Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

on indulgence—I join with the Prime Minister's remarks. The Prime Minister and I spoke on Monday in relation to these matters, and included in that conversation was a conversation about the support for communities to increase safety. We very much support the government's announcement. Obviously, when we were in government, there was a significant effort undertaken to provide support to faith based organisations and others in the community that felt a vulnerability. That is heightened at this point in time. The tragic circumstances that we see we commented on at the beginning of the week, and to the great credit of this chamber there was a bipartisan position in condemning the actions of the terrorist group Hamas. Nobody wants to see the loss of any civilian life, and the conduct of Hamas in telling people to stay in harm's way is a deplorable act but not the first and not the last. We are sure of that.

To the Islamic communities here in our country, to people of Jewish faith, to people of any faith: they deserve to live in our country unencumbered by racism, by prejudice or by attacks otherwise, and this parliament has and always will stand for those principles. We support the government in those endeavours.

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