Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I would like to take this opportunity to add my voice to the sentiments expressed in this chamber and in the other place today to support the fine words of Senators Abetz, Wong, Milne and Nash to the victims of the siege and to the families and friends of Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson. We can only begin to imagine your grief, but I hope that in some small way the knowledge that so many people in Australia and around the world stand with you offers some support and comfort through these dark times. The support for the survivors and for the police is also unambiguous and unwavering.

The siege at Martin Place was an attempt to strike at the heart of our society and to sow fear in the hope that it would reap hate. It failed abysmally. Instead, Australians of all backgrounds and beliefs came together to turn against this act of hatred and terror. Where the gunman's goal had been to create division, there came unity. And where he sought to create fear and animosity, there grew a field of flowers. There will be an opportunity to examine the events of that awful day—what led up to it and whether it was in any way avoidable—but now is not the time to discuss those matters. Instead, we should reflect on the lives lost and those lives that have been irrevocably changed, and on what this tragic event means for us as Australians standing together.

For me this cannot be put better than in the words of the writer and broadcaster Waleed Aly, who wrote these raw passages in the hours following the siege. He said:

…Islam has such permeable borders, such an absence of hierarchy, that anyone can become anything in their own mind. Its symbols are available to anyone who wants to claim them and there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. Australian Muslims had been disowning Monis for at least seven years. They'd even expressed their concerns to the authorities. But how can you stop the 'fake sheikh' being real to himself? There's no control order regime to account for this. There's no metadata inside an apparently deranged mind. We're busy fretting about the terrorists' tools of the future—which is all fair enough—while they wreak havoc with the tools of the past.

Waleed Aly concluded:

But there's another history to be written here. One that is very much in control. It's a history written not just in the statements of leaders, but in the minutiae of our everyday interactions. It's the history we glimpsed as the siege unfolded when a single, humble Australian decided to declare #illridewithyou in solidarity with Muslims too scared to ride public transport. It's a history that commenced with the interfaith vigil held at the Lakemba and Auburn mosques. And it's a history to be determined by what we decide this tragedy symbolises: the sordid ideology of a man who deserves to be forgotten or the greatest virtues of those of us left behind.