Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Australian Government to take concrete action, including applying sanctions comparable to those applied by likeminded nations, in response to the human rights abuses and deadly violence perpetrated by the Iranian government against its citizens; and other actions of the Iranian Government including its support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

This is certainly a matter of urgency. People in Iran are dying every day at the hands of the government of Iran. Women are being killed. Children are being killed. Innocent civilians are dying. While Iranians authorities have done their best to hide from the world what is happening by cutting off internet and access to social media, the world knows who is responsible for this. I'm sure every senator in this chamber has received countless emails and social media messages and phone calls from the Iranian community, making it clear that they want action and not just words from our government.

It has been more than two months since Mahsa Jina Amini was killed. I've been calling for urgent action by the government since the week of her death back in September. It is completely mystifying to the Iranian Australian community as to why our government hasn't chosen to act sooner and faster. A fortnight ago, when the opposition asked the Prime Minister why Australia was yet to apply the same targeted sanctions that our allies have, the Prime Minister quite disgracefully chose to talk about considering the implications for businesses before acting. It is a situation where women are being beaten in the streets by their government for not covering their hair. Children are being shot and killed by the military. It is not a time to be sitting around, mulling over business dealings with Iran. It is time to act.

Other countries have acted and have applied multiple rounds of sanctions to Iran. This government likes to talk about acting in concert with our partners and the international community, but that is precisely the opposite of what it's done when it comes to sanctioning the individuals responsible for killing women and children in Iran.

Six days ago Canada announced its sixth round of sanctions in response to the recent violence and human rights abuses. In that same time our government has announced zero sanctions. The US has announced multiple rounds of sanctions directly in response to the current violence. So has the UK. Australia? None. These sanction notices provide long lists of individuals within the Iranian regime who our allies have identified and taken action against, along with detailed explanations of why they have been sanctioned. Yet when I asked the foreign minister and the Department of Foreign Affairs whether we agree with our allies that those individuals deserve to be sanctioned, all we receive in response is 'no comment, we can't discuss that'. By the way, if you go and look at the Hansard for those foreign affairs estimates held 13 days ago, we still haven't had a transcript published. What is going on? Not only can the community not get answers from the government; they can't even access a record of official proceedings of the parliament from two weeks ago.

I am pleased that yesterday the minister confirmed that government agencies tasked with countering foreign interference have been tasked to look at the threats and intimidation made towards Australian critics of the Iranian regime. This is a serious matter, one that I raised in estimates myself and have subsequently raised with our eSafety Commissioner in written correspondence. Security and intelligence services around the world are making clear that this is a very real and very dangerous matter. MI5 has confirmed that Iran's intelligence services have made at least 10 attempts to kidnap or even kill British nationals or people based in the United Kingdom regarded by Teheran as a threat.

Meanwhile, as if what they're doing to their own civilians is not bad enough, we know that Iran is arming Russia with drones to kill Ukrainian civilians. Once again, our allies have sanctioned Iranian authorities over this, but Australia, according to the minister's answers to my questions earlier this week, has not.

It is not good enough for Australia to be lagging behind our allies in responding to this human rights crisis with targeted sanctions. Iran is growing bolder every day in their violence and their threats to international peace and security. It is time for Australia to play our part in holding them to account.