STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator DEAN SMITH (Western Australia) (13:44): Twenty-four years ago, on 12 October 2002, Australians awoke to news of an act of terrorism that would leave an enduring scar on our nation. The Bali bombings claimed 202 innocent lives, including 88 Australians. Of those, 16 were Western Australians.

For Western Australia, the tragedy was deeply personal. Just days earlier, 20 young men from the Kingsley Amateur Football Club in Perth's northern suburbs had travelled to Bali to celebrate the club's first premiership. Only 13 came home.

Seven Kingsley teammates were killed—almost half of the Western Australians who lost their lives that night. Their loss devastated families, friends, a football club and an entire community. But, in the years since, Kingsley has also demonstrated something enduring about Western Australians: our instinct to rally around each other in times of great tragedy.

We remember the courage shown that night and in the days that followed: survivors helping the injured, and Indonesian medical staff and local people and Australian police, Defence personnel and emergency personnel responding to unimaginable scenes. The bombings changed Australia and strengthened our resolve to confront terrorism alongside our Indonesian neighbours, but they did not break us.

As Prime Minister John Howard said in Bali days later, the Australian spirit remained 'strong and free and open and tolerant'. Twenty-four years on, we remember the 202 lives taken, the survivors who carried the scars and the families and communities who still feel their absence, and in Western Australia we especially remember our 16, including seven young mates from Kingsley who went away together to celebrate a premiership but never came home.