Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion to acknowledge and remember the victims of the appalling October 7 terror attacks, all of the families of those victims and, of course, the hostages who have been held for 366 agonising days by a terrorist group determined to prolong the human suffering they have caused and continue to cause. The terrorism of Hamas, supported and funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran, was not resistance, nor should it be associated with any other form of justification that some have tried to create. It was the mass murder of innocent civilians. That is what we mean, and what the vast majority of Australians mean, when we say we unequivocally condemn the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7 last year—unequivocally, meaning we do not need to add to the end of that statement some sort of mealy-mouthed criticism of Israel and its legitimate right to defend itself or take action against the terrorist groups and their funders and backers in Iran, who try every single day to fire rockets and missiles into Israel to kill more Israelis. This is not the behaviour of any rational or reasonable actor; this is the behaviour of terrorists committed to murder and depravity because of an evil, deeply antisemitic ideology.

On October 7 last year, the terrorists, rapists and murderers who broke a ceasefire and invaded Israel did not seek out military targets; they sought out innocent, unarmed, defenceless women and children, mothers and fathers, grandparents and grandchildren. They took an evil, disgusting joy in the murders and sexual violence that they were carrying out. Some of the terrorists called home to boast about the Jews that they were murdering. Others filmed and documented the massacre. By any reasonable person, the abhorrent behaviour of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and everybody else involved in the October 7 terrorist attack is unequivocally condemned. More than 1,200 innocent people were murdered in cold blood, hundreds were taken captive and many are yet to be returned. There is no greater evidence that Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran want that violence to continue, and continue to escalate, than the fact that they have refused to release those hostages.

Just as the actions of Hamas terrorists on October 7 were incomprehensibly abhorrent and shocking, so too have we been disgusted to see here in Australia, in our own country, people who choose to celebrate that terrorism, who claimed that October 7 was a great victory and who used it as an opportunity to chant antisemitic slogans and seek to intimidate Jewish Australians. This disgraceful behaviour has no place in this country, and it is disgusting that it has been allowed to become so normalised that we have seen some in Australia choose yesterday, 7 October, and the lead-up to that date as a chance to push their own divisive and dangerous views even further and to wave flags and show symbols of support for terrorist groups such as Hezbollah. October 7 was an appalling tragedy, but so too is it an appalling tragedy that some in our society saw the footage of that terrorist attack and decided that they sympathise not with the innocent victims of that attack but with the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists.

I was proud yesterday to stand with members of the Australian Jewish community on the lawns of this Parliament House to share their pain and their frustration at the events of October 7. Yesterday, we remembered all of those who lost their lives to terror on that tragic day and all of those hostages who remain in captivity. We were joined by people from all walks of life and all backgrounds, including members of our incredible Australian Iranian community, who, I know, know all too well the pain and suffering that is inflicted on innocent people by the Islamic Republic of Iran regime.

It is disappointing that the government, in the other place, today would not accept or agree to the opposition's proposed changes to ensure that this motion could be supported on a bipartisan basis; focus specifically on the victims of October 7, their families and the hostages who are still held; and call out those who are to blame for all of the human suffering that occurred that day and every day since—the suffering that is caused by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by the IRI regime and by all of those who support and run cover for them.