Motion: Return of the Hostages

MOTION

‘RETURN OF THE HOSTAGES.’.

Thursday, 16 October 2025

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (10:36):

Two years ago, we saw a rip in the good fabric of the Western world in a way that I am sure the entire Western world did not want to see.

What was so shocking about the events of 7 October was the deepness and the closeness of that tear and that atrocity and hate aligned with those in the Second World War, atrocities that every good person around the world probably hoped with some certainty could not happen again.

Because though disputes happen across borders, the hatred of 7 October showed and has shown for the two years since that the dispute, the hatred and the atrocity
were not about borders though they were too. They were far more deep-seated. The hatred went to the core of who people are and it runs totally in contrast to what every good person around the world believes we as a humanity should believe in, what we should support, what we should stand for collectively, no matter what our differences are.

I remember on 7 October, in the afternoon as the sirens started in Israel, messaging the Member for Caulfield and our first thoughts being absolute shock that events were occurring that we knew at the time cut so deeply into what we stood for as a Western world. Since then, I do not think any good person has been able to be fully settled while this dispute, while this conflict, has occurred.

But what was so special this week was the incredible moment of seeing the final hostages return and knowing that, though not every single victim has been returned, some have, and we hope that the final victims are returned soon. Seeing that hope, though we have been witness to a tear in our world, the goodness of our world, a step goes towards healing that tear this week.

I watched the events first in a community event in Caulfield with the Member for Caulfield but then went home and watched it with my two children. I do not often talk about my family in this place, and my wife gets quite grumpy with me, because these are very, very complex issues for little children. My children are aware of me going to Israel twice in the last year and why and the effect that it had on me, but I needed them to see that goodness has prevailed. After two years, goodness in the world has prevailed.

The Member for Caulfield and I and some of our colleagues went to Israel soon after the war began for the first time. We sat in the rooms of victims and their families – sometimes sitting with the families and sharing their stories, sometimes sitting on the beds of children who are no longer here, looking at the bullet holes behind us, some of them with the blood the bullet caught on the way through as it killed those victims. We watched the video that the terrorists filmed of what they were doing, and to any member who is offered the opportunity to watch that video I would say to you it is important that you do. It is important that you do so that you can understand what occurred but also understand that the terrorists felt the need and the want to not only commit the worst things that you can imagine being committed but also film them. I can say I have found it very difficult to talk about that first trip to Israel because it was so deeply impactful, I think, on all of us who were there. Since then, I have found what I saw very difficult to deal with, and I have not publicly talked about it until recently, because it was so deeply impactful.

The Member for Caulfield organised a second trip to Israel and Poland this year, where we took the opportunity to go to the March of the Living and walk between the two death camps. It was hard not to, on that trip, reflect on the similarities of these events – the worst atrocities perhaps we have seen. Because, as I said earlier, these atrocities were not about border disputes. At the end of the day these atrocities were about who people are – attacks on people for what they believe and for who they are at their most core sense. What we saw as we marched between two death camps, though, was a sense of hope – the same spark of hope that we have seen this week, the same spark of people from around the world coming together and saying, ‘Goodness must win. We believe in goodness. We believe in goodness winning.’

This week we have seen what is best about our world movement. The member for Caulfield spoke very eloquently about the last two years and the community movement of that goodness and of that hope. Knowing, as an Australian, that throughout those two years we have seen events not only in this country but elsewhere that clearly lean into hatred and lean into an undermining of social cohesion has not only made what has happened on the other side of the world so deeply painful but made it even more painful to know that the worst things also happened on our own shores, where we had hoped that they never could.

As we have the goodness of this week shine forth, it is an opportunity for all of us, in whatever role we have, to say that it is time that we all lean into the goodness in ourselves, whether that be in the little things that happen in our days and the decisions that we make or whether we are in leadership roles and it is about what we can say externally, and the member for Caulfield talked about the protests. It is time to say goodness everywhere has to prevail, and that means we need to express it, we need to call for it and we need to do it together. It means we need to join hands and call for it in every form where it is clearly not there and where things are clearly wrong. I mentioned the protests – they are one example – but that is what the victims from all sides deserve and that is what our world deserves, so my hope is that the goodness of this week can extend to our shores and the future.