Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I think we all need to be very clear about what the Australian government's position currently is, what the Australian Labor Party's position currently is and actually what this Senate's and this parliament's shameful position currently is. It is to stand with the State of Israel in regard to what that state, what its government and what its armed forces are doing in Gaza. Let's be very clear about what they are doing in Gaza: there is a genocide underway in Gaza perpetrated by the State of Israel, and the Australian government is complicit. If there is a genocide underway and you are not doing everything you reasonably can to stop it, you are complicit. If there's a genocide underway and you are not railing against that genocide at every opportunity, you are complicit. If there is a genocide underway and you are facilitating that genocide by selling military hardware that is being used in that genocide, you are complicit.

The Australian government is complicit in this genocide because it is supplying military hardware, because it is failing to speak out against it at every opportunity and because it is failing in the obligations it has under the genocide convention to do everything it reasonably can to stop that genocide and prevent it from happening. That's the position of the Labor Party, and, shamefully, the position of this parliament is to stand with the State of Israel in the perpetration of that genocide. The very least we should do is join with the case in the International Court of Justice brought by South Africa, and the very least we can do is reverse the frankly catastrophic decision made recently by Labor and by the Australian government to suspend funding to the United Nations relief and works agency, the primary provider of humanitarian relief in Gaza. That is a shameful decision made with absolutely no evidence to support the contention that UNRWA did anything wrong, and it was taken, as Minister Wong implicitly admitted today, because we were told to by Israel and the United States.