Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question, and I deeply respect the role that she plays in this House. In answer to the specific question that she has asked me, I can absolutely guarantee that Australia is not complicit in the way which she's described, but I can also say that Australia is not making weapons in this country and supplying them to Israel. We have made that clear on multiple occasions.

I also reject the proposition that we are not transparent in the way in which all of this is reported. I think we have been incredibly transparent in terms of the way in which we engage in all of our controlled exports around the world and the role that our defence industry plays around the world. We are not making weapons for Israel. It is as clear as that. We have not been doing so since the conflict began on October 7, but we were not doing it for years prior to that. We are not making weapons for Israel.

But the point I want to make is that we have seen various actors seek to manipulate various information that they have derived which is, in fact, not evidence of any of that. They try to misconstrue this and put out misinformation which goes to suggest the opposite. I want to make the point that to put that misinformation into the public domain does not help one single person in Gaza. It just doesn't. What it does is raise tensions in this country, which is deeply destabilising for Australia's social cohesion. Those who walk down that path really need to think about what they are doing for their own self-publicity. This is a matter which is of deep concern to us here in terms of Australia's social cohesion.

I reiterate the point that we are not making weapons for Israel. We are not exporting there. But it is really important that every member of this House owns the responsibility that they have to make sure that misinformation is not what characterises the debate in this country.

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