coming in on what I can only imagine would be one of the most difficult days you've
had to deal with. Our condolences to you. How are you feeling this morning?
JOSH BURNS: This is one of the most awful things I can remember. It's something that feels so foreign to be an Australian and to see this happening in our beautiful cities, to see this happening in Bondi in the heart of what is joyous and beautiful Sydney, of people starting their summer at a Hanukkah celebration where it's literally called the Festival of Light, where it's all about coming together and celebrating and seeing the joy when there's been darkness. And for the terror to have occurred in the way in which it has, and for people who have then lost their lives, including a 12‑year‑old girl, a rabbi, and this will tear apart the Jewish community in Sydney and across the country, and clearly across the world as well.
BRIDGET BRENNAN: You must have felt such an immense of sense of dread hearing the news come in. Is this something that people have feared was going to happen?
JOSH BURNS: I mean, unfortunately, the Jewish community has been really worried about this for a long time. I mean, you can't go to a Jewish school or to a Jewish community organisation in Australia without there being some form of security, and even to some extent there's armed guards outside of schools.
So, it's a daily reality for Jewish communities in Australia that we were always nervous and warning about this could happen. And, you know, when you think about, you know, especially for kids, you know, what it means and what life in Australia means as a Jewish person and whether or not you would, you know, show your identity in public, whether or not you'd go into the city wearing, you know, something that publicly identifies you as being Jewish. It's something that is just, is such a foreign thing because this country and Australia has been a safe haven, you know, it's been a safe haven for people who fled war-torn Europe to come to this country looking for a place where they could just be who they are, and to be proudly Jewish.
And when you look at Hanukkah by the Sea and you see the sort of ‑ I looked at the rabbi who was killed and he put up this sort of promotional Instagram post about, you know, "Come and enjoy and there'll be all of these fun things to do, you know, it's designed for families and designed for kids just to come and have a donut", or they call it a ponchke which is a sort of ‑ there's often a bit of sweet jam in the middle, and it's like it's just what communities should feel like. And for that to be the target, that was the target. It was people weren't killed because of what rugby league they support; they were killed because they were there for a Jewish celebration, and that is something that Australia has to have as a stain on our history.
EMMA REBELLATO: How do you speak to members of your community, bring the community together? You mentioned families, I can only imagine how they would be trying to speak to their children about what's happened.
JOSH BURNS: Yeah, I don't ‑ I don't really have any answer other than I think we need to respect those people who were killed, we have to honour them. We're still learning their names and we're still learning who it was and we're still learning ‑ there's still people fighting for their life. There's 42 people at least who are injured right now that we know of.
So, I think it's just about respecting those who have been killed and caught up in this terror attack, and then we move on. I mean it's ‑ and work out how do we prevent this from ever happening again, but right now, I mean we still, we still don't know the full details of what's happened, and I think it's important that we just take our time to actually respect those and honour those who have paid the worst possible price.
BRIDGET BRENNAN: Is it inevitable that there's going to have to be a strong legislative response, both at the Federal level and the state level? Do you think as a member of the Federal Parliament, are those conversations you're going to be having, albeit of course we're in the very early stages of national mourning?
JOSH BURNS: I think that the dehumanisation that can often lead to this is something that needs to be tackled by authorities around the country. And too often, you have instances where people are allowed to dehumanise one another in the context of political debate and in the context of difficult discussions. And we need to be able to have difficult discussions. But what we've seen over the last two years is a dehumanisation of the Jewish community and a targeting of the Jewish community in a way that clearly has real-world consequences.
So when we talk about what the legislative responses might be, Bridget, I think what's really important is that it's not only legislative responses that obviously will inevitably have to come, but also cultural ones, where we are stamping out in our institutions the minimisation of targeting of Jewish people, the minimising of ‑ or legitimising targeting Jewish institutions and the legitimatising of targeting Jewish people.
This is something that especially on the progressive side of politics we need to confront head on, and I think that, you know, people were quick to justify and legitimise the attack on a synagogue, people were quick to justify and legitimise attacks on Jewish cars, and people in Bondi, in Woollahra over the last couple of years, well, now this is the ‑ you know, this is the fear that we were all worried about, that people were actually killed. So, I think it's not just legislatively that we need to look at this, but also culturally across the country.
Are we minimising and were we justifying attacks on Jewish community and Jewish people? And in Australia, that cannot be allowed to stand.
EMMA REBELLATO: Josh Burns, thank you so much for coming in on this really, really awful day. Thank you.
JOSH BURNS: Thanks.
BRIDGET BRENNAN: Thanks, Josh. We really appreciate it.