Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

People across the globe have clear memories of precisely where they were on September 11 2001 when they first heard the news that a commercial aeroplane had flown into one of the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York. At first most people probably thought, understandably, that it was a terrible accident and were shocked at how something like that could possibly happen. Then they may have contemplated that it was a terrorist attack, but that would have seemed too horrifying to contemplate. When the second jet crashed into the second tower, all doubts were dispelled. News then came in that another plane had struck the Pentagon in Washington and yet another had crashed in Pennsylvania.

Watching the collapse of the Twin Towers is as clear in my memory today as the moment that I saw it on a TV screen 10 years ago. We cannot begin to imagine the horror of those trapped inside the buildings and on board the aeroplanes. The statistics of that day can never reveal the devastating loss, the emotion or the heartbreak, but they put into perspective the enormity of these despicable acts. The 9-11 attack caused the single greatest loss of life on United States soil since the civil war of the 1860s. According to the New York Times, the total number of people killed in the attacks was 2,819. The number of firefighters and paramedics killed was 343; the number of New York police department officers killed was 23; and the number of port authority police officers killed was 37. The number of nations whose citizens were killed in the attacks was 115. The number of people who lost a spouse or partner in the attacks was 1,609, and the estimated number of children who lost a parent was 3,051. The number of families who are yet to receive the remains of their loved ones is 1,717. The tonnes of debris removed from the site were 1,506,124. The number of days that fires continued to burn after the attacks was 99. The economic loss to New York alone in the month following the attacks was $105 billion. The estimated cost of the clean-up in New York was $600 million. We still mourn the loss of life and still grieve with the families of 9-11. These attacks were not simply an attack on the people and the infrastructure of the United States; they were an attack on its ideals—ideals that we share as a nation. Terrorism does not aspire to defeat other nations militarily; it seeks to destroy their very foundations.

The strength of the United States and other democracies is that our citizens live their lives in freedom. That is an anathema to those inspired by the twisted rhetoric of Osama bin Laden and his demented followers. They seek to impose their values and beliefs on others through brute force as they are unable to win people to their view through the appeal of their ideas.

It is now 10 years since those attacks. There has been enormous global change in that time, some of which is directly attributable to those attacks and the response. The invasion of Afghanistan was to destroy the basis from which al-Qaeda was operating under the umbrella of protection provided by the Taliban so as to prevent any further attacks on the United States. Those bases were quickly destroyed, but it was to the great frustration of the United States and its allies that bin Laden escaped and evaded capture or death for a decade. During those years he continued to make threats and to taunt the United States and its allies. It is to the great credit of the United States government and its security establishment that no major terror attack has been perpetrated on United States soil since September 11, not because the terrorists did not intend it but because the United States and its allies disrupted the command and control structure of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. It has not meant the end of al-Qaeda, for its affiliates have attacked civilian populations in Bali, London, Mumbai, Madrid and elsewhere. It remains an organisation under great pressure but it is not yet defunct. If there were another attack on US interests there would be the potential for it to be reinvigorated, although the death of Osama bin Laden makes that a more distant reality.

After a decade, it is prudent to ask whether the response to the September 11 attacks was effective, proportionate and achieved the initial goals. The task of stabilising Afghanistan has proven more difficult and costly than first planned or envisaged by those who planned the original intervention. Afghanistan no longer harbours al-Qaeda training camps but it remains a haven for the Taliban, who continue to harass the security forces of the Afghan government and the soldiers of the countries that make up NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

A recent report by the respected RAND Corporation in the United States, entitled The long shadow of 9/11, is critical of the United States and its allies for taking so long to adapt to the tactics of the insurgency that regrouped in Afghanistan and continues to challenge the allied forces to this day. The House will be aware that an attack has taken place in Kabul in recent hours, targeting the United States embassy, NATO headquarters and other key buildings.

The RAND report suggests that greater success may have been achieved by establishing stronger regional forces rather than focusing on a central security force, as that would have been closer to the country's traditions. Arguably, its strongest criticism is that the United States and its allies had been far too focused on destroying the physical capability of al-Qaeda and the Taliban and had put less effort into rebutting its ideology. However, the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, although not directly related to 9-11, do give us heart. While the civilian uprisings calling for freedom and democracy may not have had the United States directly in mind, the values, ideals and freedoms that the United States has been fighting for since September 11 may well have cultivated the Arab Spring. There is little doubt that United States communication technologies have enabled it.

Dictators have been challenged after decades of rule with an iron fist, subjugating their populations through the threat or use of violence. The people of Libya have not lived under a democratic government, yet they have been prepared to march, die and fight for that ideal. We are seeing a struggle unfold in Syria, on the brink of civil war, as people continue to take to the streets in defiance of tyranny and in defiance of the guns of the increasingly brutal Assad regime. This is proof that guns and threats can subdue the inherent human desire for greater freedom but it cannot crush it forever.

The reaction of Australians to the threat of terror attacks post September 11 has been one of defiance. The two bombing attacks in Bali in which so many Australians died have not prevented our citizens from travelling to Bali as they have done for decades. Australians have, by and large, refused to cower in the face of the terrorist threat. We have continued to live our lives at home in much the same way as before the attacks. It is a similar story in London, Madrid, Mumbai, New York and Washington. This reflects the fundamental strength of the ideals that underpin our societies and the fact that we refuse to surrender our freedom to the hatred espoused by bin Laden and his ilk.

There have been many sacrifices made in the past in defence of our nations and our values. There will be more sacrifices in the future. As is often said, for evil to flourish it only requires good men to do nothing. Our defence forces, particularly those who have lost their lives in Afghanistan, are those good men who have refused to stand by and allow evil to flourish. We must never forget those terrible events on September 11. We must continue to learn from them and we must strive to ensure that they are never allowed to happen again.

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in the United States. It is very hard to grasp. It has been 10 years now since the events of September 11, the events that have changed our world forever. I remember this event very well. My son was an apprentice electrician at the time. He got up as he did every day and was having a cup of coffee before going to work at a bit after five in the morning. He came down and woke me up and told me that a plane had crashed. That was the extent of the report at that stage. We got up and as we watched we saw the second plane come in. I recall that that day I probably spent hours watching the events over there. It numbed not only the people of the United States but anyone who loved freedom to see what was occurring. As I said, it was a day I will never, ever forget.

We saw two of the best recognised buildings in the world attacked. We saw those buildings brought down. We made assumptions there and then about what the loss of life would be. It was extraordinarily high. We then saw the Pentagon, which is the heart of the world's greatest military, under attack and on fire. What we saw was a product of the real face of evil. Subsequent to that we also saw the resolve of people—all of those who support freedom, tolerance, inclusion and the democratic principles—to come together to fight such evil.

The commemorative ceremonies in New York last week were incredibly moving. Ten years on they are still inspirational. The way in which citizens of the United States have supported each other over that whole period—people were tragically killed and families were separated too early—is an example of what a strong society can do. That is something that should be admired.

The commemorative events, as we could see, allowed for loved ones or victims to tell their stories and ensured that children, some of whom never got a chance to meet their parents, understand what really happened. It is really inspirational to see members of the community, 10 years on, continuing to support one another emotionally, physically and spiritually, ensuring that the memory of such a catastrophic event has actually served to strengthen the resolve of a society and the bonds that keep it together. Rather than break it, we have seen that the events have strengthened the resolve.

Even out of a tragedy as great as this there have arisen stories of the great spirit and heroism of men and women. In circumstances of disaster, particularly this tragedy, people give us great hope and faith in the resilience and spirit of mankind who face moral and physical danger and challenge. In the case of 9-11 there was an abundance of stories, particularly from firefighters and police officers. I had the opportunity, when I visited the United States 18 months ago, to visit the memorial to those who had lost their lives there. I spent time with the firefighters as well as the police. When I visited the World Trade Center commemorative office—I am not sure of the actual title—the guide who took us through had lost his son Jonathon. Unlike many others, this guide was fortunate enough to recover the body of his son. He knew that his son had died a hero. That story in particular stuck with me because my wife Bernadette was with me at the time and our youngest boy is called Jonathon.

Those of us who witnessed that September 11 attack on our televisions screens will never forget the horror of it. I can only imagine what it would have been like for those New Yorkers who were there. They got up to go to work on a day which was no different to any other day and then had this impact on their lives in such an extraordinary way. Hitherto it would have been seen as unbelievable that that could occur in the United States.

For many of us, let's face it, America is not a country that is foreign. It is a country that many of us travel to. New York is one of my favourite cities around the globe. It is certainly a city, as the song says, that never sleeps. I think that applies to people right around the globe. The extent of this horror, the indiscriminate killing, did not affect only citizens of the United States; most people saw this as an attack on our way of life.

There were 10 Australians amongst the thousands who died. That is something that we also have regard to. Our thoughts should go to the families of those 10 Australians who lost their lives. Among them was Yvonne Kennedy, a widow with two sons, from Westmead, in the electorate next to mine. She had retired from the Red Cross after 25 years of service and was on her retirement holiday. Those of us in the Labor Party certainly remember Andrew Knox, an industrial officer who worked for my former union, the Australian Workers Union, in Adelaide. He was working on the 103rd floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. For Leanne Whiteside of Melbourne, it was her second day on the job working for an insurance company. Alberto Dominguez was a retired Qantas baggage handler. He had worked for Qantas for 21 years and was a very prominent member of the Spanish community. Leslie Thomas from the New South Wales Central Coast was working in New York as an options trader for Cantor Fitzgerald, a company that, unbelievably, lost 700 people that day. They sound like figures now, but, putting that in context of humanity, that is probably one of the worst assaults on freedom-loving people around the globe. As I said, whilst the attack may have occurred in the United States, it vibrated significantly amongst all people who hold freedom true to their hearts. It reminds us of how interconnected we all are. As I said, New York is a very vibrant city. It is one of the most multicultural cities in the world and it is certainly one of the most generous when it comes to welcoming people.

As has been reiterated many times over the past few days—in fact, over the last 10 years since 9-11—it really changed the course of our history. That is the case not only for the United States but for all its allies and all countries who believe in freedom, tolerance and inclusion and adhere to democratic principles. Clearly, we are one of those. Since then, our police and intelligence services have been far better equipped, informed and prepared to go about their task in preventing our community from the prospect of terrorist attack. Our communications and cooperation with intelligence agencies of all allied nations have been strengthened significantly over this period. A number of pieces of legislation, both in this government and in the former government, have been passed unanimously to ensure that our national security forces and underpinning laws are such that they equip the people that we rely upon to protect our nation with the necessary tools and regulatory support to do their business—that is, protect our communities. We need to ensure that we are in step with all the technological advancements, particularly in the areas of communication and transport, so that we can guard against the potential of more violence in our communities.

Returning to the anniversary of September 11, 10 years has passed and the sense of loss and grief certainly still remains in the hearts of all those who lost loved ones. We should continue to express our condolences and offer our support to our great ally, our great friend, the United States. This reinforces our commitment to our mutual aims and mutual objectives.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was very moved by my colleague's speech just now and I would also like to add my words of condolence. Over the weekend we commemorated one of the most historic and terrible events in the modern era. On 11 September 2001 the world lost its innocence when 2,977 men, women and children lost their lives in the single most repugnant terrorist attack in living memory. We all remember, even 10 years on, where we were on that day. I was visiting my parents for a family meal. They went off to bed but I stayed up to speak with my siblings and watch the news with them. I will never forget the horror that I felt when our program was interrupted by live coverage of the second plane plunging into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. I walked into my parents' bedroom, turned on the light and told them the terrible news that terrorists had hijacked two planes, American Airlines flight 11 and United Airlines flight 175, with the direct purpose of killing all those on board along with the people in the buildings that they struck. We learnt later that another plane, American Airlines flight 77, was deliberately flown into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a fourth plane—United Airlines flight 93—was heading for Washington DC before it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania due to the heroism of those who tried to wrest back control from the hijackers on the plane on that day.

It was a calculated and cowardly attack. We remember all those who lost their lives and we mourn for all of them. As the member for Higgins, it is my very solemn duty here today to remember one person in particular, a constituent of mine in Higgins, one of the 10 Australians who perished on that dark day. Leanne Whiteside, a lawyer from Prahran, died in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Leanne committed no crime. She was not a member of any armed forces. She was simply at her place of work. She was 31. There can be no justification, no rationale, for the events of that day, because no god, no matter what faith, would condone the kind of cold-blooded murder that occurred.

These thousands of murders were conceived of and carried out by the militant terrorist group al-Qaeda, pursuing an agenda of hate, fear and ignorance. In response to that terrible, terrible day, President George Bush in his address to the nation said:

A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining. Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature. And we responded with the best of America—with the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could.

As we remember this terrible day in the world's history, we stand side by side with our American brothers and sisters. We take comfort and support from the close bonds that our two nations take so much pride in. The relationship between Australia and the United States is so much deeper than a signature on a treaty; it is a relationship based on a deep and entrenched understanding and united belief in our common humanity and dignity and in the freedoms that we hold so dear. It is a relationship based on common values, culture and principles—defending freedom, repudiating fear and ignorance.

