STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:00): Tomorrow will mark 25 years since the September 11 attacks in the United States of America—25 years since a morning of bright sunshine was plunged into the most terrible darkness. A quarter of a century on, it remains a harrowing anniversary. I think every one of us in this House and around Australia will remember that night, in our time, when we watched the unthinkable occur before our very eyes.
This morning I had the honour of meeting with members of the visiting US congressional delegation and I was able to tell them, good friends of Australia, that their nation will be in the thoughts of Australians tomorrow. We will pause to remember the 2,977 people whose futures were stolen from them. Alongside the many Americans who lost their lives were people from nations across the world, 10 Australians among them.
Those Australians known to have been killed during the September 11 attacks include Alberto Dominguez, Craig Gibson, Elisa Ferraina, Stephen Tompsett, Kevin Dennis, Andrew Knox, Leanne Whiteside, Lesley Thomas, Peter Gyulavary and Yvonne Kennedy. Our thoughts are with all of their families and their loved ones at what will be a difficult reminder of them being taken from their own families.
As we remember them, we'll also think about those whose lives were changed forever, or who lived with loss, or who suffered with grief, trauma and sickness, and all who still endure the burden of memories that simply will not fade. What the terrorists perpetrated that day was so monstrous and so confronting that it remains seared into our collective memory. It was a day that changed the world, yet, amid its horror, we saw the greatest side of humanity.
From the passengers and office workers who found themselves trapped in a waking nightmare, to the first responders who raced into danger, so many reacted to terror with extraordinary courage, with compassion, with defiance and with love. Together, from New York to Washington to Pennsylvania, they defined the spirit of a great nation. America was shaken to its core, but it did not yield.
It did not break. That is what we hold onto, and we hold onto the memory of everyone who never came home from what should have been just another sunny day in September.