Darren Chester
Gippsland · National Party · Australia
“After four years of the Albanese government, Australians are worse off and our nation is heading in the wrong direction, with the standard of living in freefall. The heart of the problem, why Australians are worse off, is very simple: we're being led by a prime minister who simply can't tell the truth.”
“This is a prime minister who said, 'I won't BS people,' but in question time we cannot get a straight answer out of this prime minister to any question. The Prime Minister told Australians, 'My word is my bond.' Remember that?”
“We need someone like Gemma Rendell to stand up and fight for our fair share as a genuine community champion. I believe in putting locals first. For me, putting locals first means supporting our small businesses, our family owned businesses, right across the electorate of Gippsland.”
“We need those local businesses to survive. Right now, it's pretty tough in the local economy. We need you to be out there supporting local businesses at every opportunity. Winter is not a time to hibernate. Winter is a time to get out and explore Gippsland.”
“Gemma Rendell is an outstanding East Gippslander. Gemma is aiming to create history at the state election in November by becoming the first female member for the seat of Gippsland East. She is a busy young lady already. She's a farmer, a teacher, a young mum, and she's been active in our community for many years.”
“Traditionally, we've had a peak holiday season of eight to 10 weeks over the summer period where all of the accommodation is full and all of the restaurants are busy, but then it's been quiet in winter. Now we're trying to make sure we build on our winter season.”
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“With that money, we put in six new overtaking lanes east of Bairnsdale and we upgraded the streetscapes of towns like Nicholson, Johnsonville, Swan Reach, Lakes Entrance, Numeralla, Cann River and Sale. On top of that, we funded the full duplication of the Princes Highway between Traralgon and Sale. The full duplication was funded during our time in government, and yet, in four years, there's been not a single dollar of new funding from the Albanese government. But just when you think it couldn't get any worse it gets just a little bit worse. When we left government there was money in the Princes Highway corridor plan for work to occur in Victoria.”
“It beggars belief because what's happening now is the Princes Highway, in many sections, is simply falling apart. We know that poorly maintained road surfaces contribute to serious injuries and deaths on our roads. They also contribute to damage to cars. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, many Gippslanders are telling me they're paying for repairs on their wheels, on their axles and on the alignment of their cars. They are paying the price for the Albanese government's neglect of the Princes Highway. This is in stark contrast to when the coalition was in government. When we were in government, we had two packages of funding for the Princes Highway east of Bairnsdale. One was $50 million and one was $60 million.”
“'Just fix the bloody roads!'—that is a message that I get every day in my electorate as I travel around from Morwell all the way through to Mallacoota and the New South Wales border. There's one road in particular which is the spine that runs through the electorate of Gippsland—the Princes Highway. The Princes Highway is the critical arterial road that carries the wealth of our community in terms of the goods we produce and products we take to market. It also brings the visitors to our community who are so important for our tourism economy. What bothers me is that, after almost four years now in government, the Labor Party, the Albanese government, has not allocated a single new dollar of expenditure in the budget for the Princes Highway, the most important transport route in my electorate.”
“While the federal government does give money directly to the states for education, it's up to the state minister to decide the spending priorities in the budget, and we need to get Sale College to the top of the list. But while the money is being rorted, we are continuing to miss out. So I am pleased to see that the leader of the Liberals in Victoria, Jess Wilson, and the Nationals leader, Danny O'Brien, are offering a fresh start and real solutions. A Liberal and Nationals government in Victoria would stop the rorts and waste by establishing a royal commission into CFMEU misconduct and a new industry watchdog, Construction Enforcement Victoria. We need to end the rorts, waste and corruption to get Victoria heading in the right direction.”
“How do we really expect students, who may come from struggling backgrounds in some cases, to value their education when the state Labor government gives them a second-rate learning facility like this? Across my electorate, from Morwell to Mallacoota, this is the No. 1 public school infrastructure project because of these enduring poor conditions. As a former student of the school, I don't believe a split junior and senior campus is desirable, and establishing a brand-new school on one site would deliver significant long-term cost savings and benefits in terms of educational outcomes for the students themselves. Moving the school would also provide opportunities for the township of Sale to re-use some significant parcels of land, both in York Street and in Guthridge Parade, for housing and other activities.”