Former Prime Minister John Howard was there on that day and the day that followed. He said it best when he said:

… terrorists oppose nations such as the United States and Australia not because of what we have done but because of who we are and because of the values that we hold in common …

On Sunday I attended the 9-11 memorial service with the US Consul General in Melbourne, Frank Urbancic; Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu; Lord Mayor Robert Doyle; my good friend and colleague Josh Frydenberg; and a number of other community leaders from many denominations and faiths. It was an opportunity to reflect on all those who have lost their lives in this shocking act of violence and on those who have lost their lives defending democracy and freedom. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families and with those—police, ambulance and firefighters—who were first on the scene and came to their aid. Our thoughts and prayers are also with the soldiers and their families who have lost so much in the fight to defend freedom and democracy. We think, too, of the political leaders and community leaders who needed so much courage on that day and on the days that followed.

Make no mistake—there are those in this world who oppose and resent our way of life. They have a core view that they would destroy our way of life, the values that we hold dear and all that we believe in. We can take solace in the knowledge that these people represent the fringe elements of our society and do not represent the masses. However, we must never be complacent in our resolve to eradicate from the world the hate and violence that these people represent. Now more than ever we must continue our struggle to espouse the values of democracy and freedom. We will never forget the heroism of the people who came to the aid of those who were struck on that day, we will never forget those who lost their lives, and we will never forget those who are currently fighting in other lands to defend our freedom and democracy. We will never forget.

Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The motion that we are speaking on here is very poignant. It is about one of the great tragedies of our times, from which so many consequences have flowed. In fact, I would not be standing here today as the member for Eden-Monaro had these events not taken place. For many people, 9-11 began a chain of events that led to many things. A lot of suffering and a loss of life began with the well-recorded events of that day, with its tragedy and poignancy, when the planes crashed into the World Trade Center. We all remember the phone calls that were later replayed and the messages and heartrending comments and scenes that took place on that day, as well as the incredible and inspiring bravery of those on United Airlines flight 93 who prevented the plane from being flown to Washington to cause further damage. Their memory in particular will live on as an example to all of us.

There was a great deal on this anniversary of 9-11 to remember and to commemorate, and a great deal about which to condole the families who still remain. So much suffering was caused by this attack not only to those who lost their lives or were injured but also to the families who had to deal with the consequences. The futility and the pointlessness of it really strikes us. These people, who were living their lives innocently and not wishing anyone ill, were made the subject of this assault, which is one of the most horrendous acts we have witnessed in our time.

That day I was serving at the UN headquarters in Dili, and I knew that our lives in the military would be changed forever and that there would have to be an answer—and certainly a great deal followed. We all rallied behind the effort in Afghanistan. There was no question that denying the opportunities that the entire state of Afghanistan offered to al-Qaeda and like-minded organisations to deploy their assets and abilities was a just sacrifice of the treasure and the blood of the international community. So much evil had emanated from Afghanistan over so many years that it was just and meet that we should attempt to deal with the situation in Afghanistan and deny it to al-Qaeda and like-minded organisations as a base of operations. They had the ability to raise funds and even the ability to create regular formations, they were doing research into chemical and biological weapons in order to cause even more heartrending scenes of devastation around the world, and we knew that Australia too was in the crosshairs of these people. We should regret the lost opportunities of Afghanistan. If the blood and treasure that was diverted from our effort in Afghanistan into Iraq had been deployed in Afghanistan, we would not be discussing Afghanistan today. We went into Iraq on a tangent from our main mission and pursued the lie of weapons of mass destruction. We went in there in defence of a sanctions regime that, little did we know, was being broken behind our backs in our own country by the Australian Wheat Board—with the knowledge, it later transpired, of those in the administration of this country. We sent our soldiers to war to fight a dictator into whose war chest $300 million was being placed through those actions. It was a shameful experience and a shameful waste of lives and money—$1 trillion from the US alone over that period of time. As I said, we would not be discussing Afghanistan now if we had not been diverted.

I certainly had no problems with dealing with the issue of Saddam Hussein. Having once deployed into Iraq and having spent a year there, I certainly came to appreciate the full horror of what he was inflecting on his population. I visited mass graves including one gravesite alone that contained the bodies of 10,000 people. There were also the vile tortures that were taking place in institutions like Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. But it was a mission that came too early. We needed to get done what we had to do in Afghanistan. It was not only that we went into Iraq based on a false premise; it was also so badly planned and handled in the execution. In that effort in Iraq, I lost a lot of friends and colleagues whose spirit I carry with me today and who motivated me to work in their honour, on their behalf, to improve our approach to security policy. And of course it was what led me to stand for Eden-Monaro. In honour of their memory, we have improved our approach to the challenges we face in this world of complex counterinsurgency and multidimensional operations, and in particular the challenge of Islamist extremism.

I think that one of the great victims of this terrible tragedy, the day of 9-11, was the religion of Islam itself. This is a time when Islam is going through a period of struggle with where it wants to go, and the vast majority of Muslims in this world are peaceful, peace-loving people. There are a small minority, a small cadre, that would like to hijack that religion and turn it into something much more vile. It is similar to the struggle that went on during the Reformation within Christianity. We are engaged in a battle for the soul of Islam, and we need to do all we can to help in that struggle to promote interfaith dialogue and to promote understanding.

One of the things we need to understand in this country is that our greatest defence against the threat of terrorism is our own Muslim community. Our own Muslim community will be our first line of defence, because in order for these organisations to operate and to succeed, they have to have a base from which to operate. Certainly we have seen home-grown versions of this sort of terrorism occurring, for example in the UK. In order for us to avoid these sorts of consequences and to succeed in our effort against Islamist extremism, we need to make sure that we are inclusive, that we work with our Muslim community in this country and that we continue to draw on their strengths, as supporters of this country and as decent citizens, to make sure that there is no base for operations by these sorts of terrorists.

I do not want to get political in a motion like this, but there are voices in our own parliament that are not assisting with that effort. I will not name names here, but I would encourage those people who are driving an agenda that alienates the Muslim community in this country to think about that very carefully and to think about the sorts of people they engage with internationally who are also not assisting in that agenda. I would ask those who are in a leadership position and who deal with those members to pull those members aside and have a good long, hard talk to them and understand how security is achieved internationally and in this country.

I would like to finish by paying tribute not only to the victims of 9-11 but to all those who have suffered and lost their lives since that time. In particular, at a time like this and on a day like 9-11, I think of my friends and colleagues who died in the subsequent struggles, who gave their lives faithfully for their country in this effort. Sometimes their effort was not set upon the proper path, but they gave their lives in good faith. I carry their memory with me every day and I continue to serve in their honour.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Sunday I joined federal and state parliamentary colleagues, the US Consul-General and religious leaders from Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths at the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001. It was a sombre occasion and an appropriate time to reflect on the impact the events of 9-11 had on the world and on our subsequent efforts to minimise the risk of it ever happening again.

I have vivid memories of that night, now more than a decade ago. I had been attending a local electorate function in the Adelaide Hills with my then boss, the then member for Mayo, Alexander Downer. I had just returned to my accommodation, a small bed and breakfast run by a lovely couple, Nan and Ted, when I received a phone call asking me to turn on my television. As soon as I did I saw the horrific image of the first tower burning. I quickly rang Alexander to alert him to what was taking place. As he turned on his own television I heard his wife, Nicky, scream out in the background as she, too, was shocked by what she saw.

I quickly drove around to the Downer home, where we all sat glued to the screen as we watched a tragedy unfolding before our eyes. With then Prime Minister John Howard in Washington, Alexander, as foreign minister, had an even more critical role that night. I remember his phone calls with Acting Prime Minister John Anderson as they talked about convening a meeting of the government's National Security Committee and canvassed the ramifications of this terrorist attack. That night details were sketchy—the who, the how and the why were still to be answered. But one thing was certain: the world was never to be the same again.

The events of 9-11, which saw nearly 3,000 people, including 10 Australians, lose their lives, has ushered in a new period of strategic uncertainty. No longer living in fear of another country's tanks rolling over their borders, as they did during the Cold War, Western nations are now more alert to the challenges posed by asymmetric warfare. A powerful army is no deterrent to the terrorist hijacking a plane or carrying a dirty bomb. They know they can bring a city to its knees with their limited means.

Australia is not immune to this global threat. Indeed, in many ways the Bali bombings and the subsequent death of 88 innocent Australians was our own 9-11. Any sense of innocence was lost that day. As the world picked up the pieces after 9-11 Australia has been at the pointy end of the global response. The ANZUS treaty was invoked for the first time, seeing our troops deployed to Afghanistan to take on al-Qaeda and their conspirators in the Taliban.

We also rapidly mobilised resources for our partners in the region as they built their intelligence and operational capacity to counter the extremists who had caused so much damage. Terrorist groups, Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Sayyaf and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba were now all on notice that there were no safe havens to be found.

Domestically we responded by dramatically increasing our counter-terrorism capability, particularly in the two key organisations, ASIO and the Australian Federal Police, the AFP. The then Director-General of ASIO, Dennis Richardson, and then AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty showed great leadership transforming Australia's security architecture to meet this serious threat.

The government's own white paper on counter-terrorism, which was released last year, details how Australia has had 35 people prosecuted for terrorism offences pursuant to the Criminal Code, 20 of whom have been convicted, and, 'More than 40 Australians have had their passports revoked or applications denied for reasons related to terrorism.' It is a powerful reminder that the threat from home-grown extremists is real.

I have little doubt we are winning the war on terror. The death of bin Laden was significant; however, there is no room for complacency as circumstances can change overnight. We must continue to work closely with our closest friend and ally, the United States, whose global reach is unrivalled and whose values are most consistent with our own. We must also continue to strengthen our regional ties, including with Indonesia, the natural leader of ASEAN, our largest immediate neighbour and the world's most populous Muslim nation. Further abroad, we must see through our important contribution in Afghanistan as we assist their national army and police to develop the skills and resources to assume control. We cannot afford failed states in Afghanistan, in nuclear armed Pakistan or in our region. This will require a significant long-term investment from all countries, including Australia, which must play its part.

As we look back, a decade on from the events of 9-11, we mourn those who lost their lives but at the same time we take comfort from the substantial progress we are making to ensure that such a tragedy never happens again.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Sunday, Peter Negron once again stood before a crowd gathered in Lower Manhattan to remember and pay tribute to the victims of the September 11 tragedy. Two years after losing his father in the attacks, Peter, then a slight 13-year-old barely able to reach the microphone, had read the children's poem Stars, including the lines:

I felt them watching over me, each one

And let me cry and cry till I was done.

The enduring acuteness of the loss and sorrow felt by the nation was captured by the boy's shaking voice.

At the time of the attacks, I was living in Boston. On the morning of 11 September 2001, standing in the atrium of the Littauer Building at the Harvard Kennedy School, I looked up at the television screen and saw smoke pouring out of the Twin Towers. Around me were students from all over the globe, including many Americans. Some had friends who had boarded flights leaving Boston at eight that morning—friends they would never see again.

That morning we were supposed to choose our classes. To help us decide, Harvard had each professor give a short overview of the course they were offering. By chance, I entered the room where Michael Ignatieff was presenting his overview. After a minute's silence to remember those who had died that morning, Ignatieff spoke eloquently about international law and the challenges of deciding when to intervene in another nation for humanitarian reasons. He balanced the head and the heart: the need to honour those we have lost while thoughtfully considering the circumstances to justify sending our military overseas. When I left his classroom, one of the Twin Towers had fallen. The second would fall minutes afterwards.

This week, Peter Negron spoke of how he has tried to be a father figure to his younger brother, and his plans for the future. Ten years have passed since Peter's father's death and, while the depth of his heartache was still visible, it was heartening to see the young man's fortitude. Nearly 3,000 families lost a son, daughter, sister, brother, father or mother on September 11.

Ten Australians are known to have died. From New South Wales, Alberto Dominguez, from Lidcombe, age 66, was a Qantas baggage handler; Yvonne Kennedy, 62, was on American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon; Craig Gibson, 37, from Randwick, was working in the World Trade Center's north tower, in the offices of insurers Marsh & McLennan; Steve Tompsett, 39, from Merrylands, was in the north tower; Elisa Ferraina, 27, from Sydney, who had just taken out UK citizenship, having been born in Australia, was in the north tower; and Lesley Thomas, 41, was also in the north tower. From Victoria, Leanne Whiteside, 31, a lawyer from Melbourne, was in the south tower; and Peter Gyulavary, 44, born in Geelong, was in the south tower. From South Australia, Andrew Knox, 29, from Adelaide, was in the north tower. I remember Andrew's friend Kirsten Andrews coming to stay with me in Boston shortly afterwards as she worked through the experience of losing such a close friend. From Queensland, Kevin Dennis, 43, from the Gold Coast, was a US based stockbroker with Cantor Fitzgerald, a firm which lost two-thirds of its employees on that fateful day. In the 10 years after the September 11 attacks there has been something of a trend among academics and commentators to focus on where to place blame—blame for the initial attacks, blame for the subsequent fighting. Christopher Hitchens, while describing Osama bin Laden as 'the proud beneficiary of the export of violence', highlights the indecency of trying to act as a mouthpiece of terrorists and engaging in apologist rhetoric. As Hitchens notes, there are legitimate grievances held by the Palestinian people. United States foreign policy is sometimes imperfect. But to link these with al-Qaeda's primeval, totalitarianism, misogynist, anti-modern ideology is deeply wrong. Hitchens points out that after Salvador Allende was murdered on 11 September 1973, the Chilean opposition had legitimate grievances against the United States. But the Chilean opposition never dreamed of pursuing their goals by committing atrocities against civilians on United States soil. Nothing justifies the mass murder of civilians.

