Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Twenty years ago, I was at Cloncurry. That evening, I went back to my motel room after a rather involved discussion with a person about the railway lines out there. I turned on the television and there was what I believed to be a Bruce Willis movie on. I wasn't fond of that, so I turned to the next station. It was remarkable; the same movie was on. So I went to the third station, and I couldn't believe that the same movie was on. As we know, it wasn't a movie; it was the attack of 9/11 on the United States of America.

I rang my cousins, who live in Tennessee, just out of Nashville, and they were crying. It was an immense, traumatic thing. It was a criminal attack on our great ally, the United States. That day 2,977 people were killed in American Airlines flight 11, United Airlines flight 175, American Airlines flight 77 and United Airlines flight 93. We have seen the footage of so many of those.

But let's reflect on United Airlines flight 93 where the people on the plane knew what was happening. They knew what had gone on. They were going to retaliate; they weren't going to be part of it. They retook the plane and the plane crashed. If it hadn't, they probably would have flown that plane into the White House. As people saw the plane go along, they saw it going up and down and violently left and right. That was the terrorists trying to knock the passengers off their feet as they tried to break into the cockpit, which they ultimately did.

After that point in time Australia was also at war. We lost one in Iraq from wounds. We lost three in exercises with the British in Iraq. We lost 41 in Afghanistan, with others who also died of wounds and, tragically, after that date we lost so many from suicide.

It might be 20 years on, but the scars and the emotions are still raw in so many people, not just in the United States but also here in Australia. It was the only response we could have given with such an outrageous attack as that. If it had happened to Australia, we would want the same response. I want to convey to the people of the United States that on this occasion, as on all occasions where we have served together, not only we are united in our purpose, in our belief in democracy, in the freedom of the individual, in the liberties and rights that we have but we will fight to the nth degree to make sure those liberties are maintained and we will stand by each other as we did 20 years ago after this horrific event.