James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Hansard source

Today's motion is about what happened 12 months ago in Israel. It is about the 1,200 men, women and children who were murdered by Hamas. It is about the 250 who were kidnapped. It is about the 100 who remain as hostages in Gaza today. It is about kibbutz Be'eri, where an Australian, Galit Carbone, was killed. It is about her brother, Danny, who survived that massacre and suffers the scars of what happened on that day. It is about the Nova music festival, where the young people who were raped, tortured and murdered were killed simply because they were Jews. It is about the worst loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust. It is about Israel's right to defend itself, free the hostages and restore deterrence in the region. But it is also about our country and the country we want to be, because over the last 12 months at times it has been hard to recognise Australia. It was hard to recognise Australia on 9 October last year at the Sydney Opera House. It was hard to recognise Melbourne or Sydney last weekend when people waved the flags of a listed terrorist organisation, Hezbollah, in open defiance of the law. It has been hard to recognise our major cities most weekends in the last year when the symbols and logos of Hamas or the al-Qassam brigades have been proudly on display and no-one has been charged for it.

We have seen a truly shocking rise in antisemitism here at home since 7 October. I have heard incredibly distressing stories from members of the Jewish community who have happily lived their whole lives in Australia. They've told me that they are contemplating moving to Israel because they think they'll feel safer in a country under attack from three terrorist organisations simultaneously than they do walking the streets of Sydney or Melbourne. I've heard from Holocaust survivors who've lived here safely for decades who now don't want their children or grandchildren to go into the city on weekends because they fear for their wellbeing. Jewish students have told us in excruciating detail about how unwelcome and unsafe they feel on campus in 2024 in Australia. Jewish kindergartens and schools don't just require armed guards, so do Jewish aged-care homes.

We even saw people gather to protest on 7 October, in defiance of calls from the Prime Minister, premiers and police—and, frankly, in defiance of all good taste and decency. At one of those protests yesterday, at the Lakemba mosque, one speaker said the quiet part out loud. Khaled Beydoun said: 'Today is not a day that is full of mourning. Today is a day that marks celebration.' The truth is that what we have seen in the last year is a stain on our great country. I never thought we would witness scenes like this in our country, and it didn't have to be this way. Yes, conflicts on the other side of the world always have the potential to divide us, but we could and should have kept those divides respectful and within the acceptable boundaries of normal civil disagreement.

We could have had protests without incitement, concern for the loss of civilian life without sympathy for terrorism and disagreement without division. The missing ingredient has been leadership. When confronted with the gravest antisemitism crisis in our history, the Prime Minister has vacated the field. He has failed to use the power of his office to send a strong signal about what we will not tolerate as a country. He has failed to ensure that the law is enforced. He has failed to stand with our friend and ally when facing its most dangerous assault since it was established in 1948. Instead of moral clarity we've got equivocation. Instead of moral strength we've got impotence. Instead of moral courage we've had weakness. It is no wonder that extremists have been emboldened. It is no wonder that our laws are being flouted. And it is no wonder that the Jewish community feels let down, abandoned and betrayed at a time of their greatest suffering. For however long I remain in public life and in whatever position I hold, I will work every day to fix this and I will not rest until it is fixed, because our country is better than this.