Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on this motion and I would like to endorse all of the comments from my colleagues on this side of the chamber. As we reflect on the significance of the one-year anniversary yesterday, on 7 October, one of the things that I've been reflecting very deeply on is the fact that this is not just Israel's war. This is equally Australia's war—and for all of our freedom- and democratic-loving countries.

We don't have to look too far back in our own history to know that democracy is not self-evident and not self-perpetuating. The freedoms that we all enjoy—not just all of us here—have been fought hard for and must continue to be fought for. We have to accept that the impact of this terrible catastrophe that has occurred in Israel is something we have to fight. We have to fight, not just for the rights of Jewish Australians, who are Australians and who deserve all of the protections and freedoms that are accorded to and are expected by all Australians. But what we have seen here in Australia since 7 October last year is turning our nation into something that, sometimes, I can barely recognise. Hatred has been spewed in this chamber, in the media, on our campuses, in some of our communities and in protests in support of listed terrorist organisations and the atrocities they committed on 7 October.

If you listen to some of those opposite, you would think that this was a war and an atrocity that Israel perpetuated. It did not. It was carefully planned and calculated for many years by Hamas. Six months before 7 October, Hamas leader Sinwar was very proud to tell potential donors and supporters that they had been preparing, for years, a big surprise for Israel. They dug at least 150 kilometres of tunnels, going from 30 to 150 feet below Gaza. They built munitions factories underneath Gaza. They built military barracks, tunnels and homes, in essence. They were preparing for war against Israel. How did they fund it? They funded it by diverting aid donations and aid support. They taxed their own people to prepare for war. To prepare for the war that they have unleashed on Israel, they diverted hundreds of millions of dollars from those who needed it most in Gaza.

Those opposite talk about the suffering of the Palestinians. Absolutely, but Israel did not start this; Hamas did. They knew what they were doing. They knew when they unleashed thousands of their soldiers into Israel. They sent them with cameras to murder, to commit a massacre, in the most heinous of all ways. They filmed it and they shared it—women, children. It defies discussion or debate. They did this knowing that Israel would retaliate for this unprovoked attack. They knew the danger that they were putting the Palestinian people in. They knew and they did not care. So please do not think for a second that this was Israel's war to start. This is our war to finish, standing side by side with the Israelis.

One of the things we haven't focused enough on in this chamber is why this is our war. This is not just what is now a kinetic war in the Levant. Australia and our democratic allies are facing an axis, or an alliance, of four nations, Iran, Russia, China and North Korea, who are working together, hand in hand, in ways that we never thought possible. They are helping each other prosecute their own wars and their own fights. Russia in Ukraine is getting significant support from Iran and North Korea, in terms of ballistic missiles and other supports. Iran is using its proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. They are not just Israel's enemies; they are our enemies as well.

What do they have in common? They all have nuclear capabilities, they exert brutal domestic control on their populations and they have a shared hatred of democracy. Those opposite: if you think that this is not what it is about—it is about helping each other fight each other's wars. We are facing a threat in this country. We have been subject to a gross weaponisation of our social media and our media. How on earth have those opposite been so radicalised? How have our universities turned into hotbeds of antisemitism and hatred, having now turned into unsafe places for thousands of Australian students? How have we got high school students who are chanting 'from the river to the sea'? How many of them actually even know what river and what sea and what it actually means? It is a call for genocide that those opposite are now spouting. How has this happened? How were we not paying more attention to how this radicalisation and how this hatred for democracy, how this hatred for Australian—how is this all happening? We have to start looking at things much more closely and understanding that there is so much more at stake than Israel's sovereignty, its right to exist and its right to defend itself.

Today in this chamber we commemorate and we mourn for the dead and for the hostages. We mourn for what I think is not just a threat to Israel but a threat to our own democracy. This is why all of us in this place and our nation have to look more widely. We have to say that we stand by Israel. We stand by the Australian Jewish community. We will fight for you. We will fight with you because your fight has to be our fight.