Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. First of all, I want to thank the member for Berowra for raising this important condolence and acknowledge in the gallery the presence of Jeremy Spinak's widow, Rhiannon, with whom he spent the last six, and best, years of his life. He was, as the member for Berowra said, one of the most important and influential leaders of the Jewish community in Sydney. To die of cancer at such a young age, 36, is a terrible tragedy for his family and friends but also for the Australian Jewish community and the people of Australia in general.

I had a telephone connection with Jeremy, being a Victorian, and he impressed me very much, as the member for Berowra said, as a person who, in the younger generation, was able to look to a wider future, wider engagements, and to reconcile and deal with people of all different backgrounds that perhaps an older generation of leadership had lost the touch for.

Jeremy's passion for the Australian Jewish community is well known. The president of the board, his successor and friend Lesli Berger, and Vic Alhadeff said:

His influence on our approach to representing the community, coalition-building, legislative reform, child protection and supporting marriage equality were among the numerous achievements which will be his lasting legacy both to our organisation and the entire community.

Such skills are rare. Such skills in a young man are even rarer. To have been taken at such a young age is a terrible tragedy, and we're all poorer for his passing.

It's very interesting that the Premier of New South Wales actually had the cabinet—normally something that would only be done for a member of parliament—stand for a minute's silence. Gladys Berejiklian said:

Jeremy was an outstanding community advocate and an amazing human being. He had a huge impact on everyone he met, including myself, and will be sorely missed. Jeremy was dedicated to forging links between our multicultural and religious communities and was a champion of an inclusive and harmonious State. Whether mentoring young Jewish leaders, advocating for policy reforms or strengthening ties with the diplomatic community, he represented our State's Jewry with pride and distinction. Jeremy's leadership was crucial to the NSW Government's passage of landmark reforms to protect our State's communities from the incitement of violence, replacing section 20D of the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Act.

He may not have been here as a member of parliament, Member for Berowra, but he certainly had an effect on legislation.

Rabbi Kamins, in his very moving address at the funeral service, which I attended, said:

How did a 36-year-old man come to be the person he was, achieve so much and touch so many? A suggestion is given in our tradition, in Pirkei Avot, where the sage Ben Azzai says the most important verse in the Torah is the seemingly minor, "Zeh sefer toldot Adam—this is the book of the generations of Adam." Ben Azzai is suggesting that each one of us is a product of those who have come before us; Jeremy, gracious and thoughtful, a man of the book himself, always acknowledged those who preceded him in life with shaping his life.

And the amazing story that Rabbi Kamins told of the generations that preceded Jeremy Spinak and how he was such a product of them was extremely fitting and moving for that funeral.

In his final public address, in August, Jeremy Spinak knew that there would be no cure for his illness. Yet, with typical self-deprecating humour, he said:

If you really want to know, at all times, no matter what happens, when you bump into my children, Grace and Michael, in the future bore them with your recollections of me and bore them with just how fantastic I was. Tell them of your memories and please give them a sense of what it was like working with their dad.

For someone so young to have obtained so much respect is extraordinary. His death was announced at the New South Wales cabinet meeting, as I said, and the ALP caucus bestowed on him the honour normally only provided to former members of parliament on their passing, by standing for a minute's silence. I will conclude by quoting Rabbi Kamins:

Ben Azzai has taught that the most important verse of Torah is: "These are the generations of man". Just as Jeremy has been a product of the generations of those who shaped him—his grandparents, Margie and Richard, Jason and Jenny—so too will Michael and Grace be the generation carrying his memory and influence, forever into the generations to come, forever a blessing and inspiration.

See this speech in context