“I've seen video footage in the last couple of days where, on a rainy day, water is just streaming through the ceiling into the classrooms. It's a 50-year-old school. It's beyond its useful life and there is no point attempting to refurbish these facilities when an entirely new school is required. There has been structural damage to some of the rooms. Some rooms can't even be used at the moment. There are safety risks associated with mould and asbestos building materials, and you can't repair those sorts of things with a few coats of paint and a maintenance program. Over the years I've met with concerned parents and teachers, and they are disgusted with the facilities that students are being forced to endure.”
“When it comes to schools in need of urgent funding, you don't need to look any further than my old public school of Sale College. If the state government wasn't wasting $15 billion on CFMEU corruption, we would have had a new school in Sale years ago. Alongside my colleague and the member for Gippsland South Danny O'Brien, we've been trying to get the state government to prioritise the construction of a new campus. All we've had, year upon year upon year, are more excuses from the state government. Currently Sale College is split across two campuses—the junior campus in Guthridge Parade and the senior campus in York Street. That model is not meeting the needs of students, and it's not meeting the needs of teachers or the support staff. The junior campus in particular is literally falling apart.”
“Many of these projects involve funding from the state and federal governments, and in all cases the taxpayers have been failed by the Victorian government. You have to ask yourself: why does it matter? It matters because, apart from the detailed allegations of criminality and complete contempt for the rule of law, every dollar wasted on bikies, wasted on union thugs, is less money going to the things that matter most in Victoria. That $15 billion could have built new hospitals. It could have built new schools. It could have improved our public housing. Or we could have just fixed the bloody roads. The taxpayer money paid to these union thugs and their organised crime mates could have been used to recruit more police, to recruit more nurses, to recruit more teachers in our state.”
“There is nothing wrong with Australia that a good government can't fix, and the same goes for the once great state of Victoria. For 23 of the last 27 years the Labor Party has been in power, and Victorians have heard enough. This independent report, Rotting from the top , goes to the heart of everything that is wrong with the state of Victoria. What's inside this independent report is a catalogue of corruption and criminality. If the Victorian Premier, Jacinta Allan, had an ounce of decency, she would take responsibility for the failures of the government and resign immediately. Ms Allan was the minister at the epicentre of the Big Build projects when independent anticorruption investigations uncovered $15 billion worth of rip-offs and rorts.”
“To every member in this place: we have the opportunity, and it's an incredible opportunity, to stand up here and make speeches which require action to be taken which improves the lives of veterans and their families. Subject to the coalition's amendment, I commend the bills to the House and I look forward to working in the same spirit of bipartisanship I've demonstrated in these comments today with the minister when I return from the sin bin on 1 March!”
“The veterans covenant is the contract for men and women who have never served, to recognise that there are people who have put on that uniform, have been willing to place themselves in harm's way and sometimes get physically or mentally injured in that process. 'For what they have done, this we will do.' We honour them and we respect them by living up to our side of that contract. They have done their job. We have to do our job. It's an action statement, and it requires us to take the action required to support our veterans and their families. I urge the minister to think seriously about the amendment put forward by the coalition in this place.”
“As much as I had an incredibly positive working relationship with senior members of the Australian Public Service during my time in ministerial offices, there were times where I was frustrated by the lack of urgency shown by some in the department. Let's put it politely: an occasional push along wouldn't hurt Australian public servants on some of these issues. I'm going to finish where I started, with that simple line: 'For what they have done, this we will do.' It's a contract but it's also an action statement. 'This we will do'—it requires our action. These are not pretty words on a piece of paper just to be forgotten about.”
“We believe that's more than sufficient time to assess whether the early stage reforms have been delivered and whether the government commitments are translating into real action on the ground for Australian Defence Force veterans and their families. We think the amendment is credible. We think it strengthens transparency and reinforces accountability, and it doesn't change in any way the commissioner's independence or the commissioner's powers. We commend our amendment to the government and to the crossbench. It is a simple amendment. It's all about making sure that there is increased transparency and that a sense of urgency is instilled into the bureaucracy.”