Hitchens emphasises the duty we owe to others who continue to suffer, such as 'Afghanistan's people, whose lives were rendered impossible by the Taliban long before we felt any pain'. Australia has a proud history of upholding this responsibility by serving around the world as peacekeepers. Since 1947, more than 30,000 Australians have worked for the cause of international peace and security. Today marks the 64th anniversary of our involvement in international peacekeeping. I pay tribute to one of my predecessors as the member for Fraser, John Langmore, who has been a strong advocate for the global role played by Australian peacekeepers.

Our peacekeeping efforts were recently recognised by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who acknowledged the work of Australians in Africa, Europe, Central America, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific region. Australian peacekeepers saved lives, helped communities and worked to rebuild nations. Those efforts are continuing today in Afghanistan—about which I spoke in much more detail in parliament last October.

To say that September 11 changed the world is no exaggeration, but it also reinforced some absolutes. Australia continues to share the United States' vehement opposition to terrorism. Together we remember the lives that have been lost and together we will work to ensure that such a tragedy does not occur again, be it in our own country or elsewhere. It is our responsibility to ourselves and to the world to work towards a peaceful future.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

September 11, 2001 is a date that is etched into the collective memory of the world. On that day, as we know, four flights were scheduled to travel from the east coast of the US to California, and we know that none would complete that journey. At 8.46 am—a time that we do remember—five hijackers crashed American Airlines flight 11 into the World Trade Center's north tower and at 9.03 am another five hijackers crashed United Airlines flight 175 into the south tower. Yet another five hijackers flew American Airlines flight 77 into the Pentagon at 9.37 am. There were another four hijackers on United Airlines flight 93 who were taking that plane to Washington DC, perhaps to attempt to crash it into the Capitol Building that houses America's congress. However, the passengers and crew on United flight 93 fought back and the flight recorder records show that they may have been on the verge of retaking the plane. But, in response, the hijackers crashed the plane into a field in Pennsylvania. The south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed at 9.59 am—you see the sequence of events—and the north tower followed suit at 10.28 am.

I do not think there is any person in this place or anyone out in the community who will ever forget where they were when that was happening. How many of us—like me—when watching this happening on television first thought, 'I must be watching a movie'? I just thought, 'I must be watching a movie.' I just could not believe what I was seeing. The dreadful horror of that being real is with me today, and I am sure that is echoed by every peace-loving person who values human life in this world. Anybody who watched that unfold and watched the horror of that aircraft hitting that building could not fail to be impacted by that forever, knowing the terror felt by the people in that building and those in the plane—the passengers; what was going through their minds? We fly from all around Australia to come to Canberra every week. You just have to imagine yourself being on that flight to know what would be in your head during that particular flight.

We have heard stories of what people have said. There is so much information out there about the experiences people had, about the desperation but also the courage: the courage of people in the towers—the emergency services people, the people who were running up the stairs while others were having to run out. These people knew what was most likely the outcome for them, but they still did this. And that is one reason why all of us, no matter where we are, have an incredible respect for our emergency services and law enforcement officials. We saw that on that day in the way that we see that frequently here and overseas.

We were all praying that more people would get out of those buildings. We had no idea, from where we were watching, how many people were actually getting out, making their way out from the bottom of those towers, before they collapsed and as they were collapsing. But everybody was praying, because we had been told that there were possibly 20,000 or more people in those two places. And the horror of that was with all of us.

So, as those towers collapsed, the horror was indescribable. I can only imagine what the families who had people there in those towers were going through themselves, and I would suggest that many of the emotional scars remain today—not just from the fact that they may have lost their loved ones but also from the impact of what they had to go through themselves in watching that evolve. Those are the sorts of scars that do not leave you.

Two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-seven innocent people died, and the hijackers. Two hundred and forty-six passengers and crew on those four aircraft were also sacrificed. The numbers are just mind-boggling. At the Pentagon, 125 lives were lost, of whom 55 were military personnel. At the World Trade Center, 2,606 people were killed, including 411 very brave emergency services workers from the New York police department, the police fire department, firefighters and paramedics, the New York port authority police department and eight private company paramedics. Among those who were at the World Trade Center, at least 200 people fell or jumped to their deaths to avoid the flames and smoke. I suspect that everybody in this House who saw that footage will remember that sight and how we felt seeing what was happening to those people and the desperate decisions they were forced to make.

But then there were those who planned and instigated this crime against all of the world's humanity—and this was not just a crime against people in the US; this was a crime against us all. For everybody who values human life and who values a peaceful existence, this was a crime against us all. The 9/11 Commission Report alleges that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the principal architect of the 9-11 attacks. He is also alleged to have played a significant role in many of the most significant terrorist plots of recent decades, including the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, and the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing that killed 202 people including 88 incredible Australians. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured on 1 March 2003 in Pakistan and transferred to US custody. In March 2007, he confessed to masterminding the September 11 attacks, the Bali nightclub bombing, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and various other attacks.

The horror of the September attack lives not just in America but, as I said, all around the world. For the 10 Australian people who had their lives cut short, we mourn them as their families do, and I am sure their families mourn them every day. It does not go away for these people. It is not just that you remember them one day of the year. And we should note that those responsible for these atrocities are responsible often for similar atrocities against their own people, because they do not value human life. We see that in other nations. We see it in Afghanistan. And while we see such evil in these people, the response of strength and the response of resolve from the rest of the world and world leaders is part of what we need to do to counter this threat.

In looking at the DFAT site I note that they also said that we need to be constantly aware of the need for security and for the development of strategic and sustained national responses, and that transnational terrorism presents Australia with a challenge previously unknown. We do know that the cyber world presents a level of terrorism that we have not experienced before, and we do know that globalisation has put Australia within the reach of transnational terrorists. As we know, we are international traders, and part of that reach is international trading. We travel extensively, and we also engage internationally as peacekeepers and peacemakers, as we see in the community-building that is happening in Afghanistan. It is critical that Australia and Australians acknowledge that we are part of the transnational threat and that the need for vigilance is constant. This is the world as we know it now, and so counter-terrorism efforts in this nation and around the world are an area of great focus for this nation and need to be ongoing.

In closing, let me say that we do need to stay the course. We need to maintain our focus on counter-terrorism activities, and we need to maintain a relationship, a very strong activity, with the US and our alliance—those who, on the day, John Howard grieved with and supported and about whom he made a very strong statement on behalf of Australia and Australians. As a nation we cannot afford to drop our guard on this, and I urge all members to recognise the responsibility we bear in that in this place.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This year is the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the United States. These events have probably done more to reshape the future of the free world as we know it than almost any other event, certainly in recent history. I want to speak on this motion and on these events because I want to be on the record as having supported the comments by members and senators. I also want to support the United States of America, the American people and the Australians who lost their lives and their families. As well, I want to support the comments of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and all those who have said things about what this anniversary means to the United States, to Australia and to the world.

It is important that we pause to remember and reflect because of the significance of what took place. Ten years ago here in Australia we woke and turned on our TVs to be confronted with scenes that we could not believe—planes flying into buildings and destroying those buildings and eventually killing more than 3,000 people, including the Australians who lost their lives that day. They were people from all walks of life, from all backgrounds, from all faiths and from all parts of the world. While it may have been an act that was directed at the United States, in the end it was an act against all decent human beings. No-one who saw those scenes that day could possibly in any way forget them. It was truly a tragic day.

They were almost impossible scenes. I think we all remember what we were doing and where we were. I remember looking at the news on the TV and not actually believing what I saw. I thought it was a hoax. I just could not believe that it was possible. They were impossible images; they were impossible thoughts. It was something that I thought just could not happen. But it did, and we realised our own frailty in a whole range of different ways. We saw all those images of the tragedy of death: the people on the plane, having lost control of their ability to do anything about their fate; the people in the buildings, having lost control of the ability to do anything about their fate and, as we heard from the previous speaker and others, people going to incredible lengths to either try to save themselves or decide it was better to perish by leaping from a building than to be consumed by fire or overcome by smoke; and, those that could not be rescued, finding their fate in the end by being trapped in a building that collapsed. It did change all of our lives. It did change a whole range of things about us, including the way we look at the world and the way we look at ourselves.

September 11 also changed ordinary people's lives. It certainly changed nations and it has changed the way we approach a range of things. But I think an even more profound impact has been the way it is has changed ordinary people's lives. It has changed the way we travel to and from certain places, such as domestic airports and international airports, in the way travel documents are inspected and the way that we are screened at particular airports. It has changed the way that we visit government buildings, with no better example than Parliament House itself. The amount of change that has taken place here, while all for the better in terms of our security, means we have lost a little piece of innocence from our lives as ordinary people. It has also had an impact on going into any metropolitan city or even regional cities; just getting into significant buildings and places, tourism places, has changed. There has been a profound impact.

In the end, that is what terrorism does. I do not think we can walk away from that. Terrorism does have an enormous impact. But it has also created a resolve amongst the free world, the Western world. For Australia, it meant we invoked article 4 of the ANZUS treaty to stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies the United States. We decided that we would face terrorism, that we would not be driven into a dark, deep hole and cower in the face of terrorism, but that we would face it—and we would face it wherever it was, whether it was in Bali, in South-East Asia, on home soil, in the United States or any other country. US Ambassador Bleich put it succinctly at the commemoration here in Canberra when he said:

Confronted with hate, we choose not to hate.

Confronted with death, we choose to live.

Confronted with fear, we choose to hope.

Australia has played a significant part in choosing to do those things. Part of our response was that we sent Australian troops overseas to fight terrorism in all its forms and in all its places, in Iraq and in Afghanistan in particular. To date, 29 Australian soldiers have given their lives in Afghanistan. But our commitment to ensuring that Afghanistan does not fall into the grip of the Taliban or terrorists continues to this day. As we have heard from other members in this place, we will stick to our mission and we will continue to do what is required of us. Terrorism is not a problem that is faced by any one country, any one nation, any one people at any one particular time. It is something that faces all of us all of the time. The attack on American soil was also an attack on us. I believe that, while we do have choices, we do not have a choice in these matters. We do not step away from what has been presented to us. We need to respond.

If the goal of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden—and, I imagine, of other people who organise terrorist attacks—was to weaken us through such attacks, they were wrong. If their thought and their strategy was that killing Americans on American soil in an act of terrorism that was almost unimaginable would weaken us, frighten us and eventually defeat us, they were wrong. If they thought that this would cease the progress of free, democratic nations in the world, then they were wrong—and they failed, because it did the complete reverse. It has been a long road—it has been 10 years since that terrorist attack—but we have not weakened. We have not lost our resolve. We have not lost our belief and our faith in democracy or our belief and faith in freedom—freedom of expression, of religion, of speech and of people to choose a government. If their goal and their strategy was to end the freedom of people by attacking the United States on home soil with a great act of terrorism, then they failed; in fact, I think they failed miserably because, in the end, it has done the complete opposite. We will make mistakes along the way. Anything that we have done in the past 10 years has not been a perfect response to what took place, but I do not think anything could be. This is new ground, new territory, and nothing that we do is a perfect answer or a solution. But we must continue to respond. We must continue in the face of what is presented to us and do something that is just and right. We must protect our people and also people in all parts of the world who deserve the protection and the freedom that we all enjoy—not freedom according to our own definition but in the way that it is defined by different people in different countries according to their own beliefs and their own cultures.

I wanted to take the time to place on the record the fact that those events have reshaped our nation, they have reshaped the world, and I believe that this government and the previous government took the right course of action. We will continue to do that and we will continue to support our allies the United States. We will always be united in our resolve against terrorism.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I followed the member for Oxley's contribution and agree largely with what he had to say. Sitting here and listening to the last few speakers, there has been a consistent theme that members have pursued, from different perspectives, of course. The member for Forrest gave her usual heartfelt contribution to this debate, and prior to that the member for Kooyong gave a genuinely decent assessment of the strategic challenges post-September 11, including his feelings from the day. I think that is what this motion is about: giving members an opportunity to express how 11 September, 2001 impacted on their lives, because it was, I think, the defining moment of our generation. It changed our lives quite considerably in multiple ways, and it made a huge impact on the psyche of those of us who live in developed countries, in democratic nations, in free lands, who look to the United States of America as the leader of the free world and as a fundamentally good nation that leads our freedom, that defends the freedom that we all enjoy and that has played a significant part in ensuring that people can live their lives as they wish to.

The people who conducted those attacks on the United States in September 2001 do not believe in freedom, and the disgraceful and disgusting sect of Islam that they follow is not about freedom; it is about control. It is about making people live in the way that they believe people should live. Reflecting on the last week or so, I thought that John Howard, who was there on the occasion of the September 11 attacks—I think it was his first visit to the United States after the election of President Bush—summed up brilliantly the feelings of the Australian people in a letter he wrote on that day to the United States on behalf of the Australian government. He said:

Dear Mr President,

The Australian Government and people share the sense of horror experienced by your nation at today's catastrophic events and the appalling loss of life. I feel the tragedy even more keenly being here in Washington at the moment.

In the face of an attack of this magnitude, words are always inadequate in conveying sympathy and support. You can however be assured of Australia's resolute solidarity with the American people at this most tragic time.

My personal thoughts and prayers are very much with those left bereaved by these despicable attacks upon the American people and the American nation.

