Live: MPs Address Antisemitism in Australia as Parliament Returns

Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi said a heavy responsibility now lay with parliament to honour those killed at Bondi and respond to hatred in Australian society. “As a Muslim woman, life teaches me that silence is not an option in the face of suffering. It calls on me to feel the pain of others and to respond with compassion, care and love. It reminds me that nothing is more important than our shared humanity,” she told the Senate. Faruqi condemned what she described as the politicisation of the Bondi attack and the exploitation of the Jewish community’s grief following the massacre. She said: The legacy of this appalling violence at Bondi cannot be the undermining of basic civil and political rights or laws that can be used to weaponise racism and hate against everyday Australians who follow their conscience and speak out against injustice and genocide. Our safety, our dignity and our humanity are bound together. “We are not safe until everyone is safe, we are not free, until everyone is free. Hate directed at one community threatens all of us. In Christchurch, the world saw leadership that met horror and trauma with compassion, and met violence with unity. That is the path we must choose here as well.” Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns has spoken on the condolence motion for the Bondi attack, saying his community is full of “proud people” who belong in Australia. “For Jewish Australians, this country means so much. This country means so much for our community. This country means everything. It has been a safe haven for our community and a safe haven for our people who fled persecution and dehumanisation,” Burns said. “I tried to think about what must have been going through the gunman’s head, when they’re looking down upon the community, seeing innocent people. What are they looking at? What do they think of us? What do they think of me? What do people think of the Jewish people here in Australia?” Burns asked. “Well, I’m proud of my community, and our community are a proud people. We belong here, and we must not dehumanise one another,” he said. “We need to create stronger laws to ensure that is the appropriate response to that sort of hate and vilification. Right now, we also have a group of people who are desperate to be stood by and to have Australian stand with them,” he said. “To every single Australian who has lit a candle, who has checked in on a Jewish community member, a friend, a colleague, I say thank you, because how a country responds matters. To all of the victims and to my community, this is our home. This is our country.” Greens leader Larissa Waters said people of all religions should be free from discrimination and terror, and “this reprehensible act of antisemitic violence is not who we are”. Waters called for stronger gun laws – which the government will introduce tomorrow with her party’s support – and for the nation to break the cycle of hate and violence by better providing for Australians. “Our response to the Bondi massacre must not select those to protect and leave others behind, and we need to bring the community along to end hate. We must also eradicate poverty, ensure everyone has a roof over their heads, access to top quality public health care and education and freedom to express political and religious views,” she said. “The heinous acts of two men cannot be allowed to become a catalyst for more hate and division. We must collectively act against all forms of hate and intolerance, whether it’s directed at a Jewish man for his kippah, a queer person for who they love, or a Muslim woman for wearing a hijab,” she said. “Whether it’s attacking a new migrant making life in our country or a trans person for expressing their gender identity. We have seen the dangers of racial vilification and dog whistling that leads to violence... this hatred led to the murders at Bondi. It drove the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings.” Another prominent Jewish MP, opposition education spokesperson Julian Leeser, has described the government’s track record since October 7, 2023 as “800 days of failure”, as he spoke on the condolence motion for the Bondi shooting. “Bondi alone did not do this, but it has been accelerating in the 800 days between the Hamas attack on Israel and the Bondi attack – 800 days of failure across our national life. The feeling in the Jewish community right now is visceral. It’s of disappointment, of anger and of betrayal,” he said. “Bondi represents a moment of choice. Will we stay in the political cul-de-sac that we’ve been in for over 800 days or will we tackle the sources and causes of antisemitism in this country? Will our leaders continue to treat antisemitism and violence against Jews as a political problem to manage, rather than the moral and cultural problem that it is? And will our leaders drag their heels or deal with the issues with priority, alacrity and zealous determination?” Leeser said antisemitism was “festering” in neo-Nazi groups, radical Islamists and in the “cultural left”. “It’s in the writers’ festivals that celebrate people who say their mission is to make Jews feel culturally unsafe. It is in the theatres where keffiyehs are donned and Jews are cat-called. It’s in the universities where Jewish students