“We think bringing forward the reporting date—and that would coincide with the two-year anniversary of the royal commission's tabling of its findings—is a better way of ensuring that veterans and their families have confidence that the bureaucracy in Canberra is not slowing this down, that the commissioner will report back to the Australian public in a more timely manner. We will be able to see some evidence of what's been implemented and where we need to hurry things up a bit, and if there are any changes that need to be made the commissioner would be in a position to make those recommendations at an earlier date.”
“That means that while the government may get the report in December 2027 it may not be tabled for many months after that; we could be well into 2028 before we see the report. We fear that's a bit slow and we feel it's a bit risky in terms of weakening accountability, and we'd be much more comfortable if we could bring that reporting date forward to no later than 30 September 2026. Our view there is that veterans and their families were promised urgent reform out of the royal commission, and, unfortunately, royal commission reports in this country have a habit of sitting on a desk and eventually being forgotten about.”
“We support the extra scrutiny and the transparency in a timely manner, which is at the core of the appointment of a Defence and Veterans' Service Commissioner who is going to be separate and independent from the department and separate from the minister. I flagged earlier that we'll also be moving amendment, and the amendment is quite a simple one. We'll be moving to bring forward the timing of the first implementation review by the commissioner. We're not aiming to hinder the passage of the bills, but, as currently drafted, the first assessment of the government's implementation of the royal commission's recommendations is not required to be completed until December 2027.”
“You'd think that would be a minor point, but, up until the 2021 census, we didn't know how many veterans we had in Australia. So simply adding that question to the census gave us the capacity to, first of all, measure the number of veterans in Australia—people who served at least one day in the Australian Defence Force—but also track where they are, in the sense of making sure services are provided in a manner that fits the veteran population in those communities. While it may seem like a small point, it's something I think will assist DVA and the minister in his role going forward. And I note, as I said earlier, that work in this space will never really be finished, because the needs of modern veterans will change. They'll be different to previous generations.”
“We committed $500 million to the Australian War Memorial redevelopment, which will ensure the stories of our contemporary veterans are told in a timely manner. We established the Joint Transition Authority, which is designed to make sure Defence is held more accountable for that critical time when our members leave the Defence Force and go into civilian life. We delivered provisional access to medical treatment. We increased the fees for health professionals. We improved financial support for veterans undertaking additional education. We boosted staffing and resources across the Department of Veterans' Affairs to speed up the claims processing. We also added, for the first time, a question in the census to track the number of veterans in Australia.”
“The veterans themselves and their families have written to me personally and thanked me for that in some of the most beautiful letters I've received as a member. We also established the Prime Minister's National Veteran Employment Awards, which I note have continued, and I thank the government for doing that. We launched the Veteran Wellbeing Centre Program, and the current government has added to the Veteran Wellbeing Centre Program. I encourage them to keep doing that, because I think those hubs are very important for providing accessible areas for our veterans, particularly in regional areas, to get the support they need when they need it. We created the role of veterans family advocate.”
“There are 600,000 veterans in this country plus their families. The Minister for Veterans' Affairs should be in cabinet. In our time in government, the support for our veterans and their families was in the order of $11 billion per year. There was the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, which was established under the Morrison government. We introduced and passed the veterans' recognition act of 2019. We provided free non-liability mental health care for our veterans. We expanded and modernised Open Arms, the veterans counselling service. We initiated the Psychiatric Assistance Dog Program, which has been very well received and has resulted in literally hundreds of veterans receiving the benefit of a psychiatric assistance dog.”
“I say to the chamber—and I say with all sincerity to our veterans community—the coalition will always look to find ways to put veterans and their families first, and we will support the government in this legislation with the amendment we're proposing, which I'll get to later on. Our record as a coalition in terms of supporting veterans and their wellbeing is substantial. In our time in government, there were some substantial reforms by me as minister and other ministers on the coalition side, despite the rhetoric we hear from those opposite from time to time. During our time in government, the role of the Minister for Veterans' Affairs was actually in cabinet, and I think it's a mistake to not have it in cabinet. I'm not solely motivated by my best wishes for the minister's political career, but the minister should be in cabinet.”
