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

Last night in Sydney, along with some of my colleagues, including the member for Berowra, I attended a gathering of people from the Jewish community. There were 12,000 people in total. The emotion was raw, and, to mark the first anniversary, there were a number of fine speakers who contributed to the debate, including the New South Wales Premier, Chris Minns. We heard from a number of people who had experienced firsthand the tragedy of lives being ripped from them—people who attended the Nova music festival, people who saw their friends mown down in the desert, people who had been living in the kibbutz and those who experienced loved ones losing their lives at the hands of the barbaric acts of Hamas as they crossed the border. To this day, as we know, over 100 people are still unaccounted for—people who are held in tunnels, in captivity, people who have been tortured and raped and people who have been killed with certainty. We know that.

The tragedy on that day, where 1,200 people lost their lives, was the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, where six million people were tortured, gassed and murdered. For the Jewish community, as was noted last night by many of the contributors, the last 12 months have been a truly shocking experience, particularly in our country. That's not just because of the loss of 1,200 and the indiscriminate way in which those men, women and children were attacked, but also because of the response here in Australia and the rise of antisemitism. The attack took place on 7 October. Israel hadn't responded. On 9 October, on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, people started their chants, saying, 'Where are the Jews?' It was eerily similar to what we saw in the period of the 1930s. It started on 9 October in this country, and it has run largely unabated over the course of the last 12 months. The Prime Minister himself has outlined details of his own office being protested at and picketed and some of the vile acts that we've seen supported by the Greens political party and others.

There's the antisemitism which is now rife on university campuses, where, for months and months and months, people of Jewish heritage—whether they were students or lecturers or visiting fellows or whatever it might have been—were treated as Jews have been treated over the course of history: with disdain and with hatred and with racism. Those campuses have held those protests over a long, long period of time—over many months.

We know that we've got Jewish schools in this country that have armed guards permanently present, so that young children can go to receive their education without the threat of a terrorist attack. We know that there are aged-care facilities in Australia housing elderly, aged, people of Jewish heritage, Jewish Australians, to protect them from an attack. We know that graffiti has been scribbled on the walls of Jewish schools and places of worship.

What has happened over the last 12 months is something that our country should be ashamed of. So last night, in New South Wales; in Melbourne, where the Prime Minister attended; here in Canberra, in a service that was organised by His Excellency, the ambassador; and at many other points across the country, people held a moment's silence for the loss of October 7.

On Saturday, I wrote to the Prime Minister suggesting that we should arrive at a bipartisan position and bring a motion before the House to mark the anniversary of October 7. This motion was supposed to be about October 7—about the loss of human life in the circumstances that were just graphically outlined and that people across the world now have come to understand. I proposed to the Prime Minister a motion which was balanced and objective, and I appreciated the engagement with the Prime Minister when I met with him this morning. Regrettably, we've not been able to arrive at a position of bipartisanship in relation to this matter.

I think, when you go to the detail of what the Prime Minister has proposed, it becomes clearer why the coalition cannot support this motion before the House at the moment. As has been remarked by many commentators over the course of recent weeks, this government has sought to walk both sides of the street in relation to what has been a very divisive debate for our country. It's what, in part, has given rise to the antisemitism that we've seen in university campuses but across society more generally. It's what making the survivors of the Holocaust, for the first time in their lives in our country, say that they feel unsafe here in the current environment.

So in the motion moved by the Prime Minister today are not just words of comfort and words of recognition in relation to October 7—and I acknowledge those words in his motion. But of course, it goes beyond that, and it's an extension of the way in which the Prime Minister has conducted the debate and himself over the course of the last 12 months, trying to please all people in this debate. Now is not the time to call for, as the Prime Minister does in his motion—and I'll quote the words to the House, Mr Speaker, because I'm not sure that the Prime Minister did; the words included in the motion at (11) say:

… stresses the need to break the cycle of violence and supports international efforts to de-escalate, for a ceasefire in Gaza and in Lebanon, and for lasting peace and security for Israeli, Palestinian, Lebanese and all people in the region …

There are other sections here which go well beyond the intent of what should be a motion to mark the loss of life of 1,200 people, on the first anniversary—that's what this motion was to be about. But, of course, the Prime Minister is trying to speak out of both sides of his mouth, and that is not something that we will support in relation to this debate.

None of us support the loss of civilian life, and everybody in this place, I'm sure, condemns the actions of a terrorist organisation—a listed terrorist organisation, Hamas—when they put tunnels under schools and under hospitals, when they bury bombs and they store their ammunitions in residential buildings, knowing that they're using people as human shields.

But today is the day when this parliament was meant to mark what should be a solemn moment—when 1,200 people lost their lives. That is the position we put to the House. We know that under the government's rule here in the chamber they won't allow amendment to the motion moved by the Prime Minister, which is what has put us in a very difficult position. It is a deliberate strategy by the government not to allow any correspondence to be entered into to. As I've said, we've gone backwards and forwards with the Prime Minister and his office this morning, in good faith, but have not been able to reach agreement in relation to this matter.

I think it says to Australians that on this day—8 October, the first sitting day after the 7 October anniversary—this Prime Minister wasn't able to lead a moment of bipartisanship in this parliament. In my memory, that is without precedent, Prime Minister. There has always been a bipartisan position between your predecessors. You're citing Biden, France, Hawke, Keating. But you don't mention Rudd; you don't mention Gillard. There has been a position of bipartisanship on these issues, and your predecessors would have had the decency to respect the Jewish community in a way that you have not done today. For that, Prime Minister, you should stand condemned.

We have put to this Prime Minister a more than reasonable position, and the Prime Minister has rejected that position for his own political domestic advancement, and that has been recognised by millions of Australians, and for that the Prime Minister should be condemned. It is unbelievable. It is this Prime Minister who has departed from the precedent of the Labor Party—people who should be speaking up, people who should be out there advocating a position, as Bill Shorten is and as many people in the Labor Party are able to do, but not this Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has taken a position today that has further diminished the Australian Labor Party and his standing with the Australian public.

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