The Hon Sussan Ley MP
Leader of the Opposition
Federal Member for Farrer
TRANSCRIPT
REMARKS MADE AT THE BONDI PAVILION
Topics: Bondi Massacre, Funeral of Rabbi Eli Schlanger
E&OE……………………………………
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Thank you Rabbi. What an enormous privilege it has been to stand with my Jewish brothers and sisters in this community for the last three days. Thank you for the honour and privilege of being able to stand with you. It has been the most difficult of days, Rabbi. To be at Rabbi Schlanger's funeral, to listen to the eulogy from Rabbi Ulman, to hear the sobbing of the people around us, to look at the children and to understand the scale of the loss, was truly truly heartbreaking and I felt, along with the women and men around me, the anger building because what you have said to me is that the time for words is finished. [Applause]
And do you know what? The time for action was two years ago. The time for our Government to stand strong, in the face of Jewish hatred, was two years ago. [Applause]
The time to stand firm against hate speech and radical Islam was two years ago. [Applause]
But here we are. Here we are and my dear, dear colleague and friend Julian Leeser and I have been here every day and we will be every day this week and I don't know what my life looks like on the other side of this week because I have felt so close to the pain that has been so clear. But, I have known for two years because I came soon after 7 October, Julian, we came to the Moriah School, we walked the streets of Bondi and the eastern suburbs and I heard young women say to me, 'I can't show the symbols of my faith'. I heard girls tell me what was spoken to them on the bus. I want to say again, I have heard you for two years. I have been coming to your communities. I have listened to you, not just here, but across Australia. And when a woman says to me, I read some hateful messages online and I closed my front door and I said, 'my children are not going to school today because they don't feel safe'. How can that not tell this country that something is wrong? [Applause]
When children are saying, 'I don't want to put my school uniform on, I want to change at school'. I think, what would I feel, if that was my child or my grandchild? When I hear today from the people
who have done these studies, that one out of every two Jewish women, in Australia, feels unsafe. One out of every two. How can we let this be? How can we accept this? We will not accept this. [Applause]
And the pain in the eyes of the young women that we spoke to today about what is happening on university campuses, what on earth is going on? That these people allow our beautiful, young Jewish men and women to be spoken to like this, to be assaulted like this. to be hideously excluded. This cannot go on! [Applause]
And I'm thinking, all running through my mind today after the funeral, the words of Rabbi Ulman, be proud to be Jewish. Stand up for your Jewish faith. And I want to say to you, we are here for you. We are here. [Applause]
My team and I want you to be proud of your Jewish faith, to be able to celebrate a time like this. First they came for the Opera House, then they came to the Harbour Bridge, now they've come for Bondi, but we will not let them win. [Applause]
We will not accept an Australia where Jewish people cannot celebrate their faith, cannot walk the streets without armed guards watching closely, where children have to go to kindergarten behind locked doors, where every minute of every day you are thinking about how we keep our families safe. We cannot accept this in Australia. We must, must change. [Applause]
My commitment to you is we will force this Government to take the action that it needs to, to keep Jewish Australians safe, to keep Australians safe and to secure justice. [Applause]
And my message is this, if I am Prime Minister, and you practice hate speech, and you talk about radical Islam in a way that harms and hurts your fellow man and woman, and if you glorify hatred, and these people have been close on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, at Hyde Park, every single weekend, if you do these things, and you are not an Australian citizen, you will be deported. [Applause]
And if you are an Australian citizen, you will be arrested. [Applause]
Because enough really, really is enough and things must change and they will and we will be there every step of the way walking by your side, listening to you as I have had the great, great privilege to listen to you and feel the honour of representing you and we will not ever take a backward step from that.
And I've heard your concern, everyone is here today and this week, what happens next year? We will be there next year. We will be there next week, next month, next year and for every single year because we must fight this evil in this country and we must make it better. [Applause]
We will not tolerate a government that treats Antisemitism as a problem to be solved, not an evil to be eradicated. [Applause]
I feel such a sense of sadness that at a time when, as Julian often describes to us, it is like carols by candlelight, the Chanukah. And I think of all the communities across Australia that are celebrating carols by candlelight, without the concerns that this community has, without a worry in the world. And we cannot accept the worries of the world that you have. Be proud, be strong.
Celebrate your Judaism, your faith, and the beautiful people that you have always been, and we stand with you. [Applause]
[ENDS]