Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to send my condolences to the British public and to Jo Cox's family. I echo the sentiments expressed by the member for Scullin—and I thank him for the motion—in particular, the sentiments he expressed around the notion that it is important that in this place Jo Cox's death be marked. For me, that is a very personal thing. On the morning that I heard of Jo's death and across that day, I made contact with many people—the member for Griffith was one, the member for Hotham another—and I sent a text to former Prime Minister Julia Gillard. I have collected those things together. My first response went like this:

And suddenly the thing we think isn't really possible - or the thing we won't contemplate happening happens. It is not here and it is not our Julia Gillard but it is a younger version in a place we know too well. It is one of us, a woman committed to representing a multicultural, multi faith community and the killer is someone we know too well, someone whose hate has broken with all human decency.

I went on, 'And the sadness.'

My text to former Prime Minister Gillard was simple. I thanked her for teaching us to stare down the hate. I lived as a personal friend of our former Prime Minister through her years as Prime Minister and, like many of her friends and many of her constituents, of which I was both, I worried. I worried that something like this might happen in our country. Jo Cox's death reminded me how close we did come to those events. As the member for Griffith has referenced, the online hate that is thrust upon women who stand up for their communities is becoming almost intolerable.

Julia Gillard gave a speech recently at a commemoration for Jo Cox, and I would like to quote her here. This was on 11 October in London:

Like millions of others around the world, I remember where I was when I heard of Jo's death. I was in a hotel room in Brussels and—unusually for me—I had the television on. Normally, I get my news online but I was sorting through documents and other stuff I had accumulated on the trip. I flicked the television on for background but on hearing about Jo I stopped moving around the room, sank on to the bed and watched—saddened, stricken and shuddering about what this said about our world.

Women friends of mine, who were campaigning in Australia's election, were particularly shaken. They wondered, "What does this mean for us now?" Standing at street stalls and giving out pamphlets at train stations they asked themselves for the first time ever—"Are we safe?"

How do those who loved Jo recover? How do we all move beyond the shock and the fear?

My answer is that while we must farewell Jo, we must never farewell the values that defined her.

I think with those words our former Prime Minister captures a lot of the thoughts that we had across that day. Like the member for Griffith and the member for Scullin, we were campaigning, as were those opposite, and we picked up our bags that day and we headed out and we said hello to our constituents, because ultimately, like Jo, we believe that most people are good. We believe that the things we fight for are important, and so we stood.

The links to Jo Cox, for me, are also there in her maiden speech, where, if I tweak a few of the words, I could be speaking about Lalor. She said:

Batley and Spen is a gathering of typically independent, no-nonsense and proud Yorkshire towns and villages. Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir. While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

  …   …   …

I am Batley and Spen born and bred, and I could not be prouder of that. I am proud that I was made in Yorkshire and I am proud of the things we make in Yorkshire. Britain should be proud of that, too. I look forward to representing the great people of Batley and Spen here over the next five years.

The death of Jo Cox was an absolute tragedy. I hope that her death serves to remind us of why we serve, and I hope that it serves to remind the community of why we serve and to give us some credit and some value for doing that.

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