“I was frustrated by the decision that the opposition took at that time, because the delays in implementing this independent commissioner have resulted in delays in having an independent statutory oversight body for the system. It matters because, working alongside the royal commission, we could have accelerated system reform in that period of four or five years. It's fair to say that the coalition supports the national commissioner model being presented today, because it was our idea. It was our idea, and it came from feedback and from the lived experience of veterans and their families. I didn't make it up. It wasn't something I dreamed up one night by myself. It came about through feedback from ex-service organisations. It had strong support in the veteran community, but we weren't successful in getting it legislated back in 2020.”
“It's important, as we gather today, to talk about this legislation, to acknowledge a couple of simple facts as well. This is not a new idea. Those opposite might think that the world was created on the day the Albanese government came to office in 2022, but, let me assure you, some good things happened before that. This idea—this concept—of a national commissioner was actually included in coalition introduced legislation back in 2020. That bill, which proposed an independent statutory oversight body, with basically exactly the same structural features now being implemented today, was opposed by the Labor Party at that time. I was disappointed as minister that that occurred. I think it was opposed for political reasons.”
“1 interest has to be making sure veterans and their families are well supported as they move onto civilian lives. Having said that, I'll also note, in the minister's presence, that most of the easy stuff has been done. In this portfolio, everything's complex, everything is difficult, everything involves personal challenges for the people involved, and the system isn't always fit for purpose. The challenge of reforming it is not something that I suggest for a second is a walk in the park. I do wish him success in his tenure because, if the minister is successful as the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, our veterans will flourish. Their wellbeing will improve; the families will do better. I sincerely do extend my best wishes to the minister in his role as he seeks to try and improve the system of support for veterans and their families.”
“There is no acceptable level of suicide amongst Australian Defence Force personnel and veterans, and I'm sure the minister agrees with me that we need to keep working towards zero. That is a challenge that we need to address in a bipartisan way across this chamber. I'm sure it's going to surprise some people listening to hear me say this, but there is an amazing amount of bipartisanship on this portfolio issue—this area of key responsibility. My office works very closely with Minister Keogh's office, and we have a very good working relationship. There have been times in recent months where we've disagreed vehemently, but it was professional, and we got on with our roles. But, wherever possible, there will be bipartisanship between this side of the House and the government of the day in terms of our veterans and their families. Our No.”
“I do want to acknowledge that the legislation before the House is intended to make sure there is proper oversight, accountability and transparency, in this place, around the systems put in place by DVA to support our veterans and their families. An independent commissioner has enormous opportunities to make sure that their system remains fit for purpose into the future. Our veterans make a huge contribution during their service, but they also make an amazing contribution when they leave the service and in their civilian lives. It is so important that they are supported in that transition phase. I say this in the minister's presence: I am sure that, just like me, in his role, the need to reduce the level of self-harm and the need to eliminate suicide is an ongoing battle.”
“That is the promise we make, as Australians who haven't served in uniform, that we have this contract with the Australian Defence Force personnel and their families: For what they have done, this we will do. That contract requires us to support them after their service—and, obviously, during their service as well. Those support measures will change over time. Just as our society is changing constantly—sometimes for good, sometimes for worse—the needs of our Defence Force personnel and our veterans will change as well. What a young veteran needs on transition to the civilian workforce is going to be very different to the supports required by a 95- or 98-year-old World War II veteran. We need to acknowledge that the DVA system is there to support veterans through the entire course of their lives as their needs change as well.”
“I emphasise the point 'if it's required', because a large number of our service personnel will train well, serve well, be deployed, defend the values of our nation and then transition well and go on to live exceptionally successful civilian lives. But, if they're fed a diet of hopelessness and helplessness, which is often the case in the Australian mainstream media, they sometimes get the feeling that there's no help available to them whatsoever. That is simply not true. I say to anyone who may be listening to this debate that, if you are a veteran and you do need help, help is available. Please reach out through your ex-service organisation or through DVA directly because help is available to you if it's required. In the veterans covenant, there is a term which is very simple. It says: For what they have done, this we will do.”
