Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the government's motion regarding the October 7 attacks committed by Hamas. Yesterday we marked 12 months since the horrific and inexcusable attack by Hamas, an abhorrent militant group, on the democratic nation of Israel and its people. We remembered those lives that were lost; their families, who will never be the same again; and those who are yet to be returned and remain hostages. This is a disappointing motion by the Albanese labour government. It is an abandonment by the Prime Minister of a bipartisan approach to these issues. The Prime Minister has consistently failed over the last 12 months to take a strong stance or show of support for Israel and the Jewish community. It is that failure to lead well that has caused so much antisemitism to take root in this country. We know where antisemitism can lead. History has shown us that. That's why this is not a matter on which the Prime Minister can afford to be on the fence.

Hamas, Hezbollah and these evil militants must be condemned in the strongest of terms. Domestic political gain should not be a factor in Australia's response or condemnation of these groups. Unfortunately, we have seen Anthony Albanese and his Labor government prioritising their chances of election success at the expense of supporting the nation of Israel. I've said it before and I will say it again: the Prime Minister must visit Israel. He must go to these sites and come face to face with the evil that was committed. Following the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Nazi Holocaust, he must lead by example and see the atrocities committed against its people.

In March of this year I had the solemn and sobering privilege of visiting Israel. I visited those sites, walked the pathways of those who are no longer with us. Let me tell you: it is absolutely harrowing. There's no other way to describe it. We can't even imagine in our own country what it is like to send our preschoolers to school and to teach them to find safety should they hear sirens or hear rocket fire. Our children freely attend preschool and aren't subject to having to understand what this means. We don't have to send our high school students, once they graduate, to the military to learn how to defend our nation. We don't have borders that are lined with enemies that would prefer to see our destruction, to see us eliminated from the face of the earth. As a mother of four sons of my own, I cannot imagine seeing them on their days off, should they have to be enlisted by the military, to walk the streets, to patrol the streets, to ensure the safety of their community. We live a luxurious life in this country and we must not forget that, but we must not allow it to make us complacent in the face of the horrific antisemitism that we're seeing.

I viewed the footage of innocent Israelis being attacked brutally, utterly brutally, with pure evil intent by members of Hamas. I can tell you that those images stay with you. They never leave your mind. They bring back a feeling in the pit of my stomach—one that I can't shake.

Young children, some of the most vulnerable members of our population, who should never have to think about terrorism, let alone be in the midst of it—children just like that—were awoken by the sound of rocket fire and gunfire. I watched the footage of them running to their garden bomb shelter with their father, thinking that they were safe. Just as they think they are safe from attacks from the air, it proves to be a murderous, cold-blooded ground assault, with a grenade being thrown into the safe room and blowing their father, who tried to save their lives by diving on top of them, to pieces.

I saw slightly older teenagers and young adults, the same age as my sons, being hunted down and killed as they drove up to roadblocks. I imagined my own sons in that situation. Teenage girls huddled together in a shelter, scared because of the rocket fire going on above them. A Hamas terrorist then appeared in the shelter, and the girls looked at each other in confusion: 'Who is this man with this gun?' The next thing is those young teenage girls lying dead on the floor of that shelter, surrounded by gloating terrorists from Hamas. There is no place for supporters of terror in this country. There is no place for supporters of those who would snuff out the lives of teenage girls, who would rape and murder them. How can those images possibly ever leave your mind once you see that? For those survivors who are still alive, that is burned into their minds. It's made all the more deplorable, of course, by the footage of those Hamas militants rejoicing and calling them Jewish pigs—that is what they call them—and claiming that that was their role in the name of Allah.

The events of October 7 were an absolute massacre, not an act of self-defence. There is no excuse for them and no explanation other than pure evil and terrorism. Fanatical terrorists who are driven by evil ideology are not interested in a two-state solution. They are not interested in a peaceful co-existence of Israel and Palestine. They do not want an end to the war. They do not want a ceasefire or peaceful negotiations. They demonstrate that at every turn. They want the total destruction of the Jewish people. They want Israel wiped from the face of the earth.

Let's not forget that, within Israel's borders, it is not only Jewish people who live in a peaceful democracy; it is Arab Muslims, Christians and atheists living peacefully. Hamas and the terrorists want them all gone. They don't just want the Jewish people of Israel gone; they want them all gone. They want the Arab Muslims gone. They want the Christians gone. They want the atheists gone. They want the whole of Israel wiped off the face of the earth.

These terrorists are indoctrinated right from childhood that martyrdom is the ultimate accomplishment in life. For Hamas, death in pursuit of its cause, even the death of its own civilians, is praised. Hamas doesn't care about humanity, and that was completely evident by the footage that I saw. It puts no value on human life. It uses citizens, children and civilians, as human shields, and then it relies on the goodwill and even the ignorance of the rest of the world to clean up its own mess. Further to that, it relies on the goodwill and the ignorance of others to continue to pursue its agenda of terrorism and the annihilation of the Jewish people.

It has relied on the naivety of the West, and we are seeing the devastating consequences of that with the incredible rise of antisemitism in this country. The progressive Left have been more than willing to do the bidding of this terrorist organisation, and it is an indictment on the Albanese government that they too are buying into it. The Prime Minister must demonstrate to the world that Australia will not stand idly by, ambivalent to the creeping indifference of the world towards the ultimate goals of Hamas and its evil partners.

Israel must always be supported in its right to exist as a nation. We, as a nation, must not continue the work of the Nazis in the form of Hamas, Hezbollah and their evil allies. We must all stand up and say no. We must all stand up for the Jewish members of our own community. Similar to the responses that we saw during the war on terror when it was suggested that we do not subject the Muslim community to Islamophobia, we must not subject the Jewish people of our community to antisemitism. There is no place in Australia for antisemitism. It was the same when the tension between our nation and China took hold not so long ago. We were told we do not target the Chinese people. We condemn the Chinese government, the CCP, but we do not target Chinese people or people of Chinese heritage in our country, so we do not do this to the Jewish people of this country.

We stamp out antisemitism. We do not encourage it. We learn from world history. There is no room for ambivalence in this fight, and Israel need us as their allies in the West to stand with them now more than ever. It is true this fight is not just a fight for Israel; it is a fight for the free world, for democracy. They are the final bastion of hope, and we must stand with them. If we ignore this—you can believe it—we will be next.

Let me remind you, Hamas, Hezbollah, the terrorist organisations, are not interested in humanity. With whatever humanity we have as a nation, we must stand together with Israel.