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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 255 ..

MRS CROSS (continuing):

I will say a few things. Ms Dundas said she was moved by what she saw on the weekend at the rallies. Let me tell you what moved me on September 11, 2001-planes deliberately crashing into the World Trade Centre Twin Towers in New York, when we were all busily campaigning for an election. I remember getting home late that night. We were tired because we had been out on the hustings all day. We sat and watched the news live, just after 11 o'clock, and saw the devastation which people initially thought was an accident-some pilot having a heart attack and crashing into the twin towers! Then another crashing into the other tower!

That is what I was moved by. I was not moved by it just because it was a horrific accident. It was not an accident, it was deliberate. I was moved by it because of the-as I was later to learn-thousands of people who died, some of them Australian. The people who died in those twin towers were not all Americans. There were people from around the world, in many professions who had chosen New York as their home-a place to work and bring up their families. Several people them were there on postings-some short term and others long term.

I was advised against speaking on this motion. Why? Because, politically, it is never good to get up and debate a war, as you will alienate some people and win others. It is never a win/win situation, as we all know. It is, however, an issue I can talk about because I have lived in places where I have seen conflict.

I was living in Indonesia in 1990 when the Iraqis went into Kuwait. I remember that Australia-I think under the leadership of Mr Hawke, a Labor Prime Minister-committed troops to that part of the world because we felt it was our responsibility, not only from a human rights standpoint but as an ally of the United States, to assist our fellow ally.

I do not recall the rallies held then, but Australians at that time did not know that a brutal dictator called Saddam Hussein had committed dreadful atrocities not only on the Kurds but the Shiite Muslims and many others, including his own people.

I remember living in Indonesia shortly after the invasion. The Dili massacre took place and Australians living all around Indonesia were targeted-particularly those in government positions. There were certain fundamentalist groups in Indonesia which felt it was appropriate to target Australians like myself, my husband and my step-daughter, simply because we belonged to a country which fought against what happened in Dili-one that stood up against the Indonesian government of the day and defended the rights of the weak people who had been sacrificed, slaughtered and victimised in that cemetery in Dili.

I do not remember rallies taking place in Australia at that time against what Australia did in defending the rights of small groups such as the East Timorese. I recall that, one day, while I was in my car with my driver, it was vandalised by 30 volatile young Indonesian men. It was only through staying calm and composed, in a potentially dangerous situation, that I survived that attack. I was attacked simply because I was an Australian and was prepared to stand up for the rights of the East Timorese, who were considered to be a minority group.

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