“I rise to speak in support of the Defence and Veterans' Service Commissioner Bill 2025, notwithstanding that the coalition will be moving some amendments in relation to the reporting date of the commissioner in the legislation. At the outset, I want to say, simply, 'Thank you for your service,' to the men and women in the Australian Defence Force and our veteran community and particularly to their families who support them. I thank the members in this place who have served in uniform as well. Thank you for what you've done in your previous career and for bringing that expertise and lived experience to either the House of Representatives or the Senate. The purpose of the Department of Veterans' Affairs is to put in place a system of support for our veterans and their families if it's required.”
“So I encourage the Victorian government think very, very carefully about this simple proposition—more boots, fewer suits—and undertake the fuel reduction work to keep our communities safe, because people and native animals die in poorly maintained forests. We've seen it before and we'll see it again because of the neglect of the bush. One point in the motion by the member for Nicholls which is also worth reflecting on is that the shutdown of the sustainable native hardwood timber industry in Victoria has limited the capacity to fight bushfires in the state.”
“The only thing we can really control when it comes to bushfires is the temperature associated with the fuel load. If we manage the fuel load, we can just turn down the severity, turn down the temperature a bit, so the damage to the environment, the damage to properties, the damage to people trying to fight these fires is minimised. We have to do more to reduce the fuel load, particularly on public land in Victoria. I've said before that to do that you need more boots and fewer suits. That's more boots on the ground doing practical environmental work right throughout the year and fewer suits—fewer suits in Canberra and Melbourne making excuses for why the work can't be done.”
“We do live in a fire-prone environment in Victoria, and the risk of out-of-control blazes and the damage they can do to properties, to lives and to native animals need to be properly understood. I invite those listening to think about the components of these catastrophic events. To have a fire of this magnitude, you obviously need some sort of ignition point, and there will always be ignition points. It could be a lightning strike, it could be an accident, it could be equipment failure, or it could be some idiot with a match. You also need dry, windy conditions. And, lo and behold, in Victoria, in summer we will have days that are dry and windy. But you also need a fuel load, and that is the essence of the motion before the House today—the question of fuel load and mitigation and prevention activities.”
“In seconding the motion from the member for Nicholls, I commend him for bringing the House's attention to the terrible events that occurred in Victoria over the January period. Now, we do live in a very fire-prone environment in Victoria, and the conditions in the north-eastern and western parts of the state have been very dry. I want to commend the volunteers and the agencies involved in the suppression work and in the immediate relief and recovery efforts as well and extend my condolences to those who have lost property in those fire events. We need to be doing more to front-end our efforts around prevention, around mitigation and around resilience when it comes to managing bushfire in the environment.”
“My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. The minister has had several opportunities in question time this week to explain when Australian families can expect the $275 reduction in their power bills promised by the Prime Minister. Will the minister finally admit the Prime Minister wasn't telling the truth and not a single Australian family has seen the $275 reduction? Minister, why can't anyone in the Labor Party accept responsibility and just say 'sorry' to the Australian people, who are struggling under Labor's cost-of-living crisis?”
“I think it's a fantastic initiative that I'm determined to grow across the Gippsland region in the years ahead. Congratulations to Cycling Without Age Gippsland and to the volunteers who are helping us already. I look forward to many more rides as we continue to support our older members of our community.”
“The work's not getting done, because the state government won't pay its share. The message is clear. Just fix the bloody roads. Cycling Without Age is a worldwide phenomenon. There are more than 3,000 chapters right around the world and 46 chapters in Australia. It was first established in 2012 in Denmark. Cycling Without Age, I'm proud to say, has been established in Gippsland through a committee that I have organised with some local volunteers. It is a social and community enterprise which is bringing people of all ages together. In particular, it's giving older Australians a chance to reduce their loneliness and social isolation. We are giving older Gippslanders the opportunity to feel the wind in their hair again, to get on a bike or on a trishaw and be treated to a ride through the streets of their towns right across Gippsland.”
