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

I rise to speak initially to the UNRWA funding document that has been tabled. Can I indicate initially—

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, Senator Shoebridge. A point of order, Senator Cadell?

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Has the UN document not been spoken to before?

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In respect of documents relating to the order for the production of documents concerning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, I move:

That the Senate take note of the documents.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge, please continue.

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

I rise to speak to the UNRWA funding document that has been tabled. I would have liked to contribute on the Palestinian visas matter, but I understand the ruling. This document tabled in relation to the UNRWA funding agreement has come in the context of some fairly appalling politics, both globally and within Australia, in relation to UNRWA funding.

Astoundingly, on the basis of unverified allegations from the State of Israel, the Albanese Labor government cut funding to UNRWA entirely following the outbreak of the appalling war in Gaza. We found out in the days and weeks that followed the cutting of UNRWA funding that the foreign minister, Senator Wong, had decided to cut UNRWA funding on the basis of mere allegations, which had been reported largely in the media, of UNRWA staff and officials somehow colluding with or working for Hamas. Anyone who's followed Israel's attack on UNRWA over the last decades would have heard these repeated allegations from increasingly right-wing Israeli governments that have been aggressively trying to shut down UNRWA, which is an absolutely essential lifeline for the people of occupied Palestine, as well as for those refugees in countries that surround Palestine.

Without UNRWA, Palestinian people would starve. Without UNRWA, there would be no schools and no education for millions of Palestinians. That is a fundamental fact. As I said, it has now been a project of increasingly extremist governments in Israel to shut down UNRWA as part of the ongoing attack against the Palestinian people. If that were ever permitted to happen, it would mean that the schools would permanently be shut and that the food supplies, the medical supplies and the essential support to keep Palestinian people alive would be shut down. This awful political project, from successive Israeli governments, was given a boost by the Albanese Labor government when they uncritically accepted these allegations from Israel about UNRWA officials and employees having connections with Hamas.

Then, the funding having been cut—that lifeline to millions of Palestinians—we got close to radio silence from the Albanese Labor government. They refused to explain what information they had relied upon or to articulate what they understood to be the evidence supporting their decision. As pressure was applied to not just the Australian government, which had cut funding, but European governments, the UK government and the US government, which had also cut funding, it became increasingly apparent that absolutely no evidence had ever been provided to the Australian government or to other governments to back the political attack that had come from the State of Israel. Indeed, investigations that have happened before now about these unsubstantiated allegations by Israel have repeatedly found them to be false allegations, weaponising a narrow subset of global opinion against UNRWA.

In my travel to Israel and Palestine and in my travel into the occupied West Bank in 2016, I had the privilege of visiting the UNRWA offices. I heard firsthand about the incredible struggles they were facing back then to just do their job and provide schools, food and essential support for the people of Palestine. The repeated, unsubstantiated allegations that were coming from Israel at that point, some eight years ago, and the repeated administrative, border and military barriers that were being put in front of UNRWA, when what it wanted to do was educate Palestinian kids, feed kids that didn't otherwise have a meal, and provide food aid and essential medical support for Palestinian people who had had their economic future shut down by an illegal occupation of their country and their homeland—all of that was apparent to anybody who was willing to look in 2016.

It was even more apparent in 2023 and 2024, once this appalling conflict had started. And what did the Albanese government do? Without asking for evidence, without testing the assertions, without caring what the impact would be on the people of occupied Palestine, they just cut UNRWA funding. They followed the US like a polite little puppy dog, following the US in the attack against UNRWA, because that's what the extremist Netanyahu government had been demanding of them. You could not see a worse abandonment of principle. It was an abandonment of the Palestinian people at a time when they were more desperate than ever and more in need of the UNRWA's services than ever, when they were facing the bombing and the violence and the further repression in Gaza. The Albanese government walked away from them, without evidence, because it was politically convenient at the time. It was appalling.

Then, months and months later, when the lack of evidence was apparent and other countries were finally moving to reinstate UNRWA funding, the Minister for Foreign Affairs came in and wanted us to celebrate and thank her for restoring the modest amount of funding that had been put in place, an amount of funding that was no larger than what had been given under Dutton's leadership. It was exactly the same as the coalition was giving. They restored funding that should never have been cut, and I still remember Foreign Minister Wong coming in here and suggesting that somehow or other the Greens and the Palestinian diaspora and the broader community should be grateful because Labor restored funding back to what it had been under Morrison and Dutton and co.

It was hard to stomach at the time, but it's part of a pattern where the basic political direction of the Albanese government on this appalling conflict in Gaza has been directed either by the United States' foreign policy settings or by an ugly fearmongering political campaign that has come from Mr Peter Dutton and his team. It has been one or the other that has been leading the Albanese government in their response, and it was a combination that got them to cravenly cut UNRWA funding without evidence, knowing, as they did, the history, knowing the repeated disingenuous attacks that the increasingly radical right-wing Israeli governments have been making against UNRWA, and knowing full well, as the foreign minister must have known, that, when you take funding from UNRWA, you're taking education from Palestinian kids and you're taking food from the tables of Palestinians who have no other way to support themselves because of the illegal occupation. It was shameful then. It remains shameful now.

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to also take note of the letter from the minister in relation to the order for the production of documents relating to the UNRWA funding agreement, and I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.