Ms SPENDER (Wentworth) (17:14): I rise to speak in support of the Criminal Code Amendment (State Sponsors of Terrorism) Bill 2025. The purpose of this change is to grant the government powers to formally list Iran's revolutionary guard, a military force embedded within the Iranian government, as a listed terrorist organisation. As, no doubt, members from this chamber will make clear today, this is an important step, which some of us have been asking for on behalf of our communities for nearly three years. While I accept that this is a step not to be taken lightly, I'm pleased to see that the government has finally acted. It has long been recognised that the IRGC is a sponsor of terrorism by groups such as Hamas, which were already listed as terrorist organisations. There is a history of calls for this action to have been taken earlier, and I'm sure we'll hear about that from other members. I made similar calls in parliament and in the press last year. I am inclined to leave aside assertions of, 'I told you so,' to reflect on the profound significance of what has been now confirmed by ASIO and our security services: a foreign state actor has orchestrated criminal attacks in my local community—attacks they intended to damage our nation as a whole. Let that sink in.

On 20 October last year, Lewis' Continental Kitchen in Bondi, a long established family business in my community, was firebombed. I remember that day very vividly. I actually drove past, and I saw the cars out in front and the police and services. I wondered what was happening, and I was deeply concerned that this was another antisemitic attack in my community, as emerged it was. I had no idea who was behind it. The Iranian revolutionary guard reached across the world using criminals for hire to set fire to a family catering business in Bondi.

The owners have been dealing with the consequences ever since. I spoke to Judith, one of the family members, about her experiences, about the terror of being targeted like that and about the wonder of what has happened and why anyone would attack. To then find out that it was the Iranian revolutionary guard who attacked brought everything back. Judith told me about the devastation to their business and how difficult it has been to rebuild. As I know, if you run a business and your business is destroyed by fire, the time that it takes for you to rebuild can often mean you lose some of those critical customers that underpinned your business in the first place. This is what Judith and her family are battling through in trying to re-establish that business under the shadow of being attacked by the Iranian revolutionary guard. There is much work that Judith and her family are still doing to rebuild this business, and I urge the government to support her family and their efforts—including specifically their security and their other issues in terms of rebuilding a business, as they are.

Let's look at the purpose of this attack. The purpose of this attack was not just to attack one single business or harm one single family; it was to terrorise the Jewish community in Australia. It was to undermine our social cohesion across the country and to try and weaken the multicultural achievement that has built modern Australia today. The Iranian revolutionary guard was seeking to harm our nation as a whole. Since October 7, all Australian communities, but particularly the Jewish and Muslim communities, have felt intensely and personally the impacts of the war in the Middle East. As our security agencies have now established, the Iranian regime sought to exploit the fragile environment of heightened tension to spread fear and sow division by targeting the Australian Jewish community through criminal proxies. My community in Wentworth, home to the largest Jewish community in Australia, was targeted in a spate of antisemitic vandalism and threats of violence. Now we know that at least two of those attacks, perhaps more, were orchestrated by the Iranian revolutionary guard.

A few months after the Bondi attacked the Iranian revolutionary guard also orchestrated the attack in Melbourne that destroyed the Adass Israel synagogue. Again, the purpose was to incite hatred, fear and division to tear at the fabric of our community, to terrorise the Jewish community and to undermine Australia's multicultural community. The social cohesion of our diverse nation underpins our success, and we must maintain it. That means defending Australia from malicious attacks, as this legislation seeks to do. It also means proactively working to build the social connections and bridges between communities that ensure that all are safe and all are welcome.

With that in mind I want to reassure Australia's Iranian community that they remain a welcome and important part of Australia's multicultural fabric. I know many Iranian Australians are equally appalled by the IRGC, as well as by significant and substantial human rights violations perpetrated by the Iranian regime. Just a few months after I was elected to this place in my first term, I joined members of Australia's Iranian community on the forecourt of Parliament House to mark the terrible murder of the young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini by the despotic Iranian regime. The crimes of the Iranian regime continue, including the execution of over a thousand people this year. We know now that the crimes of the Iranian regime have also been perpetrated in Australia. The listing of the Iranian revolutionary guard sends a clear signal that we will defend our interests from those who seek to harm us. The listing of the Iranian revolutionary guard as a terrorist organisation is overdue. I welcome this legislation and urge the government to act decisively.