“Would you believe the Albanese government has not provided a single cent in new funding for the Princes Highway in more than four years in government? This is a disgrace—not one dollar in new funding for the major highway that runs through Gippsland in four years. No wonder we are dodging potholes and the road shoulders are falling apart. It's endangering people's lives and adding to the cost-of-living pressures as people have to fix their cars because the government won't fix the roads. It gets worse. Would you believe there's unallocated funding available for the highway? Last year, Senate estimates confirmed there's $133.8 million in unallocated funding still available for use on the Princes Highway, which is money that was left in the highway fund from the previous coalition government.”
“'Just fix our bloody roads.' That is the constant message I'm receiving from Gippslanders. Whether it's from families, truck drivers or holidaymakers, they are coming to my office and they are complaining that our road network is falling apart. It's falling apart because the Labor Party, at state level and at federal level, is starving regional Victorians of road funding for maintenance and improvements to their road network. We are all expected to drive cars that are roadworthy. Surely, then, it's reasonable to expect our governments to give us roads that are car-worthy. The worst example is the Princes Highway, which is the main arterial route through Gippsland and which links our community right through to the New South Wales border.”
“She played her first cricket as a 10-year-old alongside her father Mark, and she has been a member of the national team since 2018. But the journey for Sophie hasn't been that easy. She has sustained serious injuries during her cricket-playing career which have curtailed her opportunities to play at an international level. So I can say with great pride and great authority on behalf of all Gippslanders how excited they are to see Sophie Molineux selected as the Australian women's cricket captain across all three forms of the game. This is a young lady who has never given up, and she's never forgotten where she came from.”
“Like all members in this place, I do enjoy the opportunity to speak at my local schools on occasion. Among the key messages that I like to pass onto students is just a little reminder that you should never sell yourself short and never forget where you came from. I want young Gippslanders to be able to achieve their full potential in their chosen field and never to think for a second that a kid from a country town can't achieve great things in their life and do something if they just work hard and put their mind to it. And, in saying that, it brings me to a young Australian who has just been named the Australian women's cricket captain across all three forms of the game: Sophie Molineux from Bairnsdale. Sophie was born and raised in Bairnsdale.”
“It was a failure of our nation that we failed to keep them safe. When the attacks occurred, instead of calling that out, instead of taking some responsibility, instead of apologising to Jewish Australians, the Prime Minister's first instinct was to go after the guns—to go after law-abiding Australians with legal guns who have done nothing wrong. They have had a gutful of being continually victimised by people who don't understand their sport and don't understand the lawful purposes for having firearms. And they are reasonable people. I say that because, if the Prime Minister had come to us and said, 'What are some reasonable changes we could make here?' there would be reasonable changes you could make. Instead, he has gone straight to the buyback, straight to taking guns off law-abiding Australians, because it's always about distraction.”
“Does anyone think a single criminal, a would-be terrorist or anyone who is a threat to society is going to roll up and hand in their gun to recover the gun buyback money from the Australian taxpayers? It is not going to achieve a single thing in terms of community safety, but it is going to divide our nation, and it is going to cause undue grief for some of our firearm owners through having to surrender guns that were very personal to them or maybe even family heirlooms. This is what we get when we have a weak and divisive prime minister who's always looking for a political solution. The real issue here was radical Islamic extremism; that was the real issue. And, for two years after the October 7 attacks, we refused—the government of our nation refused—to call out the antisemitism, to keep our Jewish Australian people safe.”
“It is quite reasonable for someone who may be involved in clay-target shooting to have a shotgun for that purpose, a different shotgun for duck shooting, maybe a light-calibre rifle for control of pests like rabbits and a different calibre rifle for control of deer or pigs. Very easily, a law-abiding Australian pursuing their sport as a hunter or a sporting shooter, or just a farmer doing their job, would rapidly have half a dozen guns with no problem whatsoever. And they are no threat to the Australian public. Yet this government and this prime minister, seeking a political solution, are vilifying law-abiding Australians going about their pastime or their business and causing no harm to anyone else. This legislation enables the states to pursue a gun buyback, using $1 billion of taxpayers' money.”
