Launch of Monash University's Campus Cohesion research program

**CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY**

I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are meeting today, and I pay my respects to elders, past and present.

I would also like to acknowledge: 

• Vice Chancellor Sharon Pickering
• Associate Professor David Slucki
• Dr Susan Carland 
• Hugh de Krestser, President of the Australian Human Rights Commission
• Mr Aftab Malik, Special Envoy to Combat Islamophonia
• My friends and colleagues, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Josh Burns 

For a lot of Australians, October 7 and everything that's happened since in Gaza and now in Lebanon feels like a world away.

But for some Australians, it's close to home.

It feels different because it is different. 

The people we see suffering on our television or on social media aren’t strangers to them. They know them. Or they know someone who knows them.

All of that pain and helplessness manifests itself in different ways.

I see it in my local community in Western Sydney and we've seen it here at Monash and at other universities across the country.

Today, I thought I would tell you a story about how it's affected one particular friend of mine. A Jewish friend.

In the days after October 7, he rang me and told me how he felt afraid to send his son to school. 

A few months later, he rang me again.

This time he wanted me to know that before October 7 that his son's best friend was a boy called Mohammed, and that he is still his best friend today. 

He told me every week during soccer season he drops his son over at Mohammed's house, and they go to training together. 

And he also wanted me to know that next year, his son will celebrate his bar mitzvah, and Mohammed will be there too.

There's a lesson here in this, I think, for all of us.

A lesson about the sort of country we really are. 

About what we are like at our best.

When you take the politics out of it. 

People living and working and studying and playing soccer together.

And that's what the work that David and Susan are about to kick off is all about too – without the soccer bit.

It's such important work.

At its core, it's about something really simple, and that's respect. About all of us being a little bit more like these two little boys.

And being big enough to admit it.

And see how we can do things better. 

I want to thank Susan and David for your courage and your ambition in embarking on this work. 

I know it isn't easy. It's a lot easier to say no at the moment than it is to say yes.

And I want to thank you, Sharon, for funding this work. Without hesitation. 

That is real leadership. 

And what comes out of this research won't just make Monash a better and a safer and a more welcoming place. 

It will also help inform the work the Race Discrimination Commissioner is doing about racism in all its forms on every campus across the country. 

That will help make every campus a better, safer and more welcoming place. 

That's how significant this work is, and that is why I wanted to be here today.