are harassed, and Jewish academics are de-platformed,” he said. “It’s in the conferences in which Jews are silenced, shut down, humiliated called ‘mutt’, and where the term Zionist is used as an insult. In all these places, we have witnessed a failure of moral leadership.” Prominent Jewish MP Mark Dreyfus has read the Jewish Mourner’s Kaddish prayer on the floor of the House of Representatives, shortly after he became emotional speaking about the impact of the Bondi attack. “There are moments in our nation’s history that confront us with unimaginable horror and grief, that leave us searching for words, that leave us struggling to comprehend the scale of what has been lost, that compel us to reflect, to remember and to act,” he said. “That test not only our laws and our institutions, but also the quiet assumptions of safety, decency and mutual care that distinguish Australia’s values,” he said. As he read the following passage of his speech, on the impact of the 15 deaths on the victim’s families, Dreyfuss became emotional: For every person murdered, there are families and friends left behind, a home left quieter, clothes still hanging in wardrobes, photos on walls that will never be updated. Children asking when someone is coming home, a seat left empty at the dinner table, a laugh no longer heard, a longing for one more word, one moment, one more chance to say what was left unsaid. “The pain of that absence does not pass quickly. They were parents, children, neighbours and friends. Their loss is not only an overwhelming private sorrow for families and loved ones, but a wound felt across the nation. It’s a reminder of how fragile our shared sense of peace and safety can be and how vital it is that we protect it together. “There are some that seek to take that from us; we must not let them. You don’t have to be Jewish to feel this in your chest, an attack like this hurts all of us.” Michaelia Cash said the Commonwealth royal commission was an important first step, but called for it to be “thorough, properly resourced and worthy of the family’s trust”. “It must not be an exercise in closure. It must be an exercise in truth, however difficult that may be, and wherever it leads, because the families deserve honesty, and the country deserves protection,” she said. Cash said violent extremism that preached intolerance, separation and supremacy was a threat to the country. “I say this without hesitation, the fundamentalist Islamist ideology that incites hatred and glorifies terror has no place in Australia, and it must be confronted and rooted out with the full force of the law,” she said. “We also can’t be naive about what it takes to defend a free society. Decency is who we are, but decency must be matched with strength. A country that cannot protect its citizens is not a strong country, and a parliament that cannot name the threat, confront it and defeat it, will leave Australians exposed. “May the memory of those lost at Bondi be a turning point for our country, a turning point not just in how we speak about antisemitism, but in how we stop it. When this country stops managing antisemitism and starts defeating it, when we stop excusing intimidation and start enforcing consequences.” Nationals Leader David Littleproud has said that he has only seen fear in the eyes of his constituents twice: following the September 11 attacks of 2001, and after the Bondi shooting December 14. “What unfolded last month was a despicable act of antisemitic terror. Australia was violated in the most egregious way on that day by pure evil that has left a scar on our nation,” he said. “Ultimately, it is for us not to let this become a footnote in our history, but instead to have the courage to make it a defining moment as an enduring legacy to those lives lost to eradicate this type of evil from our country,” Littleproud told the House of Representatives. “Not just in western Queensland, but across Australia, we think of Bondi as this iconic, if not mythical part of Australia that most of us only ever dream of visiting,” he said. “For one of this nation’s most iconic places to have been assaulted in the most heinous way has shaken our belief in what it is to be Australian and what it is to live in Australia, a nation that until now has been afar from this type of terror.” Littleproud said the attack was the “human toll” of inaction on antisemitism, and that leaders had failed the Jewish community. Opposition Senate leader Michaelia Cash has become emotional reading out each of the names of the victims killed in the Bondi Beach massacre. “Fifteen lives lost. Fifteen families shattered. Fifteen empty places at tables that will never feel whole again,” she told the Senate chamber. “Behind each of these names is a life taken, a family shattered and a community wounded. Their loved ones will carry this loss forever, and a nation carries a responsibility with them,” she said. “We mourn them today, and we owe them more than words. We owe them answers. The lessons we must learn and the resolve to protect Australians from this evil ever happening again,” Cash said. “There is nothing this parliament can say that will undo what has been done to you … we cannot carry that grief for you, but we can say this, and we can mean it: Australia mourns with you. Australia stands with you, and Australia will remember your loved ones always.”