Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Prime Minister for moving this important motion today. It is a grave topic that all of us in this place have an obligation to rise to, to meet this occasion as leaders in this country. On this side of the chamber, as I hope on all sides of the chamber, we meet, as we did on 16 October last year, to give an unequivocal condemnation of Hamas's appalling terrorist attacks in Israel. They were terrorist attacks characterised not just by their brutality, with 1,200 innocent civilians killed, but by the appalling broadcasting of this depravity, a unique innovation in this depraved attack. Hundreds more were traumatised by the attacks, sexual violence and of course hostage-taking, with many still living in Hamas's terrorist tunnels beneath Gaza.

On Sunday night of this weekend, I attended a candle lighting in Sydney: Illuminate October. As a result of the quirk of international time zones, it was the first candle lighting anywhere in the world to acknowledge the loss of life on October 7 and the hostages that are still being held. We heard from Michal Ohana, who gave a powerful testimony as a survivor of the violence at the Nova music festival, where young people meeting to dance were met with appalling violence. We heard from Melissa McCurdie, a Jewish Sydneysider who had multiple members of her family taken hostage on that appalling day. Around the country, Australians meet and have met in the preceding days to express their shared humanity and their outrage at these attacks. It is a basic act of human decency to mourn the loss of life that we have seen. It's a basic act of decency to recognise our shared humanity as Australians and to express our shared devastation at the loss of civilian life on October 7 and in the following 12 months, with 40,000 Palestinian deaths and many innocent Lebanese civilians killed in the last week. We mourn all civilian deaths—Israeli, Palestinian and Lebanese—that have been unleashed by the appalling events of October 7.

That's why we are focused in our foreign policy on the protection of innocent civilian life. It's why we've contributed $84.5 million in humanitarian assistance. It's why we've advocated for sustained and elevated humanitarian assistance to be provided into Gaza. It's also why we've advocated for restraint and de-escalation from all parties. It's why we've emphasised the importance of urgent diplomatic solutions in the region and ceasefires in Gaza and in Lebanon. Diplomacy cannot succeed in the context of military escalation. That's why we've condemned Iran's indiscriminate and irresponsible missile attacks. It's why we've condemned Iran's destabilising actions through its proxies in the region. It's why we've condemned Hezbollah's appalling missile attacks into Israel. We recognise Israel's right of self-defence in international law. We also recognise that the only enduring solution to this conflict is a diplomatic solution. The only enduring way to conclude this conflict is through a two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians are able to live side by side in peace, prosperity and security.

I want to dwell on one of the points of this motion. The member for Berowra said that we should leave things out of this motion if we can't agree on them. I just want to dwell on point 11. It reads:

… 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 …

I would have hoped this was something that we could all agree on. This is a motion where all of us have an obligation. All of us in this parliament, and throughout our nation, have an obligation to rise to this grave moment. An aspiration for peace is surely something that we can all agree to. Diplomacy cannot succeed in the context of escalation, and that is also true in the context of rhetorical escalation. All of us in this place, all of us in Australian society—all leaders in our society—have an obligation to model the kind of engagement and empathy that we need, to see an enduring solution to the conflict in the Middle East.

I want to endorse the outstanding contribution to this debate by my friend the member for Macnamara. He's been a leader that we've been able to look to in Melbourne, across all communities, and I'm proud to call him my friend. I should note that my office has been vandalised many times in the last 12 months too, but no-one has ever drawn devil horns on my head. Josh, the member for Macnamara, gave an interview on the ABC this week, and I just want to quote what he said:

The Jewish community has spent the past year in mourning; praying for those taken hostage to return home and grappling with an unprecedented rise in domestic anti-Semitism. There is a collective grief which is hard not to feel, and I know it will take generations to recover …

There are many communities impacted by the past year and we must do all we can to show empathy and talk to one another because if we can't do that here in Australia, how do we expect those in the region to?

As hard as this year has been, I haven't lost hope of peace. No matter how far away it seems, we must hold onto that hope.

We should reflect on that in this building. If we can't model that here in Australia, then, on the other side of the world, how can we ask those who are parties to this conflict to model that?

We've seen an appalling rise in antisemitism and in Islamophobia in Australia as this conflict has raised tensions in our community. We have not been silent about that in this place. The leaders in this place have not been silent. We have called it out regularly and directly.

We also need to see empathy. There are so many in our community that are carrying trauma at the moment. I speak as a representative for the significant Lebanese-Australian community. I'm proud to represent them in this place. I've spoken to them. I know the terror and the fear that they feel for their friends and families still in Lebanon. I reiterate the call we've been making in recent weeks. Australians in Lebanon: Now is the time to leave. I know it's a heart-wrenching decision, but it's in your interest, for your safety, to make that decision to leave now and to take one of the assisted flights leaving the region that DFAT has organised.

All of us here have an obligation, as leaders, to model the empathetic engagement that we need to see. Horrible things happening on the other side of the world are not a licence to behave horribly in our community. We're a diverse country—half of Australians were either born overseas or have a parent born overseas. Naturally, that means we'll have different perspectives on issues. We have different histories. We come from different starting points. We've got to find a way to live together in our country—in our schools, in our workplaces, in our sporting teams and in our communities. The only way we can do that is by doing less condemning, by doing less shouting, by doing more listening and by doing more empathising. We need to recognise that many of the people working side by side with us—many of our teammates on our sporting teams and many of our classmates—are carrying real trauma from the conflict that we've seen in the Middle East since October 7. We need to have a bit of empathy for that. We need to find space in our hearts to hear the suffering of our fellow Australians. Our country relies on that. If we can't do that as Australians, our nation can't continue. That's what we mean when we talk about social cohesion. It means getting on. Cohesion is not an end state—it's a verb; it's a process. It happens every day in our society.

There are many things that we can disagree about in this conflict, but the way we disagree matters. We've got to disagree in a way that recognises that we have more in common as fellow Australian citizens than what divides us. We've got to disagree in a way that doesn't close off the possibility for us to live side by side. We've got to disagree in a way that recognises our fellow humanity. That's an obligation on all of us in this place. It's something that I'm proud to have seen the Prime Minister model, something I'm proud to see the foreign minister model and something that I'm proud to see the diverse representatives of our government of all faiths model since the appalling terrorist attacks of October 7.

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