Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment (Senator Birmingham) to a question without notice asked by Senator Whish-Wilson today relating to the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi.

Maybe in a refreshing way to finish the week, I'd actually like to say thank you to Senator Birmingham for the way he answered my questions. He was very forthright and certainly expressed the government's concern on what is a very grave matter. On 2 October, an independent Saudi journalist living in Turkey went to the Saudi embassy in Istanbul to get some papers to finalise his divorce, because he was getting remarried. His name was Jamal Khashoggi. He disappeared. The Turkish government has released tapes to the US government and to other governments, and those tapes are being widely reported, with extremely disturbing content, including content whereby supposedly a Saudi hit team were telling the consulate staff to put on headphones and music so that they couldn't hear this journalist being dismembered while he was being tortured.

This is a regime that next week is holding a massive investment summit in the Middle East, the so-called Davos of the Desert. This is an event that the Australian trade minister attended last year. At this point in time, the Australian government has plans for diplomats and bureaucrats to attend. There's also an open invitation on the website of Austrade and DFAT for Australian businesses to attend this summit. This summit is being boycotted internationally. It's a sad day when we see some of the world's biggest multinational corporations and biggest banks showing more moral fibre and more of a moral compass than some of the world's governments, like the Australian government. But the Greens and many others are calling on the Australian government to boycott this event.

More importantly, we need to reconsider the fact that this Liberal government is formally trying to negotiate a defence agreement with the Saudi government. The Greens have consistently raised issues around human rights abuses in this place over the years, most recently atrocities in Yemen, including the deaths of 55 schoolchildren targeted in a deliberate strike by United Arab Emirates coalition forces in the Yemen civil war. That's just the start of it. This is a civil war that the United Nations is saying is the biggest humanitarian crisis currently on the planet. Not only are these governments that we are trying to sell weapons and arms to but this government—this Liberal-Nationals government—have a policy to establish a defence export industry using taxpayer subsidies to sell more arms and weapons technology to these regimes.

As I've outlined today, I thank the minister for his response, and I note that he said there's an independent investigation into the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi. He also said—and I think this is quite substantial—that he is reviewing advice that has been provided by Austrade and DFAT to Australian companies. I hope he pulls down the advertisements on those websites to try and get Australian businesses to attend this and I hope he goes a step further and actually boycotts this event and sends a very clear message to a brutal regime—our supposed ally—that the kinds of human rights abuses we've seen in Yemen and that have been reported in the Saudi Arabian consulate don't go unnoticed or unpunished. It's up to nations like Australia and others to take a stand on these issues. If we don't, who will?

The questions I asked today were very specific. Why are we maintaining defence relationships? What details has the Australian government got from the Saudi Arabian embassy and its counterpart here in Australia in relation to this matter? What steps will the Australian government take from here? This is a matter of international significance. I know that hardline conservatives in the US government—polar opposite in their political views to people like me and my party, the Greens—are also displaying and publicly stating their disgust in relation to the behaviour of the Saudi regime. There is much we can do, but we must send the strongest possible message that this kind of behaviour is totally unacceptable. If we're going to have a rules based order, we must send this message, and this chamber is in a position to do that. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.