Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I encourage those members of the Greens to watch that 43-minute video, because it will enlighten them. I wish I hadn't seen it. I travelled to Israel in December, and in December I watched that video showing the absolute barbarity of those attacks—the absolute barbarity of Hamas, kitted up with rocket propelled grenades and automatic weapons. And do you know what else they had? They had cameras, because they wanted to show the world what they were doing. Not only did they kill innocent Israelis; they killed women and children, beheading people. There was rape. Where were the Greens? It's 'me too' unless you're a Jew. Rape was used as a weapon of war.

Yet the Greens come in here and say nothing about what caused this war in the first place. What caused this war was the atrocities on 7 October. If Hamas wanted this war to be over, they could unconditionally surrender and hand back the more than 100 hostages who are still being held. Six hostages were discovered overnight—dead, killed. There are around about 105 or 106 hostages who are still remaining. We don't know whether they're alive or dead.

The unbelievable hypocrisy of the members of the Greens to come in and make these political statements, which are designed to try and get the media involved, and report, 'Look at what the Greens are doing.' Let me tell you, Greens—through you, Chair—you were once a party of environmentalists. Those same environmentalists are walking away from you in their droves because the Greens have become much more than environmentalists. They've abandoned that, and now what they are doing is effectively trying to become the major party on the left. Please, God, that will never happen. It will be bad enough if they form some sort of a coalition with the Labor Party, but at least the Labor Party is a party of government. They don't just come in and make ridiculous comments. The Greens will never, hopefully, have to serve in government.

I want to encourage the members of the Greens, before they do this stunt again, to travel to Israel and see what I've seen, to at the very least watch that 43-minute video of the atrocities that have occurred, and then continuously come out and condemn Hamas, condemn the violence and call on Hamas to unconditionally surrender and return each and every single one of the hostages. If they did that, this war could end today. Why don't they do it? I don't understand, and I don't pretend to understand what their motivations or their rationales are but it is not coming from a bona fide place. This House should condemn the Greens today.

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