Of course, they were attacks also upon the democratic societies which make up our Western world, and they also impacted on people who follow the same faith as those attackers, who claimed to follow the Islamic faith. It was a horrific day and I think those words reflected the feelings at the time.

The point that John Howard made when he said, 'You can … be assured of Australia's resolute solidarity,' was brought home just a couple of days ago in a letter from the President of the United States, President Obama, who confirmed in his letter that, for the 10 years since those attacks, Australia has been the best friend it could be to the United States of America. We have stood by our friend and partner, and we have done the right thing in doing so, in following and hunting down those who undertook the attacks—the al-Qaeda organisation and its affiliates. You would have to say, 10 years on, that that organisation is now an extremely diminished organisation with far less capacity to undertake attacks on the Western world than it had, obviously, in September 2001. But it has been a difficult journey and there has been much pain along the way. We again remember the attacks on Madrid, the attacks on London and, of course, the attacks closest to Australia—the attacks on Bali, which undoubtedly were targeted at Australians and, unfortunately, successfully, killing 88 of our citizens.

So there has been much pain since September 11, but there has also been much ground made in the battle against these extremists, the battle against those who would do us ill. Only a few months ago now—and I pay tribute to President Obama for the courageous decision that he made in ensuring it—Osama bin Laden was brought to justice for all the evil that he spread throughout the world. It was a courageous decision of President Obama's and he did dedicate resources from the moment he was elected President. I think that was a truly good thing that President Obama was able to do.

We have also had—and I think the member for Oxley was right to reflect on this—a substantial change in the way that we live our lives because of the attacks of September 11. No doubt before September 11 security was important, but now security is paramount. You only have to look around this building to see the impact on security and the impact on the risk management decisions that now have to be made by organisations. The impact on airports was, of course, quite significant, though, as we all know if we have travelled to the United States, the impact here was nothing like the impact in the United States—but, still, an inconvenience for travellers and an additional cost for people.

These things do cost a lot of money and they have a lot of impact in terms of both time and money, but, again, there is the risk management element: people are not willing to risk the threat of attack. But we do have to balance those security measures—the extraordinary laws and powers that we have given our law enforcement agencies—with our right to live our lives in the freedom that we enjoy. We do not want to allow those extremists who we fight against to win by controlling our lives to such an extent through overt or covert powers being handed to people who are designated to protect. That is a loss of our liberty and it is a loss that we should make sure that we do not hand to those who seek to do us harm. So there is a balance there, and I think that, after 10 years, we need to continually reflect upon that balance—the human rights element of our liberty versus the importance of ensuring the laws are strong enough to protect us. It was, as everyone has reflected in this debate, one of those moments in time that we will not forget. I was sitting at home by myself watching the old Channel 7 Talking Footy program when the news cut in. I remember turning to Channel 10 and seeing Sandra Sully. I do not think many people could forget the distressed look on her face as the second plane ploughed into second tower in New York. It was frightening, and I think it frightened most people. People woke up the next morning to it. It was an attack which caused the biggest loss of life in United States history on the mainland. It was brought home to us and it changed the way we look at our lives. In that respect, it will continue to be a very significant anniversary.

As I began my remarks, the United States of America is a force for good in our world and long may it reign as the leader of the free world. We want and need the United States of America to be the primary force of good in our world. They need our support to maintain that, and we should stand here and support them in that desire, that aim and that goal. They have proved to be a very good friend of Australia; we have proved to be a very good friend of the United States.

It is sad that it took an occasion like that to bring our friendship even closer but it did. We stand today together as close as we have ever been. People use a religion for very evil purposes and, on this occasion of the 10th anniversary, it is right for us to reflect upon those matters. We think about the people who gave their life on that day, whether they be Australian, American or otherwise. We reflect on those people who have given their life since that time, whether in terrorist attacks across the globe or our servicemen who are fighting against these people. We reflect on the great freedom that the United States represents, that Western democracies represent, and we reflect upon how important it is to maintain that freedom that we so enjoy.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to associate myself with the comments made by the member for Mayo and other members in the House. I also want to make my contribution to the Prime Minister's motion on the 10th anniversary of September 11. In doing so, I would also like to offer my condolences to Ambassador Geoffrey Bleich. I was unable to attend the memorial service in Canberra on Sunday because I had another commitment in my electorate but I thank the ambassador for his invitation to be there.

There is no question that the events of September 11, 10 years ago, left the world a very different place. As the member for Mayo indicated in his closing remarks, I also, like many Australians, was at home when the initial footage of the first aeroplane was shown and the subsequent one hit the Twin Towers in New York City. I think initially, it is fair to say, a lot of Australians would have thought there was something very unreal about what we were seeing and it was very difficult to believe that it was actually happening. Sadly, it was a very real event. The fact that we were able to view live pictures brought home the impossibility of such an event taking place in such a novel way of bringing destruction and loss of life on home soil in the United States. I think that image is an iconic one of a major catastrophe in the 21st century.

As many speakers have said before me, the events of September 11 changed our lives dramatically. First and foremost, there was the loss of life of thousands of innocent people. Australians were lost on that day. They died in the towers and, subsequently, it was the beginning of a whole series of events in the past decade that have been referred to: the London bombings, the Bali bombings—all are acts of terror perpetrated against innocent civilians in the name of, in this case, Islam. It was a time that focused our concentration on what the Islamic faith actually stood for, what it represented, and I want to go on the record as saying that people involved in terrorist acts, such as those of 10 years ago, who say it is in the name of Islam are in fact doing the Islamic faith not only a great disservice but also, as many of my own constituents of the Muslim faith constantly tell me, not acting according to the principles of Islam. Islam is a peaceful religion and it abhors acts of terrorism.

I go directly to my constituency, because I have spoken many times in this House about the very large Muslim constituency that resides in the federal seat of Calwell; it is the second largest in Australia and the largest in Victoria. I feel that it is important that, on their behalf—and I have done this many times in this place over the last 10 years—I have spoken of the impact that the events of September 11 had on their lives. That impact may not have been as dramatic and as definitive as the loss of life of those who were in the Twin Towers in New York on that day, but there has been an impact on Muslims across the world, including the Muslim community here in Australia. The best way to characterise the impact that those horrible events had on our local community is to say that, the day after September 11, Australians of Muslim faith woke to realise that, from being seen as migrants with a migrant experience and generally part of the broader community, they had suddenly become identified immediately as Muslims and cast in a terrible light as a result of those horrible events that took place before our very eyes. Unfortunately for the community, they were very much framed within the context of a national security risk to Australia and to the broader global community. That was the immediate negative impact on Muslim communities here in Australia, let alone internationally.

The positive side of this is that we live in a very successful multicultural community that was able to come together very quickly, recognising the possibilities for great division between us all. At the forefront of that coming together was not only acknowledging their solidarity with the people who had lost their lives and expressing their anger over what had happened but also assisting the Muslim community in Australia to deal with this issue—because the truth is that they were the 'it' community at that time, under the scrutiny of the international community, not to mention the media, particularly here in Australia. Their faith leaders came together in interfaith dialogues. We were all able to establish relationships to basically help manage the pressure that this community was under.

As I said on Saturday night in my electorate, at an Eid festival—which is the festival marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan—we are able to reflect on where the community here in Australia has got to 10 years later. And it is a good story; it is actually a positive story. The Muslim community has emerged much stronger, it has developed significant relationships with other members of the wider community and our interfaith networks are very strong. So I can say that, 10 years on, our community here in Australia is much stronger and our awareness of each other is much stronger. I think that is very important because Australia has stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States. We participated in the Iraq war that resulted from September 11 and we are still engaged in active duties in Afghanistan, so we are fulfilling our responsibilities on that level; but on another level Australia is also a great example to the rest of the world of how communities, not just of different ethnicities but also of different faiths, can live together and essentially maintain their cultural and linguistic inheritance and their faith in the context of being Australian.

I have heard many times in the last 10 years, in my travels overseas and from people who come here, references to Australia's society and our multiculturalism. They view us as a wonderful example of harmoniously and coherently managing diversity. In the many dialogues on the clash of civilisations that have taken place throughout the world in the last 10 years, Australia is always singled out as the country that has been able to manage differences of religion and diversity in an exemplary way.

Today I had the opportunity to speak to Peter Marshall, the National and Victorian State Secretary of the United Firefighters Union of Australia. He was here in Canberra on another matter, but we had a discussion in which I told Peter that I was going to be making some comments today on the anniversary of September 11. He brought to my attention—and we all know this—that the firefighters played a very significant role on that day and in the days following. In fact, a considerable number of firefighters lost their lives. That illustrates the kinds of danger which people who serve our community face—our soldiers, of course, and also our emergency services personnel. When they are at the forefront of such events, they do risk their lives. I would like to read the letter of solidarity that Peter Marshall sent to his counterpart, Harold Schaitberger, who is the General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters. It reads:

Dear General President Schaitberger,

On behalf of the United Firefighters Union of Australia and its members across Australia, please convey our solidarity and commitment to the families and colleagues of IAFF members who perished in the line of duty, 10 years ago in the September 11 attacks.

We will always remember the ultimate sacrifice that was made by IAFF members on that fateful day.

Our hearts and our thoughts are with you.

In solidarity

Peter Marshall

National and Vic State Secretary

UFUA

In addition, the Australian firefighters have joined with thousands of others at this moment in Colorado Springs to commemorate a memorial for the fallen firefighters and to remember all 347 who perished in the 9-11 attacks 10 years ago.

It is very important to acknowledge that September 11 changed our thinking about our own sense of security and safety. Many speakers have made reference to the incredible impact that it had on our sense of security here at Parliament House. Needless to say, we all undergo the very stringent security measures that have to be taken at airports in Australia and everywhere else we travel. It was a moment in history that has caused us to be a lot more wary and vigilant and it certainly opened up an incredible debate about the Islamic faith. As I said in my opening remarks, it is important on these occasions to reflect on the impact that such an iconic catastrophe has on all aspects of life and I wanted to concentrate on the impact that it has had on my own community. I want to say to the House that 10 years later we as a nation have grown from this and it is very important to keep that in perspective. We still have to maintain our vigilance and our wariness, but I think we have come to understand things that perhaps we did not understand prior to that.

I am very proud to say that it could have been to our detriment socially here in Australia but it was not. We have emerged a much stronger community, and certainly my community is very happy to be left to get on with its day-to-day business of living in mainstream Australia. This is very important to acknowledge. I am not going to name the people who have been involved in bringing communities together—there are too many of them. There have been many, many people. It has certainly been a great honour for me personally to work with some wonderful people and, again, I would like to close by offering my condolences to all who lost family and loved ones on that day, 11 September 2001.

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the 10th anniversary of this sad occasion as someone who was based in the United States for one-quarter of his life. During these formative years throughout my 20s and 30s I was exposed to and embraced the American way of life, the enduring commitment to personal liberty and unrestrained opportunity. During this time a song was released, a lament by the name of American Pie, by Don McLean. The song that many of us of a certain age may be familiar with was the poetic retelling of the 1959 crash of a light plane in Iowa that killed four people: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper and the pilot, Roger Peterson. This incident is recounted in the song as 'the day the music died'. Just like this tragedy, 11 September 2001 is about much more than a terrorist attack. It is about much more than 3,000 civilian lives that were lost that day. It is about much more than an aircraft now being considered a potential missile instead of just a mode of transport.

Last Sunday the US Ambassador to Australia, Mr Jeffrey Bleich, delivered a most moving speech at a ceremony on the 10th anniversary of September 11 here in Canberra. In his remarks Ambassador Bleich noted: 'The simple question on people's lips immediately after the terrorist attacks was: what do we do now?' This eloquently highlighted the way in which the world permanently changed on that fateful day. Ten years may seem like a long time, especially when so much has happened over the past decade, yet when the tragedies of 9-11 were recently revisited the shock was brought back to our collective minds as if it were yesterday. In the fullness of time there has been reflection and the words of Ambassador Bleich deserve repetition in this place:

In the 10 years since September 11, survivors of terrorism around the world have struggled … to understand what happened and why and how to stop it from happening again. Free people have come together from New York to Nairobi, from Bali to Belfast, from Mumbai to Manila, from Lahore to London and many other places and nations afflicted by terrorism. We have all been more careful at our borders, we have been more aware in our intelligence, we have been more aggressive in our response to terror. But we have been more than that. We have looked inward; and we have looked outward. We have been more inclusive of religions—learning each others traditions, hosting Iftars together, celebrating Ramadan and renewing our commitment to religious tolerance. We shared our thoughts and hopes and beliefs even more freely through our political processes.

We innovated and built new ways to communicate—social media—that connected us to more people around the world than ever before in human history. We made more friends. And we invested more than ever in our alliances and in our communities around the world. We gave more aid. We supported more charities. We welcomed new countries like South Sudan. And we celebrated the spirit of democracy among the people of Tunisia and other nations in this Arab Spring.

Then as now when our staunchest ally is attacked, our bond is tightened. Our Prime Minister, who was in Washington DC at that time, declared Australia's immediate willingness to partner with the United States, just as they would have responded had we been the direct target of such an attack.

Yet the events of the past decade have taught us so much more about our shared values and common approach to our existence in this new world. America has shown the capacity, and we have joined with them, to engage with our former enemies in a beneficial and mutually prosperous manner. We can look back through the pages of history from Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima to the bombing of Dresden and the fall of Saigon. We can identify any number of wartime incidents that we have since been able to move on from, patch wounds and mend fences.

