Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I rise to join with the Leader of the Government in the Senate in expressing the opposition's deep concern, support and sympathy for those caught up in the Martin Place siege. We grieve for those who lost their lives. We extend our thoughts to those who were traumatised and injured, to their families and to their friends, and to the police and other law enforcement and emergency service personnel who responded to the siege with professionalism and courage.

We all know that, on the morning of 15 December last year, a gunman walked into the Lindt cafe in Martin Place, Sydney. This is a place many Australians know well, in the heart of Sydney's financial, commercial and legal district. The gunman took staff and customers of the cafe hostage and held them against their will. Our nation waited and hoped and prayed. This violent act ended shockingly in the small hours of the morning of 16 December, and we know that Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson both lost their lives.

Tori Johnson was a young man of enormous promise—engaging, intelligent, generous and thoughtful, a loving son, brother and partner. It is clear that during those terrible hours in the Lindt cafe he displayed great courage, integrity and loyalty to his staff and customers. Katrina Dawson was a remarkable young woman, a talented barrister, well respected by her colleagues for her skills and her commitment to her profession. She was tremendously gifted academically yet willing to act as a role model and mentor to others, and of course she was a loving partner and a devoted mother to three children.

To the families and loved ones, to the friends and colleagues of Tori and Katrina, the opposition express our profound sympathy. Your loss is unimaginable, agonising and heartbreaking. We want you to know we are thinking of you. Several hostages and a police officer were injured in the siege, and for all of those this must have been a terrible ordeal and one that must continue to cause anxiety, grief and despair.

This siege gripped the nation as it unfolded, but for those who were directly involved it has had an enormous personal cost and it will continue to take its toll into the future. Words are never enough in a time of such grief and in the face of such loss. What we can say is we are thinking of you, and the compassion and empathy of millions of Australians are yours.

A coronial inquest into the Martin Place siege has commenced and a joint New South Wales-Commonwealth review has been conducted. When they are finalised, these inquiries will provide more information of what happened in the cafe, why it happened and suggest lessons to be learned. But what we can say is that this violent attack was completely at odds with the values of the Australian community. This violent attack was also completely at odds with the values of the peaceful religion of Islam.

With such a terrible event, it is important that we never lose sight of who we are and what we stand for. It was moving to see how Australians responded to the Martin Place siege. As the event was unfolding, the people of Sydney were patient, calm and supportive of the efforts of police and law enforcement agencies. In the days and weeks after the siege, Australians expressed sympathy and solidarity with the victims. They covered Martin Place with flowers, a field of flowers. They attended commemorative services and they paid their respects in many forums. Across our great and diverse nation, Australians rejected appeals to hatred and to hostility and displayed instead tolerance and good sense.

We can never respond to irrationalism with irrationalism, and we can never fight intolerance with intolerance. The siege at Martin Place was an assault on Australian values, but those values have held strong in the aftermath of the siege. The values that Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson embodied as individuals, the values that led so many to express their sympathy by laying flowers at Martin Place, and the values that led so many to offer, 'I'll ride with you'—these are the values that continue to bind us together as an Australian community.