David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During parliament question time on Monday this week, we saw protesters disrupting parliamentary procedure because they were calling for a ceasefire and for an end to the genocide in Gaza. Many of the protesters who were in the gallery during the House of Reps question time have come from groups like Families for Palestine. These groups have been picketing outside the Prime Minister's electorate office in the heart of Sydney for six weeks now. They're largely mums and supporters of those mums from within the Prime Minister's own electorate, and the Prime Minister has directed his office to lock the door to them, to not answer their calls, to not let them in and to not speak to them. For six weeks they have been camped outside seeking a response, and so they finally came here. They came to parliament and they came into the gallery.

In case you couldn't hear their call on the video feed, this is what they said: 'Albanese, your hands are red; 1,500 children dead.' That was their call. That's what they said. And I can tell you this: it's not the first time there has been more conviction and principle in the galleries of this place than there is on the floor of parliament. It's not the first time we've seen clearer, more morally unambiguous statements coming from the community and holding this place to account.

Many of these people have loved ones in Gaza, and so the smirking response of members of the government and the opposition to these families as they were removed from the parliament because they dared to bring politics and truth to the parliament was hard to watch. Many of those families and many people in the Palestinian diaspora and their supporters across this country saw the smugness of this place. They saw the smugness of the government and the sense of moral superiority that they get from the government—the same government that refuses to do what it can to stop the genocide. The government continues to disrespect their calls for a permanent ceasefire and a just peace. But the protesters were heard this week. Thank goodness they're there, and thank goodness this community is so far ahead of this government when it comes to the issue of a free Palestine and a permanent, just peace.

Last weekend I had the privilege of joining First Nations traditional owners and elders from across the country who form the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, ANFA, gathering on Dharawal country at the beautiful escarpment just to the east of Wollongong. Those First Nations elders and the representatives that they'd worked with from nuclear affected communities across the continent travelled to Dharawal country, where they met with trade union leaders, local organisers and activists. They made one strong, powerful call, and that was that every part of First Nations land—and that means every part of this continent—needs to be protected from nuclear waste, from nuclear weapons and, most particularly, from the threat of contamination of their land that comes under AUKUS.

From Muckaty to Woomera to Kimba, First Nations elders, First Nations traditional owners, have stopped both the ALP and the coalition from contaminating their land with nuclear waste. Some of those campaigners have already seen the UK contaminate their land by detonating nuclear weapons on their land. They know what it means to have their land poisoned. And so when they heard about the government's proposed changes, under the AUKUS legislation, to permit any part of the country to be turned into a high-level nuclear waste dump without any First Nations consultation and without any legal protections, simply by a regulation passed by the defence minister, they were outraged. They are outraged and they are building a national campaign to sink the government's proposal to allow US and UK nuclear waste, and Australian nuclear waste, to ever find its way onto their land under the guise of AUKUS.