“Never forget: we have some of the strictest gun laws in the world. This prime minister has sought to distract and divide the population by pointing to gun owners now and saying, 'We have to take those guns away from you.' There has been no consultation. I've been to gun-shop owners in my electorate to ask them, 'What consultation was there with you?' How many guns is it reasonable for a person to have? You just heard the member for Dawson explain that it is reasonable for a keen licensed shooter to have multiple guns for different tasks, because different guns do different things in the hands of a law-abiding citizen.”
“It speaks volumes of those opposite that not one of them has stood up, since the member for Bendigo did, to seek to defend this legislation, the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Bill 2026, because this is bad legislation. This is bad legislation which has been rushed into the parliament, with no consultation, to solve a political problem for the Prime Minister. And that is the form of this prime minister. This year, the member for Grayndler celebrates his 30th year in parliament. The Prime Minister is the ultimate insider who is always trying to find a political solution to any problem he faces. His basic instinct after the tragedy at Bondi was to try to find a political solution, and the first scapegoat he found was the law-abiding gun owners in this country.”
“As Australian of the Year Neale Daniher is fond of saying, 'When all is said and done, much more is said than done.' That cannot be the case on this occasion. We owe it to the memories of the fallen to take the strong action required to keep Jewish Australians safe and protect the values that have united our nation for generations. I want my children and my grandchildren to live in a country that is good to the Jewish people. The choices we get to make in this place, the leadership we demonstrate and the action we take on the ground will decide the type of Australia we leave for our future generations. Today, we are united in grief. Tomorrow, we must be united in our action to combat hatred and antisemitism in our nation.”
“This is about acknowledging that we were warned and that we failed to take enough action to prepare our communities. The government and the opposition were warned, and we failed to take enough action to keep Jewish Australians safe. Month after month following the 7 October attack on Israel we experienced an escalation in antisemitism, and Jewish leaders warned us that things could get worse. So, today—as we grieve for the lives cut short; as we recognise the heroic actions of citizens and first responders; as we talk about the challenges we face to restore peace, freedom and respect—we have to accept our responsibility, as elected representatives of our communities, to take more action.”
“Bondi represents a moment of choice … The challenge for us in this place is to honour the victims, to honour the survivors, to honour the brave souls who sought to intervene as bullets were being fired at innocent people and to honour those whose lives will never be the same after that day. The way we honour them is by the actions we take in this place. Before each summer, members of parliament are offered a briefing on the upcoming summer and the natural disaster predictions from our emergency services. The briefings serve as a warning, and they urge us to take action to prepare our communities for the risk of natural disasters like fires, floods and cyclones. While the terrorism attack at Bondi Beach was not a natural disaster, make no mistake—we were warned. This is not about apportioning blame.”
“We have to learn the lessons and we have to commit ourselves to protecting the rights and the freedoms of all Australians. I think my friend the member for Berowra said it best when he told the House: Without change—without political change, without cultural change and without a reprioritisation of antisemitism as the foundational threat to this country—what we have seen will get worse. It's naive to think parliament could sit for two days and then move on as if that's enough to deal with this issue. He said: The sad reality is, if we don't change, then Bondi won't have changed anything.”
“After the horror of the Holocaust, many Jewish people came to Australia and helped to build the nation that we all enjoy today. So, yes, Australia has been good to the Jewish people, but the Jewish people have been good to Australia as well. There are so many leaders in business, in defence, in politics and in our cultural and broader civic life—the Jewish people have been good to Australia. The terrorism attack, tragically, has stoked fear and division as it undermines the Australia that we all believe in in this place. Collectively, we have failed Jewish Australians in this place. We have to accept our share of responsibility for failing to keep them safe. Self-evidently, we failed to keep them safe as they went about practising their religion and celebrating a special time in their families' lives. We have to ask the right questions.”