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 Albanese Government to act in response to the Islamic Republic of Iran's widespread sponsoring of terrorism, promotion of antisemitism, and oppression of its people by listing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation and declaring the current Iranian Ambassador to Australia persona non grata.

Yesterday, we marked one year since the horrific October 7 terrorist attacks in which Hamas terrorists, funded and supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran, slaughtered more than 1,200 innocent civilians in Israel in cold blood. The vast majority of Australians were shocked and appalled by this barbaric mass murder and stood with the people of Israel in their grief and mourning, but the unfortunate reality is that there was a minority in this country who welcomed and celebrated 7 October.

Many of us recognised on that very first day following the October 7 attacks that there was an attempt underway, both in Australia and around the world, to cast this terrorist action as a legitimate resistance, to justify hatred of Jewish people as anti-Zionism and to absolve Hamas and other terrorist groups of blame by painting Israel as the aggressor. There is no question—and there has never been any question—that the Islamic Republic of Iran regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are front and centre in coordinating, funding, planning and supporting the terrorism which its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis perpetrate not only against Israel but against innocent civilians right across the Middle East.

The abhorrent behaviour of the IRI regime is nothing new. More than 18 months ago, the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, which I chair, handed down a report making 12 recommendations to hold the IRI regime accountable for its appalling human rights abuses, its promotion of terrorism and its unlawful intimidation, monitoring and harassment of Australians. The Albanese government not only took eight months to even respond to that report but, when it did, refused to accept 10 of the 12 recommendations.

Let's be very clear: we know that the IRI regime supports and funds terrorism; we know the IRI regime deliberately promotes antisemitism to grow support for attacks against Israel and to recruit for its proxies; we know the regime and its terror proxies deliberately spend the lives of innocent civilians in Gaza and Lebanon as part of its strategy to attack Israel; and we know that the regime has agents working in this country to target its own critics.

There is only one message that Australia should be sending to a foreign regime which undertakes these actions, and that is that we do not tolerate any support for terrorism or terrorists, and we do not tolerate any promotion of vile, dangerous antisemitism. Answer this question. What sends a stronger message that we have zero tolerance for terrorism: listing the IRGC as a terror organisation or briefing the media that the government doesn't want to list the IRGC as a terror organisation in case that reduces its dialogue with the regime? What sends a stronger message that we do not tolerate antisemitism and the praising of terrorists than expelling the Iranian ambassador, who has repeatedly done so and has pointedly ignored the requests from DFAT officials to stop doing it?

The dangerous message that the Albanese government has sent to the regime is that it won't list the IRGC as terrorists, no matter how many terrorist attacks they plan and carry out, and it won't expel the Iranian ambassador, no matter how blatantly he seeks to foster support for terrorism and promote antisemitism in our community. Instead, we see once again this weak government respond to unacceptable behaviour from the Iranian ambassador by delegating a DFAT official to have a discussion with him.

This is a regime which wants to be able to behave as it pleases and deter other countries from standing up to it by taking action. Calling in the ambassador for a polite chat with an official is not a response which sends a message to the regime. It is a response which the Australian government knows full well the regime can live with and can respond to in kind by calling in our ambassador, as it did this week in Tehran. That's why DFAT has had more than 20 of these conversations with Iranian officials over the last two years, and it has had precisely zero impact on curtailing the regime and the ambassador's behaviour.

We hear constantly from the government the benefits of its dialogue with the Iranian regime, but it is clear to everyone paying attention that this dialogue is achieving nothing to rein in the regime's behaviour. Even worse, it is being used as leverage by this regime to prevent the Albanese government from taking action to list the IRGC and expel the Iranian ambassador.