Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

On September 28, Shimon Peres, former President and Prime Minister of Israel, died. We mourn his passing but we honour and we celebrate his long and eventful life. The passion of Shimon Peres for the state of Israel, which he helped to found, was matched only by his commitment to pursuing peace for Israel with its neighbours. The man whose chosen surname is derived from an ancient Hebrew word for 'eagle' would become known over seven decades of statesmanship as a 'dove' of peace. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in support of the Oslo accords. To this day, his Peres Center for Peace seeks to link Israelis and Palestinians in programs that promote coexistence and reconciliation.

Shimon Peres's deep personal commitment to his nation began when the state of Israel was but a dream for the Jewish diaspora. Born Shimon Persky on 2 August 1923 in Poland, he was the son of Jewish parents Yitzhak and Sara. At the age of 11, Shimon and his family moved to Tel Aviv in British-mandated Palestine. He formed his first political leanings in a kibbutz, joined the Zionist movement to establish the nation-state of Israel, and served in Israel's pre-independence military organisation, the Haganah. Following Israel's independence in 1948, he worked alongside Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion. At the age of just 29, Shimon was appointed Director-General of the Ministry of Defense.

In 1959, he was elected to the Knesset and he served there until 2007, working in multiple governments as foreign minister, finance minister and defence minister. He served twice as prime minister: once in the early 1980s and again, briefly, after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination in 1995. Shimon Peres served as Israel's ninth president from 2007 to 2014, retiring just days before his 91st birthday, and he remained a powerful advocate for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 'The Palestinians' Shimon said, 'are our closest neighbours; I believe they may become our closest friends.' His dream was to see both Israelis and Palestinians live in peace and security, to build, to educate their citizens and to prosper.

My wife, Lucy, recently visited Israel with a group of businesswomen to inspect high-tech innovation centres and to talk to innovators and universities, which are key assets in the economic success story of modern Israel and vital interests throughout Shimon Peres's long life. Thus group had the privilege of visiting Shimon Peres at the Peres Center for Peace. Mr Peres told Lucy the secret of perpetual youth was to ensure that your list of dreams always remained longer than your list of achievements. In that sense, this very old man, after such a life of extraordinary achievement and such an eventful one, nonetheless died forever young.

Unfortunately, Shimon Peres did not visit Australia but he spoke emotionally of the sacrifices made by Australians who fell in World War I in the Middle East, and he would recall warmly the friendliness and informality of the Australian troops stationed in Israel during World War II. But perhaps his affection for Australia was more personal still. His father, Yitzhak Persky, was saved from Nazi execution by a fellow prisoner of war, Australian Methodist minister Rex Dakers. After escaping from the Nazis, his father was recaptured. Padre Dakers convinced the Nazi soldiers that Persky and his co-conspirator had not received a proper trial and to shoot the men would be considered a war crime. The Padre boldly warned that, if they were shot, the Nazis would have to shoot him as well. Yitzhak Persky lived because of Rex Dakers' moral courage. When Shimon Peres's son, Chemi, visited Melbourne last year, he visited the Dakers family—a moment that Shimon called the closing of a circle.

I extend Australia's sympathy and condolences to his children, Yoni, Zvia and Chemi and their families, and I take this opportunity to acknowledge his marriage of 66 years to their mother, Sonya Gelman, who passed away a few years ago. I also extend our nation's condolences to the government and the people of Israel and the many Australians in our Jewish community who enjoyed a close personal friendship with Shimon Peres. We understand and we share your loss. Shimon Peres once said:

The duty of leaders is to pursue freedom ceaselessly, even in the face of hostility, in the face of doubt and disappointment. Just imagine what could be.

His list of dreams, longer than his list of achievements. He echoed there, and he often invoked, David's words in the 34th psalm, verse 14:

Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

It is not enough to want peace or to yearn for it; we must, like Shimon Peres did and David urged, pursue it with the relentless determination of the hunter.

Israel's prosperity, forged by the intellect and innovation of its people, has proved Shimon Peres was right to believe in the greatest opportunities for the nation he helped to found, and he was right to dream of even greater possibilities in a peaceful future to come.

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