There was no obligation on the part of the US to help rebuild Japan, implement the Marshall Plan and provide aid to a devastated postwar Europe, but it is this capacity to engage with their former enemies that lifts up the United States as truly beholden to its values. We too have been a beneficiary of that engagement, as have our former enemies that we now call trading partners and trusted friends.

As strong and forthright as America's belief is as the leader of the free world, their strength has been demonstrated by their capacity to pursue a course of action that restates what has made both our nations great: in welcoming all people to their shores, especially in the city where the Statue of Liberty stands as a beacon, welcoming the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Australia shares this legacy and, like the United States, we have benefited greatly from this investment of people's lives in our future. Similarly, like Australia, the United States has recognised errors of the past and continued genuine efforts to remedy those mistakes and come to terms with the people who occupied and cared for the land before our arrival. Many of those wounds remain exposed as only a relatively small amount of time has passed since the government policies that led to our own domestic tragedies like the stolen generations.

Yet I am also so very proud to say that this speech today was greatly assisted by the research performed by Kaitlan Forbes, an Indigenous high school student from Adelaide, who volunteered in my office and requested to contribute to this issue. I met Kaitlan as I was catching up with one of my oldest friends, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, who I observed firsthand as she broke racial barriers and rose to the top of her sport.

Kaitlan was only seven years old when the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked. In her research she showed great sympathy for the victims and their families but also chose to focus on the conflicts that have occurred since and her confusion as to how this would lead to a better outcome. She wrote this message on the notes she provided to me:

From my point of view it's like watching two children in a sand pit. One flicks sand into the others face and so the kid with sand in his face fills a bucket and dumps it on the others head. I do not fully understand the entire situation and I believe I will not but I do see that it is incorrect to attack because you have been attacked and kill innocent people in the cross fire.

These reasons are the very things that Ambassador Bleich talked about—charity, religious freedom, recognition and rights. These form the path to the peaceful resolution of any differences that may still exist. These positive actions and energies will be a constant in their effort to overcome the remaining challenges that face both our nations. This transition from war to a peaceful and prosperous time must provide the inspiration that leads us to a global pursuit of those values that make both our nations great.

I conclude with the final remarks offered by Ambassador Bleich:

Around the world, we resisted the natural instinct of people when attacked to withdraw and close off; our response has been to reach out and embrace.

Confronted with hate, we choose not to hate.

Confronted with death, we choose to live.

Confronted with fear, we choose to hope.

The currency of the United States is inscribed with the words, 'In God we trust.' God bless the home of the brave and the land of the free.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member. I am sure all members would like to pass on their congratulations to Kaitlan for her contribution to that very good speech.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just last week I stood in New York, in the empty space where the Twin Towers once dominated Lower Manhattan. Just as an observer, I cannot describe how the yawning, empty space—even a decade later—really strikes to the core of your soul. As with the assassination of President Kennedy, everyone remembers where they were on that fateful day. It was evening here in Australia and I, with a lot of the leadership of the Victorian Labor Party, was with Kim Beazley at a fundraiser. All I remember was that the event broke up into total chaos as people found out what was happening. It was surreal; almost like a movie.

In the early hours of the morning here in Australia many of us were glued to the TV watching the events in New York. Three thousand people were murdered that morning by al-Qaeda, including 10 Australians: Yvonne Kennedy, Andrew Knox, Leanne Whiteside, Alberto Dominguez, Leslie Thomas, Kevin Dennis, Elisa Ferraina, Craig Gibson, Peter Gyulavary and Steve Tompsett. We remember the American firefighters, police officers and emergency personnel who sacrificed their own lives to save those trapped. We remember those brave passengers on flight 93, about whom that incredible film was made. If anyone in this House has not seen it I urge them to. Those passengers sacrificed their own lives in order to stop other senseless deaths.

We remember and honour, in particular, those who have sacrificed their lives in the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, including 29 Australian soldiers killed in action to prevent September 11 ever happening again. We are not in Afghanistan to preserve in office a crook like Mr Karzai, the President, but we are there in a judicious military effort in Australia's interests in close alliance with the United States. As our recent VC, Corporal Roberts-Smith, memorably described it on AM:

I believe that we—

that is, the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan on Australia’s behalf—

are making a difference in stemming the flow of terrorism into Australia, and I want my children to be able to live as everyone does now without fear of getting onto a bus and having it blow up.

We also remember those lives that were lost in the subsequent, and linked, attacks in Bali, London, Madrid and Mumbai by jihadist terrorists—either members or affiliates of al-Qaeda.

Since 2001, more than 110 Australians have been killed in these terrorist attacks, including 88 of our countrymen murdered in Bali in 2002 by al-Qaeda's local franchise Jemaah Islamiah. Remember, the finances for that attack came from Hambali of al-Qaeda and were filtered through to Jemaah Islamiah. So al-Qaeda was directly involved in the murder of those Australians in Bali.

Professor Greg Barton has argued:

The sort of threat that we face with groups like al-Qaeda and those inspired by al-Qaeda is not a traditional insurgency … it is not about territorial war.

The extremists who committed these attacks do not distinguish between creed, religion or colour. That day in New York, al-Qaeda killed thousands of people of many faiths and nationalities—Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists. People everywhere around the world felt that our modernity and modern, democratic and pluralist society, not just in the United States but everywhere, was being assailed. Immediately after the attacks, Australia invoked article IV of the ANZUS Treaty, standing with our ally the United States of America. Le Monde expressed the essence of our visceral reaction all around the world with its headline, 'We are all American'. We stood then, as we do now, side by side with the United States. President Obama recently wrote to the Prime Minister in one of only three letters sent to international leaders. He said:

In the decade since the attacks, we have had no more steadfast partner than Australia in our effort to defeat terrorists in Afghanistan, in Bali, in the Middle East, and in Southeast Asia.

In the 10 years since the attacks, Australia has been at the forefront of counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and our region. We pay tribute to those men and women serving in Afghanistan who are making a difference in suppressing the Taliban. The Taliban, we remember, hosted al-Qaeda, which orchestrated many attacks on Australians.

At home we developed non-partisan ways of protecting the homeland. The bipartisan Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security, which I am honoured to serve on, made recommendations on terrorist organisations that have led the Australian government, under Prime Minister John Howard, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and now Prime Minister Julia Gillard, to proscribe the following 19 organisations: Abu Sayyaf, al-Qaeda, Tanzim Qa'idat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, Asbat al-Ansar, Ansar al-Sunna, the Armed Islamic Group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hizballah External Security Organisation, Islamic Army of Aden, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Jamiat ul-Ansar, Jemaah Islamiyah, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Jammu and Kashmir, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Salafist Group for Call and Combat and the Kurdistan Workers Party.

Together with the counterterrorist legislation that we have in this country and the courts, the security agencies, the Australian Federal Police, ASIO, ASIS and Australia's intelligence agencies have all worked to ensure that there have been no attacks on mainland Australia. The Australian anti-terrorism legislation of 2004, the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 and the subsequent changes made to the national security legislation ensure that our law enforcement and security agencies have the tools they need to fight terrorism, as in September 11.

On Monday in his speech on the anniversary of the attacks, Attorney-General Robert McClelland, the member for Barton, spoke of Australia's investment in national security, which has increased from $18 billion in 2001 to $33 billion in 2011. The member for Barton explained that 38 individuals have been prosecuted as a result of counterterrorism operations and 22 have been convicted. Because of our determination to prevent other September 11s, to prevent mass casualty attacks within the framework of our democratic system, we have seen six series of trials and convictions of terrorist suspects in this country. First of all was Jack Roche, who trained in Pakistan with Jemaah Islamiah and who was convicted of conspiring to bomb the Israeli embassy here in Canberra in 2000. Faheem Khalid, who trained in Pakistan, was convicted of terrorism related offences in 2006 by the New South Wales Supreme Court for plotting to attack the national electricity supply at the Holsworthy Barracks and HMAS Penguin naval base. Willie Brigitte, trained in Pakistan with another al-Qaeda affiliate, was deported in 2003 and is currently in custody as a terrorism suspect in France. Another trial to put away people who would have caused September 11s to happen in Australia were five men in Sydney: Khaled Cheikho, Moustafa Cheikho, Mohamed All Elomar, Abdul Rakib Hasan and Mohammed Omar Jamal, who were arrested, charged and found guilty under Australian law on 15 February 2010 of conspiring to commit terrorist acts. The group in Melbourne led by Abdul Nacer Benbrika were convicted in September 2008 for planning mass casualty attacks at the 2005 AFL Grand Final and at Crown Casino. The Holsworthy Barracks terror attack was planned by Saney Edow Aweys, Nayef El Sayed, Yacqub Khayre, Abdirahman Ahmed, Wissam Mahmoud Fattal. All were convicted on 4 August 2009.

Finally, there was a case only mentioned today in the Australian where Omar Baladjam pleaded guilty to four counts of terrorism, acquiring ammunition, acquiring chemicals for the preparation of a terrorist attack, possessing guns, chemicals and phones connected with the preparation of a terrorist attack. This is typical of a judgment of one of our learned judges, Justice Whealey, who told the New South Wales Supreme Court:

The offender intended that the terrorist act or acts to which his conduct was related would involve action that, at the very least, would cause serious risk to the health and safety of the public … In blunt terms, the collective thrust of the material [in Baladjam's possession] embraces a view that Muslims are obligated to pursue a violent form of jihad to undermine and overturn liberal democratic societies and to replace them with Islamic rule and sharia law … it advocates the use of violence, the killing of people and the wholesale destruction of buildings, as the means by which [Western] governments will be persuaded to make these political changes.

Of course, this shows that we have the laws, the police agencies, the intelligent services, all working in concert, and the wonderful work that they have done has prevented anything like September the 11th happening in Australia. But it just shows you how comprehensive the work has been over the last decade. As the member for Calwell said, of course the vast majority of people involved as members of the Islamic religion only want a peaceful and productive life here in Australia and have to be treated with great sensitivity, as Ambassador Bleich argued in his wonderful speech which I was present at with the Prime Minister just the other night. But at the same time we have the laws, the police and the intelligence services to see that people cannot get away with these kinds of bastardries in Australia as they were able to get away with on those days in New York.

President Bush said in a memorial service for those who lost their lives in flight 93, 'Whatever challenges we face today and the future, we must never lose faith with our ability to meet them together. We must never allow our differences to harden into divisions.' However, most important is the intellectual framework to understand these events of September 11. They are not just examples of criminality. They are a war launched against our way of life. The Professor of Law at the University of California and former Justice Department official, John Yoo, explained that the decision to treat the 9-11 attacks as an act of war rather than criminality was crucial. He argued convincingly:

Looking back over the decade, the first clear lesson is the critical importance of the decision to consider the struggle with Al Qaida a war. We do not see Al Qaida as some middle eastern version of the mafia, if on a grander scale. The 9-11 attacks were an act of war. They were a decapitation strike aimed at effectively eliminating the US leadership in a single blow. If the Soviet Union had carried out the same attacks no-one would have doubted that the United States was at war. Al Qaida's independence from any national state should not shield it from our military, relegating it to just police agencies and the courts.

Choosing this intellectual framework, Yoo argued, opened the arsenal that has decimated Al Qaida's leadership and blunted its plans of attacks, its plans to do more September 11s, not just in the United States but here in Australia and other Western countries. A nation at war does not need to wait for suicide bombers to arrest the suspects who remain. Instead it can fire missiles or send in covert teams to pre-emptively capture and kill the enemy. Our government does not need a judge's permission before tapping an al-Qaeda phone, intercepting his emails or arresting him. I think that the fact that the Prime Minister here in Australia congratulated the President of the United States on the killing of bin Laden is an example of the framework which we all now accept. Obviously, we do not need to ask the SAS to provide Miranda warnings for terrorists on the battlefield.

The events of that September morning were an act of war, a direct attack on our leaders and the citizens of the free world. In the aftermath of these attacks the ability of the intelligence agencies across the globe to work against al-Qaeda was crucial in the counter-terrorism effort. Critical knowledge collected by Australia's agencies, analysed and exploited, allowed the government of Australia, in cooperation with the United States and like the United States, to counter and convict those people who would plot further attacks on our country, including the seven cases I mentioned. On that morning in September, those who attacked the World Trade Center sought to destroy the very foundations of our democracies. We have shown in the last 10 years that our belief in decency, in freedom of speech and freedom of religion, in the rule of law and in humanity does not waver. The individual freedoms we uphold have emerged even stronger since 9-11. As Professor Yoo concluded:

But individual freedom emerged from the decade stronger than before. The government did not censor the media, sabotage political opposition or mobilize the economy. No dictatorship arose.

His comments equally apply to Australia:

… the executive, legislative and judicial branches freely used … their powers to struggle for influence over national security policy. Five bitterly contested national elections—

in the United States; there have been an equal number here in Australia—

… switched control of the presidency once, the Senate once, and the House of Representatives twice. Meanwhile, new technologies and social networking have created an expanding space for political activity and organization unlike anything in our history.

Civil liberties would certainly have suffered far worse had al Qaeda succeeded in landing a second blow on a par with 9-11.

The fact that we are able to secure Australia, as the United States has been able to secure the United States, has been a great victory—the most important victory that has come out of the terrible events of 9-11.

