risk of terrorism. We saw Curtis Cheng lose his life only a month ago. Less than a year ago, we saw Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson lose their lives in the Lindt Cafe siege. So it has hit within our borders in the same way that it has hit other countries. For those reasons, we do need to play our role in whatever the appropriate response is.

What the appropriate response is is not a simple matter, and that is made very clear by the constant dialogue taking place between international leaders with respect to finding a response to what is going on. It is a difficult issue. But, at this point in time, it is important that we also join with the families who are mourning those they have lost and also with the families of those who have been injured as a result of these activities. We join with them to show them that we are in solidarity with them, which, at the very least, will give them some degree of comfort knowing that the rest of the world cares.

I join with my colleagues in this place who have already expressed their condolences to those families for the losses that they have incurred in expressing my condolences. I also indicate to those families, albeit that some of them may never get to hear this speech, that to some extent I share the pain of what they are going through and that we do stand in solidarity with them.

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