James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Spence for bringing this motion to the chamber. I absolutely concur with all the contributions that have been made so far. I want to touch on an additional point that this debate allows, which is the surprise I feel every year on 2 September—which was just two days ago—on the anniversary of the surrender of the Japanese aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The Japanese regime of the Second World War is one of the most significant examples of a right-wing extremist regime in the Asia-Pacific region, and, indeed, 2 September marked the end of the existential threat that they posed to the region we live in, including continental Australia. It surprises me that we don't make as significant an acknowledgement and commemoration of that event as, in my view, we should. We absolutely appropriately commemorate Anzac Day, as we acknowledge and commemorate at 11 am on 11 November.

In Europe, they commemorate Victory in Europe Day, as they should. It's something that is significant to us because Australians served in a significant capacity in the early stages of the European conflict, including my grandfather in North Africa at El Alamein. But he, like most Australians, came back after the fall of Singapore. That was the most significant point in Australian history that we felt was a very significant threat to our own continental integrity and the risk of invasion. We talk in this chamber about some of those individual conflicts, but it is a surprise to me that we don't mark 2 September. I don't think anyone who has looked at Australia and its history would be able to rationalise why it is that the conflict that threatened our nation the most of any conflict, that the end of that conflict is one that we don't take the opportunity to solemnly commemorate. We commemorate a lot of other things, but that one is a surprise.

I mention that in the context of this debate because that was a regime that was an extremist right-wing regime, and this motion appropriately talks about the important need to be ever-vigilant against ideologies that lead to things like Nazism. Of course, the actions of the Imperial Japanese forces in countries like China and Korea and on our own Australians, whether it was the Banka massacre, the prisoners in Changi or those on the Burma Railway, as we slowly but surely crawled up through the Asia-Pacific to Japan proper, and particularly the conflicts in Papua New Guinea, I think we can reflect on whether or not as a nation we could do a much better job of taking 2 September much more seriously than we do. We should commemorate it and talk about how important it was that we liberated our own nation and our region from the risk of ongoing Japanese dominance. That was on 2 September 1945, two days ago.

I will quickly conclude by reinforcing the comments that have been made in this debate about the growing antisemitism in our society and in no way suggesting that right-wing extremists are not utterly guilty of upholding those abhorrent views. Frankly, this is where the hard left and the hard right basically fuse together, and the hard left have some pretty appalling views when it comes to antisemitism and the state of Israel.

I think that antisemitism has always been seen as one of the most significant attributes of hard right-wing extremism and anywhere in our society where we see it we should always take the opportunity to call it out. I do that in this opportunity I am given, here in this debate. So, thank you to the member for Spence for bringing it to the Federation Chamber and thank you to all members who have contributed. I absolutely concur that we, as a parliament, and in our democracy we should always make sure that we are speaking up for and defending the tolerant society we are very proud to live in.

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