To those who state that we have wasted billions of dollars on counterterrorism in the aftermath of 9-11, I ask them: if that money had not been spent but invested elsewhere, how many of those with September 11 in their hearts would have been able to get away with similar events in Australia? You simply have to look at the record of the seven widespread attempts by groups of people to perpetrate those kinds of deeds in Australia. I think it is a great tribute to this country that we have kept our way of life. We have acted circumspectly, with our courts, intelligence agencies and police cooperating to preserve the Australian way of life to see that September 11 never happens here.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is now a decade since 11 September, 2001, when terrorists with the deluded intention of advancing an evil and fanatical cause perpetrated an act of mass murder with the aim of sending freedom and democracy into retreat. I think everyone can remember what they were doing on that day. I can recall watching the television at home and remembering the many trips I had made to New York and the visits I had made to the World Trade Center. I remembered reading a plaque at the front of those buildings which said that 10,000 people visited each day. I thought of the massive loss of life that would occur.

A decade on, the terrorists' aim of sending freedom and democracy into retreat has failed. The planners of the attacks are either dead or behind bars. Not only do freedom and democracy remain strong but, with the recent popular revolts in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya and the ongoing revolt in Syria, there is a clear desire for democracy and freedom to continue to grow throughout the world. One of the greatest lessons from September 11 is that our freedom and democracy can never be taken for granted. It is a lesson whereby ordinary citizens who enjoy the benefits of freedom and democracy must, at a single moment's notice, be ready to stand to fight to protect those very same rights.

That lesson is evidenced by the efforts of the passengers that boarded United Airlines flight 93 on that fateful day. Flight 93 was United's scheduled morning flight on September 11 departing from Newark and bound for San Francisco. Although the plane had the capacity to carry 182 passengers, the September 11 flight carried just 37 passengers, four of them terrorists. But what the terrorists did not count on was how 33 ordinary citizens, passengers on that flight, and the flight crew were prepared to fight back to protect freedom and democracy. I am sure many of us here today have made that early-morning trip from downtown Manhattan to Newark airport, travelling through the Lincoln Tunnel or on the George Washington Bridge, just like many of those 33 passengers had on that day. They would have walked down the concourse of terminal A, breezed through a security gate and walked the 100 yards to the long, circular hallway, waiting for the boarding call, just like the other 100,000 people who pass daily through Newark airport. Those 33 passengers included: a 33-year-old account manager who had travelled from California for a business meeting and who had planned to return home on a red-eye flight that night to be with his two children; a 41-year-old computer engineer who had a wife and two daughters and was heading to a business meeting in San Francisco; a 73-year-old retired bank officer who was travelling to San Francisco on a vacation; a 20-year-old Japanese student who was heading back to Japan for his second year of college; a 60-year-old ironworker heading off on a vacation; a 37-year-old husband and father from Germany who was flying to San Francisco on business; a 38-year-old advertising sales consultant returning home from her grandmother's funeral in New Jersey; a 20-year-old university student who was returning home from a visit with friends; and a 31-year-old small businessman, a former rugby player who stood at six feet, four inches and was an automatic selection at No. 8 and who also happened to be a gay man. And there was a 51-year-old lobbyist for the disabled who was the vice-chairwoman of the New Jersey Developmental Disabilities Council and who was born with an inherited bone disorder that kept her height at four feet six inches. She was on her way to a grant-writing seminar. The people on the flight that day were a typical cross-section of people from a free and democratic society.

We will never know for sure all the details of what happened on that flight. But we do know that the passengers, through communicating with mobile phones to family on the ground, decided that they must make a stand and they must attempt to overpower the terrorists and storm the cockpit. And we know the final words of passenger Todd Beamer: 'Are you guys ready? Let's roll!'—a phrase which has come to symbolise self-sacrifice, heroism and initiative in a tough situation. And we do know that that plane never made it to its intended target, which was most likely either the Capitol building or the White House. Flight 93 crashed just after 10 am on 11 September 2001, in a rural Pennsylvania field just outside the tiny town of Shanksville. All 40 people on board died, but hundreds and possibly thousands of lives were saved thanks to the passengers of flight 93, who, at a moment's notice, were ready to stand and fight to protect freedom and democracy.

The permanent Flight 93 National Memorial was opened just a few days ago, on 10 September 2011. At the official dedication ceremony it was noted:

A common field one day; a field of honor forever. May all who visit this place remember the collective acts of courage of the passengers and crew, revere this hallowed ground as the final resting place of those heroes, and reflect on the power of individuals who choose to make a difference.

A decade on from 9-11, we must continue to remember that the threat of terrorism remains real even here in Australia. We have the Australian Federal Police, the Victorian and New South Wales police forces, the New South Wales Crime Commission and ASIO, whose tireless work with little recognition we have to thank for preventing several planned terror attacks on Australian soil. In 2008, five men, including a Muslim cleric, were convicted of planning a terrorist attack. During the trial, the jury heard evidence of plans to bomb the 2005 AFL Grand Final, the 2006 Australian Grand Prix and the Crown Casino. And only last year a Victorian Supreme Court jury found three men guilty of plotting a shooting rampage with automatic weapons at the Holsworthy army base in my electorate of Hughes. These perpetrators had planned on infiltrating the base and shooting as many people as possible with high-powered weapons until they were either killed or captured. Thankfully, they were arrested before their plans could be enacted. Their hatred of our country and our lifestyle was evidenced by comments recorded straight after their convictions, when one terrorist said in reference to the Black Saturday firestorm that killed 173 people in Victoria and injured another 414: 'Fires broke out around the country and we were all happy.' In the second decade after 9-11 we must assist nations in the Middle East in their transition to democracy and freedom because that is the best antidote to terrorism. But we must continue to be vigilant against those who threaten us. We must continue to remember that our freedom and democracy can never be taken for granted and must be defended, often with the point of a gun. And we must always remember that those who enjoy the benefits of freedom and democracy must be ready at a moment's notice, as those were on flight 93 that day, to stand up and fight to protect these very same rights.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A lot of eloquent words have already been spoken in this place by many members of parliament on all sides and they are words that I, like other members, wish to associate myself with. I know there is a collective feeling of what people feel and what we share about September 11 in 2001. It has been said that that day changed our world, and it certainly did in many ways. I always hope, as everybody does, that when we do change we can change for the better and come out of catastrophic, terrible, tragic experiences for the better. Terrorism is an ever-present threat but it is across societies and it is an ever-present threat across the ages; it is not new. Sometimes we have to look back through history to know that it has existed throughout time and manifests itself in different ways at different times in our history, with different people targeted. As a society and as people who are parliamentarians and part of government and opposition and make laws, we have to be mindful that we can be as ready as we can be to avert terrorist threats and also to respond if a terrorist act takes place, but not to be in a situation where that guides all of our actions, because that can take away the freedoms that we sometimes take for granted. We have to be as mindful and as vigilant in guarding our freedoms as we do in guarding against terrorist threats.

There has been a lot of talk about where we were when this dreadful event took place. I was asked and said I was in Sydney. I had come home from work. I was then in the state parliament, in the Legislative Council, and got home late at night. My housemate sang out to me and she said, 'A plane has crashed into the Twin Towers.' We both said, 'Oh my God,' thinking how terrible it was. Then, sometime later—it felt like only a short time later—she called out that another plane had hit the Twin Towers. I said, 'Oh my God, a terrorist attack.' That is what we both immediately thought. For the first plane we did not; we just thought it was a terrible accident. For the second one, that was our response to it. Like everybody, we could not take ourselves away from the TV. We were glued to it for most of the night and were ringing people. I rang friends of mine who live in New York City to see how they were. I could make contact with some of them and for others it took me quite some time. They were scared, and they were heartened that we knew and cared. That was important.

I also remember hearing a fellow talking on the radio about Americans being on planes and going to land at Sydney airport and that they did not know that this had taken place. They were going to walk out of the plane into finding out what had taken place in their country. I rang my friend Mick Reid, who was then the Director-General of New South Wales Health. He had already actioned it, but I said I hoped we had people at the airport to meet the American folk coming off the planes, and they did. I was able to communicate that to some of my friends. In 2004-05, I lived in New York City for a few months, while attending the UN General Assembly for Timor-Leste, and I saw the daily human and physical impact, even several years after 2001. There have been a whole lot of effects. People talked about the hole in the sky, because that is how it came to be seen by New Yorkers—the hole in the sky where the Twin Towers had been. After a while I too came to see that hole in the sky in the way the locals did. It was somewhere that I frequently walked—I would walk around the financial district, because I am a walker, so I go out walking a lot—and I would see the hole. One of the things that also happened was that when planes would come through the airspace above New York City, people would react. I can understand, in only the smallest way, how locals feel about that, because after a while you do start to react; you look up with a bit of a start because a plane is coming.

All major catastrophic events change us; they cannot but do so. I hope that the victims, the survivors, their families and friends and all of the helping agencies, including the firefighters, who were the heroes, can find some peace in their lives, in ways we may not comprehend. I hope that, at a societal level, we can use this experience to make decisions more intelligently, that we can learn not to give up freedoms to terrorism and that we can think and reflect upon the reasons we go to war and upon some of the issues that have followed, including the practices that have developed. When I say practices, I mean that there is a body of counterterrorism conventions—quite a lot of them—and we implement them. We are obligated to by the UN Security Council—all member countries of the UN, including Australia, do that. But there is also a body of jurisprudence on human rights, and that accompanies those counterterrorism conventions, but sometimes it is overlooked. I would hope that all countries that are implementing those counterterrorism conventions are mindful of that body of human rights jurisprudence that accompanies the implementation of those conventions. There is also a Security Council resolution on that issue, so I hope that we can look at that.

Locally, the question was: what were you doing on the day of the attacks? It is true: we all remember exactly where we were and what we were doing. Some of my local people have said in the Northern Star newspaper:

We woke up early to hear it on the radio and couldn't believe what we were listening to. It was unimaginable.

That was Marlene Farell, from Casino. I think it sums up how most people who heard it felt when it happened. Warwick Herbert, from Lismore, was at home when it happened. He said:

We saw the second plane hit on TV and thought 'this can't be happening'.

That, again, is a feeling that we all had.

In conclusion, I would like to say that it is to the victims, their families and friends and to all those people who helped that I think our thoughts are best directed at this time.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I pass on my appreciation for the thoughts and views on this 10-year anniversary that I have been able to sit and listen to as the members for Bennelong, Hughes, Page and Melbourne Ports have spoken. This is an event that has left a lasting legacy for us all—every member of the House, every member of the Senate and every member of the Australian community, including all the members of my electorate of Wannon.

On this 10th anniversary of what were four coordinated acts of suicide it is worth remembering what actually happened. There were two planes which flew into the Twin Towers, one which flew into the Pentagon and another which crashed into a field near Shanksville. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks. The footage of the attacks will live with us forever and the imprint it has made on our collective psyche will, I am sure, be with those who watched what happened until the day they die.

I take this opportunity to pass on my condolences to all the families, relatives and friends of those who died in the attacks. I would also like to note that if there was one theme that came out of the attacks it was that of bravery—the bravery of those who tried to help people who were caught up in the middle of the attacks and especially the bravery of those who were on the plane that crashed into Shanksville. They gave their lives so that others did not lose theirs, and I do not think you can have a greater act of bravery than that. There has been bravery in the response, and Australia has been a part of that bravery. Our soldiers have sacrificed their lives in Afghanistan to ensure that the war on terror has been successful. We have played our part. For all those soldiers and their families, relatives and friends, it is also worth us remembering what they have done in response to what happened on September 11 to ensure all members of our community are safe.

On the morning of the attacks I was the acting ambassador at our embassy in Mexico City. I will never forget watching what had happened and trying to deal with it. Our ambassador at the time was in the United States. I could not make contact with him. He could not return to the embassy for four days because, of course, all flights were grounded as a result of what happened. We had locally engaged staff working at the embassy who had relatives in New York. They did not know what might or might not have happened to those relatives. There was a sense of fear. There was a deep sense of concern and worry. We had Australians who were travelling in Mexico at the time coming into the embassy to inquire what was happening—whether they were safe, whether their planned trips further north would be going ahead or not. There was a sense of bewilderment and disbelief at what had happened.

I also remember being fortunate enough to visit New York not long after the attacks. I went up there as a tourist and I will never forget the way that New Yorkers welcomed me on that trip. They were so pleased to see that people were prepared once again to travel to New York, because the city is heavily reliant on its tourism industry. I remember going down and seeing the cordoned off Twin Towers, which were only rubble, and, as other speakers have mentioned, the huge gap that had appeared in the skyline. Everywhere you went, all the New Yorkers you ran into and discussed it with wanted to point to where the gap in the skyline was. It was like a piece of them had been removed and they did not quite know how to deal with it or what to do about it. It is interesting that it has taken so long for them to agree on what the memorial should be where the Twin Towers stood. I think it is very good that New York has agreed on how that day should be remembered. It gives the sense that they have come together to realise that part of them was taken away, but they now know how to replace it.

I also think it is worth mentioning that the Australian response was swift and decisive. Our Prime Minister at the time, John Howard, deserves to be commended for immediately invoking article IV of the ANZUS Treaty and showing the solidarity of the alliance between the US and Australia. The response and the way we have stood with the United States in that response in fighting the war on terrorism is to be commended.

