John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek the indulgence of the House to address a few remarks on the fourth anniversary of the attack in Bali on 12 October 2002. I am sure that today all members of the House will recall with great sadness the events of the night of 12 October 2002, when two explosions in Bali claimed the lives of 88 Australians, as well as the lives of scores of others. Indeed, more than 200 people died in that horrific terrorist attack. On behalf of the government and, I know, all of the Australian people, I again express our deep sympathy and condolences to those who lost their loved ones in that attack. Their sense of anger at the injustice and the wanton and cruel character will never subside. Our thoughts and prayers are very much with them and also with the beautiful people of the beautiful island of Bali, for whom so many Australians have very great affection.

That attack demonstrated that terrorism strikes in an indiscriminate fashion and strikes without regard to the race, religion, political beliefs, political behaviour or political motivation of people. If we examine the terrorist attacks that have occurred since 11 September 2001, we find a situation where there is no pattern other than the desire of people who are perverted by their blasphemous interpretation of a particular religion to kill and maim with an indiscriminate intent.

It is important to recall the way in which the events in Bali have brought the people of Australia and the people of Indonesia together. The cooperation between the Australian Federal Police and the Indonesian police was outstanding. I record my gratitude to the Australian Federal Police and their counterparts in the Indonesian police who worked with unremitting and tireless professionalism to bring to justice those people who perpetrated this attack which claimed the lives of 88 of our fellow citizens. The results have been very impressive indeed. Many trials have been held and justice has been dispensed, as it should be, to those responsible for these murders. The way in which our two countries have cooperated bodes well for the future, although it was borne out of a very tragic event.

On the first anniversary of the bombings I dedicated three elements to a practical living memorial to the victims: the Australian Memorial Centre, an intensive care and burns centre at the Sanglah Hospital, which is Bali’s largest hospital; the Australia-Bali Memorial Eye Centre, which will be opened in June next year; and the Australia-Bali Memorial Health and Medical Scholarship, which is helping to improve the skills of Balinese health workers.

Those who attended the ceremony marking the first anniversary of the attack in 2003 will never forget the heartfelt speech delivered by the then senior minister in the Indonesian government, General Yudhoyono, who was to become the President of that country. His personal commitment to the fight against terrorism is undoubted and unconditional. As we reflect on those events, the possibility that terrorism will strike again in our region and in our own homeland cannot be ruled out. We should hope that moderate Islamic leaders like President Yudhoyono are supported and are successful. The greatest antidote to Islamic terrorism and those people of the Islamic faith who blasphemously distort the values of that great religion are moderate Islamic leaders like President Yudhoyono of Indonesia and President Musharraf of Pakistan. We must hope, in the name of fighting terrorism, that their leadership triumphs over the more extreme elements in their societies.

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On indulgence, today we remember the victims of the Bali bombing, the 202 people who died when terrorism exploded in two Kuta nightclubs on 12 October four years ago. We stop and reflect today on the terrible waste of lost lives: the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, daughters and sons who died in violence in a place previously known to the world for its tranquillity and its friendship. We think today of the 88 Australians, so many of them so young, and those citizens of 22 other countries, all brutally murdered. We, too, think of others who have suffered. Some of the survivors are still recovering from their physical injuries. Their lives were altered irrevocably by the terror in Bali that night. We think of the families whose lives were ravaged and laid waste just as surely as the nightclubs at Kuta. We think of the people of Bali, now inhabitants of a paradise lost.

Four years on, we pause, we reflect, we grieve and we rail against the pointless, mindless carnage of it. We try to make sense of the senseless. We contemplate how best to honour the lives of those who suffered and died and their myriad stories of courage, sacrifice and humanity. There are now many monuments, both here in Australia and at the site of the bombing in Bali. The Prime Minister named several of them in the remarks that he made. They are very fitting tributes. But I do believe that the greatest memorial we can offer to the memory of the Australians who lost their lives is a pledge to protect the way of life that they held dear. We note that in that recently released intelligence report those who created these dreadful circumstances are assessed by the intelligence agencies of our allies as having got stronger in the course of the last four years. This is despite, as the Prime Minister has said, the most excellent work done by the Australian Federal Police, in conjunction with the police force of Indonesia, in bringing to justice those specifically associated with this atrocity.

The challenge, therefore, is still before us. We need to effectively fight terrorism here in our neighbourhood. We have to make absolutely certain that we both add value to the way in which this struggle with fundamentalist terror is conducted and are absolutely clear-cut in our priorities as to where it must be done: in protecting ourselves here and ensuring that people in the region are effectively protected. We owe it to the Australians who lost their lives in Bali. We owe it to the survivors. We owe it to their families. We owe it to all Australians.