Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This morning, Australians woke to the shocking news of a terrorist attack at Westminster—an attack on the parliament, on police, on citizens. It was an attack on parliament's freedom and democracy everywhere in the world. Westminster is rightly known as the mother of parliaments. Almost every element of our parliamentary tradition is modelled on the parliament of the United Kingdom. It is the birthplace of our free parliamentary democracy and the rule of law which sustains it.

When the Palace of Westminster was under attack from the Nazis in 1943, Churchill described the House of Commons as:

…the citadel of British liberty; it is the foundation of our laws … able to face the possibility of national destruction with classical composure.

Consistent with this, Prime Minister Theresa May has said that parliament will resume tomorrow. This will ensure, as Churchill went on to say, that the House of Commons will continue to play 'its part in all its broad freedom in British public life'.

We send our heartfelt condolences, especially to the families of the victims, including the police officer murdered by the terrorist as he attempted to enter the houses of parliament, and we wish all those injured a full recovery. Our heartfelt sympathy and resolute solidarity is with the people of the United Kingdom, with whom we stand today, as we always have and always will, steadfast allies in freedom's cause. As the Speaker noted, we acknowledge the presence of Her Excellency the High Commissioner of the United Kingdom, Menna Rawlings, in the House today. Your Excellency, you have our full sympathy, solidarity and support.

At this stage, it appears that four people were killed by the terrorist and around 40 injured, including a woman who resided in South Australia. Our agencies and our High Commissioner, with whom I have spoken several times, are engaging with their United Kingdom counterparts as the investigation continues.

We praise the quick action of the first responders and all those who came to the aid of the injured. In one example, the British MP Tobias Ellwood—whose brother died in the Bali bombings in 2002—in the frantic minutes after the attack desperately attempted to resuscitate the critically injured police officer, who subsequently died as a result of the murderous attack upon him by the terrorist. This act of heroism is just one of the extraordinary stories that are emerging from this tragedy. As Prime Minister May said so powerfully and in language we know reflects the values of Australians as much as it reflects the values of Britons:

Those first responders rushed towards the danger at the same time as they called on citizens and civilians to flee.

Australian should be reassured that our agencies are today, as every day, working relentlessly and tirelessly to keep our people safe. We are very alert to the vulnerabilities of places of mass gathering and open spaces and the risk of relatively unsophisticated attacks like that perpetrated in London. We have experienced them in Australia, most recently and tragically in Melbourne. Keeping Australians safe is our highest priority. It is our most solemn, our supreme obligation. My government has and will continue to provide our agencies with the resources and the powers they need at home to protect us and the powers they need to ensure that our armed forces have the ability to kill the terrorists in the field, whatever they may be doing.

But we must be clear-eyed about the risk. It is real. And that is why the terror threat level has been set at 'probable' since September 2014. We work very closely with all our allies, including the United Kingdom. Our relationship—our strategic, our security relationship with the UK—is as close as it could be. And we work with many other partners around the world.

The aim of the terrorists is to prey on vulnerability and divide us, but we will never let the terrorists win—not on the battlefield, not here at home. We will never change the way we live.

As I have said before, including when we launched our multicultural statement on Monday, Australia is the most successful multicultural society in the world. A necessary precondition for our harmony is national security, a resolute determination to defend our nation, our people and our values. Security is the foundation on which our freedoms have been built and maintained. The fact that we are a secure, diverse, well integrated nation means we confront these challenges from a position of strength and unity, and that is why I am so confident when I say that our people are our greatest assets, all 24 million of them. They are people with much diversity but united as patriotic Australians, proud of our nation—multicultural, safe, secure and free—with a shared destiny.

As Prime Minister Theresa May said earlier this morning, the values of the British parliament command the admiration and respect of free people everywhere and so they do because they are our values too. We stand, all of us, with the United Kingdom comforted that we share those values—they are ours—freedom of speech, democracy, the rule of law. We will never give in to terror. We will never stop fighting for our hard-won freedoms and standing resolutely side by side with free nations that fight for freedom too by our side.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks just then. Today Australia offers our oldest friend our deepest sympathies. The hearts of this nation go out to the people of Britain. High Commissioner, we welcome you here most warmly on this most tragic day. Please tell your nation that this parliament is united in our support for your nation. Our parliament stands united with all parliaments in condemning this attack on arguably the world's oldest democratic institution.

I think the Prime Minister was right to call this an attack on democracy itself, an attack on the right of people's representatives to gather in peace. It was an attack on the right of citizens to see their democracy in action, because the streets near Westminster Bridge were populated not just with the members of partly parliament, including a minister who tried in vain to resuscitate one of the victims, but also with the schoolchildren, with visitors, with the staff who help this vast and complicated exercise and enterprise run smoothly. All of them were endangered by this crime of hatred.

The murder of the metropolitan police officer reminds us of the risks our security agencies take on our behalf to keep us safe. On behalf of all honourable members, I want to acknowledge and thank our Australian Federal Police and the parliamentary security officers for whom this news must strike a particular chord. I would also like to reassure our police and security services that they have the full support of this parliament for the invaluable and sometimes dangerous work that they do to keep our people safe. Australians should take comfort knowing their country is guarded and protected by those who are amongst the best in the world. And Australians should also take some solace that, despite the fierce arguments we have here and indeed may well in this question time, for this moment we are united in our support for the security of the Australian people. We are united in our commitment to respect the bravery and skill of our police and security services. We are united in our solemn focus on keeping people safe. We are united in our unwavering determination to eliminate terrorism and to bring its perpetrators to justice.

Today our screens are full of Westminster Bridge, the London Eye, the houses of parliament, the tower which holds Big Ben. The place names and scenery are so familiar to us; unfortunately too, so is this ritual. These instances of offering condolences to the victims of terrorism and standing in solidarity with the nation affected have become too common, too frequent. Too often these days Australians wake to wall-to-wall coverage of attacks that have claimed innocent lives. One glimpse of the television confirms our sinking feelings—helicopter angles of cordoned off streets, shaky iPhone footage of distressed crowds. Because it is Britain, with so many connections to Australia, we call people we know who take the Tube to work, who sent us a selfie with the Thames in the background the day before. In this highly connected world, we are closer than ever. We check Facebook for the statuses of those letting us know that they are okay. It has become almost a routine we go through. But there is nothing routine about terrorism. It is a crime wholly foreign to our values, to our way of life, to our human values. All Australians unequivocally condemn this act of murder and we say to those who seek to spread fear, who shed blood to spread fear, 'You will not succeed. You will not divide a people or a world determined and too strong to defeat your ideology of evil.'

These very dispatch boxes from which the Prime Minister over there and I here send the parliament's condolences to Britain were given to Australia by King George V in 1927. They are replicas of the original boxes which sat in Britain's House of Commons and which were destroyed by German bombing in 1941. Even then, in Britain's greatest challenge, Australia always stood alongside it. Australia was there steadfast in solidarity, unshakeable in the bonds of friendship and kinship. As we always have, we will stand with the people of Britain today. They are not just by ties of family but by common values and old affection. United in our continuing determination to defeat terrorism in all its forms, we hope and pray that those who have been frightened find comfort, that those who mourn find solace, that the injured recover and that those taken from us rest in eternal peace.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a mark of respect to the deceased and in recognition of those injured, I ask all present to rise in their places.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

I thank the House.