They're urging Australians not to let the tragedy be used as an excuse for intolerance towards Muslims.
One of those who lost their lives that day was a pioneer in multicultural broadcasting, with a radio program that made a lasting impression on a large section of Australia's migrant community.
Alberto "Pocho" Dominguez broadcast on SBS Spanish radio for 13 years.
His program - Folklore, Tango and Roses - touched many migrants as they built new lives in Australia.
One of them was Darwin Rodriguez, journalist and sports editor for Australia's oldest Spanish-language newspaper "El Espagnol."
"I'm pretty sure 99.9 per cent of the Latino American people - particularly the people from Uruguay and Argentina were listening. Listening to the program of Pocho was like to be at home for an hour."
Mr Dominguez was born in Uruguay and was a national cycling champion there, before moving with his wife and four children to Sydney, in 1974.
But the life of Mr Dominguez would be largely remembered, by the circumstances of his death.
He was on board American Airlines flight 11, when it crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001.
Darwin Rodriguez told SBS of the disbelief he felt, when he realised his friend was involved.
"It was devastating. I feel for a few hours and I call a lot of people just to confirm what I was listening. I felt very sad, very sad. Something like, I wasn't quite sure at the start if I was dreaming."
Another Australian who died that day was 29 year-old Andrew Knox.
Originally from Adelaide, he was working as an environmental architect on the 103rd floor of the North Tower when the plane struck.
In her first television interview since his death, close friend Kirsten Andrews spoke about the big future Mr Knox had in front of him.
"He was pretty engaged in politics and the union movement as well. To be honest, I always assumed he would run for parliament and he had enough support in the Labor party to do that, if that had been his ambition one day."
Kirsten Andrews met Mr Knox on a university exchange to the US, almost a decade before the tragedy.
She believes he would have wanted a kinder response to the event that killed him.
"I like to think that he would have been proud of the way some of us have responded, which is to try to make the world a better place, where these things don't occur. I think that he would have been distressed to see the war that resulted and the way that the lack of inclusion and interfaith dialogue that has been part of the world politics since that time."
It's a sentiment shared by Simon Kennedy, whose mother Yvonne died when her flight crashed into the Pentagon.
But it wasn't until the death of Osama Bin Laden, in 2011, that Mr Kennedy chose to speak publicly.
"I felt a sort of responsibility, all of a sudden, because I saw so much anti-Islam sentiment floating around I saw so much of that going on. And I wasn't okay with it, because that's not the way I feel. That's not the way I live. And I didn't want other people taking control of that conversation on my behalf."
Mr Kennedy said he was not going to allow hate speech to become the norm, even in the face of new threats from extreme Islamist groups.
"And then we had ISIS. Who could have picked that there would be something almost worse than al queda, but it feels like that's what we're looking at right now. So that unfortunately puts a lot of fear into people, and fear unfortunately can make people act against their better knowledge."
Former Prime Minister, John Howard, was also in Washington on September 11, 2001.
He was a major ally of the United States in the aftermath, supporting interventions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Mr Howard speaks of the importance of being able to separate moderate Islam from what he calls "extreme terrorists".
"Well I don't want anybody vilified on the basis of their religion, that's wrong. But equally, it's pointless ignoring the fact that extreme terrorists used their perverted version of Islam to justify what they do and that is a reality and I think it's unrealistic to ignore that I don't think the result of September 11 was a vilification of Muslims. I think the result of September 11 was a legitimate response to an unprovoked, unjustified attack."
In a wide-ranging interview with SBS, Mr Howard has also spoken of the evolution of global terrorism, and his fear that lone-wolf attacks might be "the new normal".
"I worry that it might be, that these lone-wolf attacks will continue. There's some evidence to suggest that reverses on the battle field for Islamic state and the terrorist groups result in an increase in the number of lone-wolf attacks. I hope I'm wrong, but the news evidence to date is not encouraging."