I will also touch on the topic of bravery one more time, and that is the bravery that was shown in the capturing or trying to capture and in the end killing Osama bin Laden, the perpetrator of these attacks. It took Osama bin Laden three years to admit that it was al-Qaeda with him as the head of that organisation who had orchestrated and masterminded these attacks. The bravery which the US soldiers showed in bringing him to justice is to be commended, just as the bravery of all those who have given their lives in fighting the war on terror is to be commended.

It is a great privilege to be here in this House to speak on the 10-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks. We as a country and the rest of the world have shown great bravery in the way that we have dealt with it. We have not succumbed in the way I think that al-Qaeda would have liked us to and resorted to the same sort of hatred that they showed. Instead, the globe has responded in a very positive manner and that is also to be commended.

I will leave it there and I once again commend all those who have spoken previously on this matter. It is a privilege to stand here on behalf of my electorate of Wannon and remember all those who perished in those atrocious attacks.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise here today to remember the atrocity when four planes were used in a terrible terrorist attack in several cities in the United States and to pay tribute to the victims. Collectively, we know these events as S11 or September 11 and they are forever etched in the consciousness of all Australians.

The terrible atrocity involved four planes, including two which flew into the Twin Towers, the World Trade Center in New York, a separate plane which hit the Pentagon and a further plane which crashed into a field near Shanksville in Pennsylvania. Collectively, these attacks led directly to the deaths of 2,996 people—this included the 19 hijackers. Of the 2,753 victims who died in the World Trade Center, tragically 343 of them were firefighters who were called to work that day to try and rescue people trapped in the building. Another 60 police officers and eight private emergency medical workers were killed, and a further 184 people were killed in the attack on the Pentagon.

The south tower of the World Trade Center burned for 56 minutes—nearly an hour—before collapsing on itself while the north tower burned for a little over 100 minutes before collapsing. We are told that fires in the buildings are estimated to have reached a temperature of over 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit. The site itself is now known as Ground Zero for good reason—it continued burning for over 99 days. Over 1½ million tonnes of debris needed to be removed from Ground Zero as a consequence of the attacks, and it took over nine months for the air quality around the Twin Towers to return to pre-9-11 levels. Over 2½ thousand contaminants, including carcinogens, were released in the debris from the collapsing and burning buildings. Many of the rescue workers who were involved survived but—and this is often forgotten—now suffer debilitating illnesses in the aftermath of that terrible attack, and 75 of the rescue workers have since been diagnosed with blood cell cancers which are thought by experts to have been caused by exposure to the toxic air around the crash site. Over 422,000 New Yorkers are estimated to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as a direct result of the 9-11 attacks.

Ten Australians are known to have died as a result of the attacks. From New South Wales were Alberto Dominguez, 66, from Lidcombe; Yvonne Kennedy, 62, from Sydney; Craig Neil Gibson, 37, from Randwick; Steve Tompsett, 39, from Merrylands; Elisa Ferraina, 27, from Sydney; and Lesley Anne Thomas, 41. From Victoria were Leanne Whiteside, 31, from Melbourne and Peter Gyulavary, 44, from Geelong. From Queensland was Kevin Dennis, 43, from the Gold Coast. There was also Andrew Knox from Adelaide, a man known to me, who died tragically at the age of 29. I was talking to my colleague, the member for Kingston, before I rose to speak, as Mr Knox—'Knoxie', as we knew him—was also known to the member for Kingston. I first met Knoxie in around 1994 in Brisbane, where he had moved for work. He was the sort of guy who blokes like me at that time hated to run into at a party, because he was tall, handsome, very funny and incredibly intelligent—in fact, he had it all. Whenever Knoxie walked into a room, all the good-looking women immediately gravitated towards him, and he would charm them with his great sense of humour, his wonderful wit and his intelligence for the duration of the party. He has a tremendous bloke with a great sense of social justice. He spent several years working for the Australian Workers Union. He had taken leave from the Australian Workers Union to work in the United States and was employed as a building worker when he was trapped in the World Trade Center and killed on 11 September 2001. He is survived by family and many friends. I knew him dearly though not well, and I use this opportunity to pay tribute to the life of Andrew 'Knoxie' Knox, who died too young.

As other speakers have said in this debate, we will always remember hereafter where we were when we found out that the planes had hit those towers. I was in the Czech Republic with my wife of only a few months, and we received an SMS message from my sister-in-law in London, who I had left just the previous day. The reason she called us was that we were due to fly into JFK airport that day. Of course, the flight never departed, but our sacrifice was completely insignificant compared to the sacrifices of the victims to whom we pay tribute today. Like every Australian who watched in horror as that act unfolded, I will have the image burned in my memory forever. I hope that we are able to hold onto that memory so that the hate, the fanaticism and the diabolical distortion of religion that led to that terrible attack on that terrible day 10 years ago may remain repellent to us for evermore. I pay tribute to the victims.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ten years and three days ago I was sitting in the living room of my home at the time in Box Hill North. My wife, Pam, had just gone to sleep. I sat on the couch watching the Channel 10 late news. And then the world as we knew it came to a sudden, shocking and brutal end. I vividly remember the newsreader sounding perplexed as she talked through and tried to make sense of the breaking news. I woke Pam and, like untold millions of others, we sat transfixed by the sight of Manhattan burning on our TV screens. In New York, Washington and the Pennsylvania countryside, as we know, thousands of innocent people were dying, felled by the evil hand of an evil terrorist movement.

So both Pam and I were awake when, at about 1.30 in the morning, I received a call from a very good friend—a former work colleague who was working with the National Australia Bank at the time. At this very time I was on the staff of the Federal Treasurer and, with the Wall Street district under lockdown, the bank was naturally concerned about what this all meant and about the impact of the atrocity on the world financial markets and the Australian Stock Exchange. So, like those of countless other institutions in the market, NAB senior management had been called in and were burning the midnight oil. Even in times of profound trauma, habit does not desert us as humans, and Richard politely began the conversation by inquiring, 'I hope I didn't wake you?' But, as soon as the words had left his mouth, he realised how ridiculous they were given what was unfolding as the world was careening into war. That night, sleep, for all of us and all our fellow Australians, was not possible. It would also have been disrespectful. It would have been profoundly dishonourable simply to go about our normal lives while so many innocents were losing theirs.

That terrible night it was soon apparent that not just America was under fire; as former Prime Minister John Howard so rightly said, the attack on the United States was an attack on us as well. Of course, in some obvious ways, our American cousins are different from us. They play baseball; we play cricket. They drive on what we consider to be the wrong side of the road. They have a representative republican form of government and we have a Westminster parliamentary system. But, of course, in the larger scheme of things, these are just nuances—minor distinctions that contrast with the far greater commonalities that unite our two nations. Australians and Americans share a common devotion to democratic values and individual rights. We share a common provenance in the traditions of Judeo-Christian culture and the English common law. Government of, by and for the people are the political watchwords in Washington and here in Canberra. America was targeted on 11 September 2001 because it exemplifies the principles of liberty and freedom that we hold dear but which are anathema to the dark, medieval mindset of radical Islam. Just because the United States is at the top of the jihadi target list, we all know it does not mean that nations that share their values, like ours, are off the hook. Osama bin Laden's 1998 declaration of holy war against the Jews and crusaders contained a fatwa that commanded the killing of the Americans and their allies, civilian and military. There is no need to remind the House that Australian diggers have been proudly fighting for these values and for freedom alongside American sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines in every conflict since World War I, so it was pretty obvious that when al-Qaeda was declaring war on America's allies they had us in mind as well.

In the first post September 11 manifesto, bin Laden upped the ante and made mention of Australia. He was enraged by the fact that so-called crusader Australian forces had taken part in the liberation of East Timor. Less than a year later the threats came to fruition when 88 Australians were killed in October 2002 in the suicide bombing attack in Bali. So, as we all know, we are part of this war, whether we want to be or not. Putting our heads in the sand and magically wishing that the enemies would disappear will make us not safer but more vulnerable, and that is why we must stay the course in Afghanistan and wherever else required.

The words of Edmund Burke seem particularly relevant in this debate. In his Letters on a Regicide Peace, Burke wrote:

We are in a war of a peculiar nature. It is not with an ordinary community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may veer about: not with a state which makes war through wantonness, and abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system, which by its essence, is inimical to all other governments, and which makes peace or war, as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war.

What was true for Britain's 18th-century conflict with the guillotine-mad Jacobin in France is doubly true for our 21st-century fight with the suicide-bomb-mad jihadi Islam. Then, as now, as has been said so often in this parliament, steadfastness is the order of the day.

As we reflect on the 10th anniversary of September 11, we should resolve in the spirit of Lincoln that the innocent dead shall not have died in vain, and we should resolve to defend our values, our freedoms and our way of life from those who seek their destruction.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity tonight, as others have welcomed it, to speak on the events of 10 years ago, on September 11. As other members have mentioned, we all know where we were on the night of September 11. In my case, I guess I had the slight advantage of being in Perth, at my desk at the headquarters of 13 Brigade, the Army Reserve brigade in Western Australia. Being the brigade major, the full-time army officer that did management tasks for the brigade, I was at my desk when a very interesting thing happened: one of the soldiers came into my office and said, 'Sir, a plane has struck one of the Twin Towers in New York.' I immediately thought that a light plane had accidentally flown into the tower. You would have thought that was most likely. So I got up from my desk and I went into another room, where a TV was on. I stood there trying to comprehend what was going on, and a number of other headquarters staff were there as well. As I was watching, I asked what sort of plane it was, and it was as if it were in slow motion—the vision of a huge hole in the side of the building, black smoke pluming out of it. And then the plane appeared to the side of the picture and flew straight into the second tower. From that point on, there was no doubt anymore what the world was facing. There was no doubt at all that this was a premeditated attack and that terrorism was behind it.

But we were watching on a TV screen from the safe distance of Perth, sitting in its secure and safe environs—a big difference from being one of the commanders of emergency services or US defence on the ground in New York. The fog of war most certainly applied. The differences in perception between the moment when we actually saw that second plane hit the other tower and what we knew an hour later, two hours later and 24 hours later were extremely substantial. It would been exceedingly difficult at the time to know what was going on. The vulnerability of the buildings was not well known at all. When those aircraft flew into the towers, taking out those lateral beams, they terminally weakened the buildings—but that was not something that was known at the time.

Again, at our defence base, Irwin Barracks, Karrakatta, on the night of September 11, it was very easy for us to take precautions, to lock down the base and worry about the security arrangements. In the days and weeks that followed, the security arrangements for all government buildings and all our bases around the country and indeed around the world were seriously upgraded. There is a huge difference between the security arrangements we had before September 11 and those we had after September 11. As has been said by so many speakers in this debate, it is clear that there was a substantial change in the world that night.

From the timing of the attacks—a Tuesday morning just before nine o'clock and, for the second plane, around nine o'clock, then the Pentagon and flight 93, suspected to be heading towards the Capitol building in Washington—there was no doubt that it was not just a demonstration of al-Qaeda's capacity to conduct an attack on the mainland United States but, very clearly, an intention to kill as many innocent people as possible. And, if that was their intention, then they most certainly achieved it: almost 3,000 people died in the towers, beneath the towers, in the Pentagon and on flight 93. And isn't that really the hallmark of terrorism around the world? Never do terrorists seek to take the fight to their alleged enemies, to take up arms on a field of battle against their opponents. It is never like that; it is always about finding the weakest, most defenceless, most vulnerable and most unsuspecting people possible. It is always the case that these cowards, these subhuman people, will look for opportunities that will cause the most terror and that involve attacking those who cannot fight back. That has always been the way and it will always be the way. We know that these are not the sorts of people that you can turn the other cheek to. These are not people to whom you can offer the hand of friendship. Osama bin Laden—may he rest in hell—described afterwards the motivations, the reasons why September 11 was justified: the US presence in Saudi Arabia, the holy land; the abuse of Muslim people in the Middle East by the US; the support of the Western world for Israel; all those reasons. But if it was not those reasons, if none of those reasons existed, there would have been some other reason, because we know that, apart from the cowardice and the subhuman brutality of people like al-Qaeda, what really motivates them is hatred of the Western democracies and liberalism—anything that does not conform with their very negative, destructive view of the religion of Islam.

These people are not good advocates for Islam. As I said, they are subhuman, they are barbaric people, they are cowardly people. As I said before, you cannot offer negotiation to these people, you cannot offer the hand of friendship or take a step back with these people. There is only one way to deal with these sorts of people, and that is to fight. It is a sad reality that it will always come down to that. We must fight. We must be prepared to take up arms. It is in the national interest. It was in the national interest to do what needed to be done to take away the home bases, the safe havens, of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, to take the fight to them so that terrorism cannot operate with impunity across the world. We will always have these examples of terrorist attacks. But if we think that we could have just apologised after September 11 for our Western values or whatever and all would have been forgiven or that the Americans could have pulled out of Saudi Arabia and all would have been forgiven then we are sadly mistaken. We would have had far worse terrorism issues on our shores than we currently have.

Some people cast a very negative view of Afghanistan and of its future. I think the reality is that if all the Taliban can do is persuade the weak and feeble minded to conduct suicide bomb attacks, it really suggests that it has no capacity to conduct any form of military operations against NATO, the forces of liberation and the Afghan national government. If that is all it has got then it really does not have much to hold on to, and the fight, in my view, has certainly been won. In any case, what we get down to is that we must always be prepared to fight and take it to these people, because that, in the end, is the only way to deal with them. You take a step back, they will take a step forward; you offer the hand of friendship, they will cut it off.

