Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to take note of the answers given to questions today in the Senate, I say that it is not anyone's desire to make these matters that are not only matters of foreign policy but also very complicated domestic matters into matters that become political or partisan in any way. But it is the job of the opposition to point out where we believe the government of Australia has made mistakes and is taking the country in the wrong direction. In relation to the way in which the government has expressed itself in terms not only of foreign policy but also of domestic affairs, this is one area where we disagree with the government's approach, and we take issue with the weakness in the government's expression and the weakness in how it has been unprepared to defend Israel as it has fought off aggressive attacks from terrorists—people working with Hamas who took more than 1,200 lives in a single day and who have kept hundreds of people captive for 12 months. We take issue with the government's unwillingness to explain why it is that a country like Australia, a member of the liberal democratic order, a country of Western values, has not been prepared to argue the case that Israel and Australia have links through these systems that we have inherited from our forebears and that is why we have respected Israel's effort to repel these terrorists.

It has also been a matter of great disappointment that we have pointed out on a number of occasions, including today in question time, that there have been some bizarre decisions made by this government. Why has it been prepared to fund organisations that have platformed extreme views here in our own country? Why has it been that people like Khaled Beydoun have been given visas to enter Australia—a person who has said in relation to 7 October that today is not a day that is full of mourning; today is a day that marks celebration? We are shocked that the Australian government would provide a visa to someone that wants to turn 7 October from a day of mourning into a day of celebration.

The false equivalence that the government has made here between antisemitism and Islamophobia is also weakness. I know people who have felt more safe or would be more safe in Israel, as it has fought off aggressive attacks, than they feel in Sydney or Melbourne, and that is a shocking indictment for us to consider at this time. So there has been weakness in the expression of foreign policy and the false equivalence that the government has sought to place in relation to antisemitism and Islamophobia. The fact the government has not been prepared to ask the Iranian ambassador to leave Canberra is again more of the same.

And then, of course, it is hugely regrettable to hear the left of politics with its obsession with Israel. It has no interest in any other foreign conflict. It has nothing to say about the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, but it is obsessed with Israel as it fights off terrorists in the form of Hamas but also in the form of Hezbollah. That is the most disappointing thing. There is a fog which has descended on the left of Australian politics where it cannot see that Israel, as a fellow democracy, is fighting for its life against a slew of people that we would not want to do any business with. They are against humanity. That is the most disappointing thing—that the government has failed to articulate a strong case for Australia's moral position at home but also abroad.