MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

Dr FREELANDER (Macarthur) (15:59): What happened on October 7 two years ago in Israel was a horror and atrocity, and its effects have caused ongoing trauma to Jewish communities and other communities all around the world. The taking of the hostages, their ongoing, drawn-out murders and their depictions as starving remnants of humans in the media, is absolutely shocking and a sign of the terror and the horror that is ongoing around the world, and we must never, ever forget that.

Not only were these people young people killed in front of their relatives—babies and young people with talent, with all their lives ahead of them, murdered by the terror of Hamas—but the terror has been ongoing. We must never forget that, and we must make sure that we deal with the ongoing trauma that it has caused in Jewish communities all around the world, particularly in Australia.

Antisemitism has existed in Australia for a long period of time, since Jewish communities first started in Australia, since the time of the First Fleet. We know that many of the First Fleet convicts who were Jewish wrote their religion, which they were required to do, not as Jewish but rather as Christian, because they wanted to avoid the so-called stigma that that was associated with.

We've seen antisemitism occur in Australia in the 19th century and in the beginnings of the 20th century, and a number of politicians on all sides promoted antisemitism as a way of gaining votes. We saw that in the post-World War II time of refugees coming to Australia. Antisemitism has existed since the settlement of Australia from the First Fleet.

We saw it in my younger life with the firebombing of a number of synagogues in Australia in the early 1990s. That led to the permanent closure of the Bankstown synagogue, which I briefly attended as a young adult. Antisemitism has existed for a long period of time, but, since the October 7 atrocities, we've seen it really flourish, probably culminating in the firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne, which led to its virtual destruction.

I don't believe there's a person in this parliament that believes antisemitism is a good thing. We must make sure that we do everything we can to eradicate it, and I believe the government, in its very bipartisan way, has tried to do what it can to make sure antisemitism doesn't exist in our communities. We also can't ignore what has happened in Palestine, the tragedy of thousands of deaths that have occurred following the October 7 atrocity, and our Palestinian communities are going through much trauma as well.

In my electorate, we have Palestinian nurses and doctors, who I've spoken to about this, who are really traumatised by what has happened. So October 7 was a seminal point, and we must never forget what happened, but we must deal with all the communities that have been affected in a way that acknowledges their trauma and supports them. There is much more to be done.

We cannot just stand here and believe that what we have done is enough. There is more to be done, and there will be ongoing trauma from the atrocities that have occurred that will affect generations to come, I'm sure. Young children have seen their kindergartens graffitied and the targets of attempted firebombings.

It has an effect, an ongoing effect. It's a tragedy that our community, which prides itself on allowing people to practise their religions and to live the way they want without harming other people, is being traumatised by this ongoing antisemitism, which we must attempt to control.