I have ranged widely tonight. I would like to finish by extending my condolences to the families of those who died on the day of September 11 and of those who died afterwards through injuries, and to those who suffered as a result of their proximity to the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and that Pennsylvanian field. Flight 93 is held out as an example of great courage; it most certainly is an example of great courage. Realising in the end that there was no hope, that there was going to be no mercy from these people, the passengers on that flight did what they needed to do. They knew that their survival chances were extremely remote but they knew that either they took control of the plane or they would be dead and others on the ground would be dead. So they sacrificed, they fought and they died with honour and dignity, as did all those who died on that day who were not terrorists. The terrorists involved there and the terrorists who continue to fight, the al-Qaeda leadership around the world, are not people of honour. They are not people with integrity, they are not people with courage; they are merely cowards. They are a disgrace to the world. They are subhuman. In the end there is only one way to deal with such people.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We all recall where we were at the time of significant international events like the assassination of John F Kennedy. I remember being in Brisbane. I was just having my shave and was going out early in the morning to put up posters, the forerunners of core flutes, for the election. I was going to hang them up on the poles out at Nanala of all places, which is very strong Labor territory. I remember driving back to my electorate from Gladstone the day Princess Diana was killed. I actually represented Warren Truss in the courtyard of St Mary's Cathedral for the canonisation of Mary MacKillop, and to see that TV link back to Rome and to be part of that very thing happening on that day in Sydney was marvellous. We all remember, with mixed emotions I am sure, the dismissal of the Whitlam government. I was with an ALP mate of mine in his printing works; he was just beside himself. I never saw a guy so upset as he was that day.

So we remember these things with vivid colour and memory and we remember our reactions at that time. I remember being woken by my wife, Margaret, who is a light sleeper, in the early hours of 12 September, as it was in Australia. M y wife said, 'Something dreadful has happened. Better get up and have a look at the TV,' which I did. My reaction on seeing the first plane going into that building was very similar to that of the member for Cowan. I remember being glued to the television set for the next five or six hours. It had a hellish magnetism: you wanted to walk away from it but you could not leave it alone. You just had to watch what was happening. I remember trying to comprehend the enormity of that outrage and what it might mean for the world as we knew it.

It was interesting this week to listen to some of the journalists and television presenters who were on duty that night. I remember listening to Sandra Sully. She happened to be on duty at that time doing the late news and went on into the night broadcasting the crosses from America. I am not sure if it was she or another journalist who was interviewed and said that she had this dreadful feeling of apprehension that she was watching the start of the third world war. I think we all felt something like that. All of us had that same sense of great apprehension. John Howard, who was the only visiting head of state in Washington on that day, invoked the ANZUS Treaty. We all knew that this was going to be full on, whatever followed. The ANZUS Treaty, of course, pledges all three nations—Australia, the US and New Zealand—to assist one another in the event of an attack.

The scale of the attacks and the devastation and grief visited on the families of those killed and injured in the United States on 11 September, made it a turning point for the world. It was not just the United States that was ravished that day; more than 90 countries lost citizens in the attack on the World Trade Center. The shock and outrage of the attacks was not restricted to the United States; as you all know we lost 10 Australians that day as well. People around the planet watched in horror as the events unfolded, and I think everyone understood that such an audacious and atrocious attack on innocent civilians and landmark sites changed the rules of the game forever. The member for Cowan made a very good analogy: these sorts of people do not conform to the rules. They do not take up arms and fight in a man-to-man contest; they pick on the most vulnerable, the unarmed, women, children and ordinary people going about their daily work.

At 8.46, flight 11 crashed at roughly 790 kilometres an hour into the north face of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It obliterated floors 93 to 99. Then, a bit over a quarter of an hour after that, at 9.03, flight 175 crashed into the south face of the South Tower, between floors 77 and 85. We saw those gaping holes and the black smoke and then experienced the absolute horror of the collapse of the buildings, knowing how many people would be engulfed in that event. Then, about a half an hour later, at 9:37, flight 77 crashed into the western side of the Pentagon, starting a violent fire. Just short of half an hour later again, at 10:03, United Airlines 93, on its way to somewhere in Washington, was put into the ground, either by the hijackers or by the passengers, 130 kilometres south-east of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

The terrorist attack on September 11 by al-Qaeda resulted in 2,996 immediate deaths, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims. Two hundred and forty-six people died on the planes, 2,606 died in the towers and on the ground in New York and another 125 people died in the Pentagon. All the deaths in those attacks were civilians, bar 55 military personnel at the Pentagon. As the member for Cowan said, it was a gutless attack, in the main on civilians.

Tonight is not the time to conduct a debate on the rights and wrongs of the military actions that have followed since, but, inevitably, the act inspired an unmistakable resolve that this would never happen again and that those who perpetrated this vile act would suffer its consequences. I am a great student of the Second World War, and one quote I really like is that of Admiral Yamamoto, who commanded the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. After the attack, when his pilots and naval officers were patting each other on the back, he cautioned them by saying: 'I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.'

Ten years on, as we reflect on those awful events and recognise the scars that horrific day has left on thousands of people, including those families who lost loved ones, we remember that it filled us all with a terrible resolve. Yes, some of the resolve was military in nature; some of it was antiterrorist in nature; some of it involved caring for the families of people who were killed; some of it involved examining our own lives to see how we could change the circumstances that bring these things about.

Last Sunday, most of us would have watched the commemorative ceremonies in the US and here in Australia and thought back to that awful day 10 years ago. I watched as former US President Bill Clinton spoke at the Pennsylvania memorial ceremony and he remarked that the people on flight 93 showed uncommon courage in storming the cockpit to stop the hijackers from crashing the plane into the heart of Washington, DC even though they knew they faced certain death. The former President likened the passengers and crew of flight 93 to the Texans at the Alamo and the Spartans of ancient Greece at Thermopylae who went into battle knowing that they would die but did it willingly to save others. The difference, Clinton said, was that the Spartans and the Texans were soldiers while the heroes of flight 93 just happened to be on the plane. He said—and I thought this was the greatest quote of the day and it is worth putting it on the record:

With almost no time to decide, they gave the entire country an incalculable gift. They saved the Capitol from attack, they saved God knows how many lives, and they spared the terrorists from claiming the symbolic victory of smashing the centre of American government. And they did it all as citizens.

He went on to say:

They allowed us to survive as a country that could fight terror and still maintain liberty and still welcome people from all over the world from every religion and race and culture as long as they shared our values, because ordinary people given no time at all to decide did the right thing. And 2,500 years from now, I hope and pray to God that people will still remember this.

That was the great and frightening event, and we must not overlook the human dimension of this, the terror of those people trapped on the roof of the Twin Towers as they were collapsing; the people who chose to jump rather than to die in an inferno; the firefighters—and this must be one of the great heroic stories of our time—who went in to save others, many times, at their own peril; the ambulance men; the police; the chaplain; the priest who went in and was giving the last rites as he himself was struck down by falling debris; the little kids in the child-minding centre; and the kids who will not have fathers and mothers. I think we were all touched to see them moving around the two reflective pools and seeing the names of the 2,900-odd people who lost their lives. Lest we forget.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to put on the public record a few comments in relation to the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of 9-11, which has left an indelible mark on my mind. The images of that day will be with me for as long as I live—that terrible day when we saw terrorists attack the very heart of the free world, symbols of the free world in the United States of America in New York, in Pennsylvania and also Washington, DC.

My memories of that horrible day in 2001 are very vivid, because at that time our defence minister, Peter Reith, was overseas and I was veterans affairs minister and defence personnel minister. In fact, I was acting as the defence minister. I was in my own electorate and had just addressed a veterans dinner in the town of Goondiwindi. I returned to my motel with my adviser, my wife, and switched on the TV. I thought we might be watching some sort of a movie. The reports that were being shown on television around the world in those first few minutes were saying that a plane had flown into one of the Twin Towers in New York. The defence department obviously had that advice immediately. My defence adviser came to me and said, 'We don't know what is happening in New York but they will talk to you in the morning. They'll talk to us in the morning. We don't know what's happening there, but there's something terrible happening.'

It was about that time they said, 'Turn the TV on.' I said, 'We've got the TV on.' But it was at that moment we saw the second plane flying into the second tower. That is an image I will never forget. I thought, 'Hang on. One's just flown in. Is this a repeat? Are they just running the story again?' It was just impossible to comprehend that this could be happening at the very heart of the free world and the great symbol of the free world.

The other thing I will not forget about that night is that our eldest son, was in banking and finance, was often in New York at an office adjacent to the Twin Towers, and I wondered where he was that night. He was always, as bankers are, in London, New York or Sydney. Next morning I found out that he was not in New York; he was in fact in London. That came from our second son. Our two other children were concerned that night for their elder brother, their big brother. It all comes back to you.

What it really brought home to me was the importance of family and your loved ones. Each of my other two children rang my eldest son to see where he was because they were concerned about him. I heard their voicemails on my mobile the next morning. They said, 'He's not in New York; he's in London.' It was a tremendous relief in those moments and hours overnight wondering where he was.

A year later I was the representative of this parliament at the United Nations General Assembly and we were in New York for the first anniversary of 9-11. Obviously, there were commemorations all over New York and I will never forget the night before when they were coming in from the Bronx and Queens and all the boroughs around New York to 9-11. They were the firemen, the emergency service people, the ambulance drivers, the police. They were marching. They were walking. For them, it did not matter how long it took but they were going to be at Ground Zero next morning. Some started off at seven and eight o'clock at night, and there was saturation television coverage of where they were coming from and going to. They were going to Ground Zero. I felt: this was not a place for me; this is a place for those who have lost loved ones and those who were there at the time.

I went down to Fifth Avenue and thought: where can I be? At that moment, 8.46 am, the huge, wonderful city of New York, as you looked down towards Ground Zero, seemed to slowly come to a halt. Motor vehicles, buses, taxis—you could just see red lights, a foot on the brake and people around you becoming motionless at that moment as the bells rang out from the churches and cathedrals.

That is another moment I will not forget as this huge, wonderful city, home to so many people of different ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, seemed to be trying to comprehend yet again what had happened 12 months earlier. I was privileged to be there and experience that moment.

A few minutes later, like winding up an old record player, that the whole city started to move again. It was just one of those moments in my life, not only 9-11 but also that year later when I was representing the Australian parliament at the General Assembly of the United Nations. The September 11 event shocked the world. The other thing it did was unite like-minded countries around the world to say that we were not going to be defeated by an act of terrorism so ghastly and so horrific—that we would join together to make sure that the arm of terrorism was not going to defeat us nor defeat the free world. I was part of the government, and I know we had the support of members of the other side of the House when we said we would be part of a group of like-minded countries to take on the Taliban in Afghanistan, which was one of the headquarters of the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. We also went into Iraq to make a difference. I have visited Iraq since the occupying of the country and have seen democracy start to flourish and the beginnings of a better way forward for the people of Iraq. We have already experienced the loss of so many lives in Afghanistan since we and like-minded countries went in to make sure that the cells of terrorism there can never be regenerated or are at least quelled and to play our part as a nation to make sure that terrorism is stamped out and can never make such an attack on the free world in the future.

But it was not just New York; it was the Pentagon in Washington and Pennsylvania. Whilst I was in New York a year later there were 88 Australians killed because of a terrorist attack in Bali. It shocked the world. Cells linked to the original terrorist cell that attacked New York were responsible for the attack in Bali. There were 202 people killed in Bali when three bombs went off that day. At that moment in my life I thought, 'Will we ever really get on top of this?' These were attacks on our way of life—on the free world. Strangely enough, my second son was in Bali at that time. Our children travel so much and so freely. They are so different, I guess, to the youth of our time.

Then, in 2005, 52 people from all walks of life were killed and around 700 people were injured when suicide bombers linked to al-Qaeda detonated bombs in London—another example of how these people will strike the free world and kill innocent people of all faiths and all nationalities. They do not consider who they are going to affect. Since 2001, more than 110 Australians have died as a result of terrorist attacks.

So last Sunday was a time for me to think not only of the events of 9-11 2001 but also of the events since that time. We as a nation have played our part with like-minded countries to do our bit to make sure events such as those we have seen in Bali, London, New York, Washington and Pennsylvania can never happen again. I often think of things said about the Second World War when Hitler was on the rise in Germany and when he invaded Poland. There were people at that time who thought that Hitler would not invade Poland and would never be a force for evil. There is a saying: 'If good men do nothing, evil will persist.' Good people—women and men—of like minds have joined together and done so many good things to make sure that we play our part as Australians in helping other countries ensure that their country is free of the tyranny of terrorists.

Tonight I honour all those who have lost their lives. I refer to all those people who played such a significant part and also of course those who lost loved ones. We remember you and we always will. We need to learn from the cowardly attacks that caused those untimely deaths in 9-11 and in other terrorist attacks since. We have to do everything we can to further reduce the risk of terrorist attacks not only here in Australia but also around the world. We remember all who have been involved and all who have lost loved ones. I will never forget that day in my life and the subsequent events, and I admire those who have come together to make sure that the tyranny of terrorism can never get a foothold in the free world again.

Main Committee adjourned at 19:30