Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

In August, I spoke in this House about my friend and constituent Khalil Ibrahim, who had lost both his parents to COVID just a few days apart. The deaths of Kaoukab and Hachem cast a profound sorrow over their entire extended family. Since parliament last met, so many more families have come to know this sorrow. More than 500 Australians have died in that time. Every one of them is now an absence—an empty chair at a table, a favourite jacket unworn in a cupboard, a hug that never comes, or a phone number that stays in the contact list because deleting it would be the final acknowledgement that they are never going to walk through the door again. When a loved one dies, it feels like some of the light of the universe goes out with them. What makes it harder is the sense that they have been lost when we are much closer to the end of the pandemic than the start. Now that they are equipped to do so, Australians are working magnificently to put the pandemic behind us, but for some our emergence is going to be more bittersweet. I say to those who have lost loved ones: no words spoken here can soften the grief—only time can do that—but I do want you to know that you are very much in our hearts as well as those of your family and your local communities.

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