David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Every single day in Iran, the basic freedoms and rights of the Uranian people are being violated, and every day that the Albanese government does nothing and refuses to take a stand is another day that more innocent lives are lost. Authoritarian regimes around the world are taking the lives of innocent people. We see this clearly in Ukraine, we see it in China and we're seeing it writ large in Iran. We cannot allow these authoritarian regimes to ignore the international rules based order.

The detainee diplomacy undertaken by the Iranian regime when it the jailed Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert for around three years was just one symbol of the despicable acts of this regime and its complete disregard for the principles of law and human rights, including freedom of speech.

Countries like Canada are leading the world in standing up for women's rights by sanctioning Iran. Canada's measures prohibit dealings with several individuals and entities, effectively freezing any assets they may hold in Canada and banning them from the country. Australia needs to follow this lead. We need to stand up for the people of Iran with everything that we can do. We can do more, because at the moment this government is not doing anything but talking. Australia needs to follow in the footsteps of like-minded countries, like Canada, the US and the UK, and impose Magnitsky-style sanctions on Iran and its regime. This should include financial asset freezes and travel bans against members of the revolutionary guard, the morality police and other key officials, as well as financial sanctions against the government.

We now can take these actions due to the coalition government signing into law the Autonomous Sanctions Amendment (Magnitsky-style and Other Thematic Sanctions) Act 2021, which we did in December last year. The coalition have made it clear to the government that we will provide bipartisan support for Australia to do the same. Statecraft is a responsibility of government, and sanctions are a tool of statecraft. The government is doing nothing. We hear lots of rhetoric from the table and we see the media performances—still, nothing is happening.

The government said, and we heard this in estimates that other week, that the charge d'affaires, the Deputy Head of Mission of the Iranian embassy had been called in by a first assistant secretary of DFAT. Why hasn't the Foreign Minister called in the Deputy Head of Mission? Why has it been left to a lowly official from DFAT? Surely we can send a stronger signal than that! The Iranian community of Australia is calling loudly for the Australian government to do more. They are outraged that nothing that has been done—completely outraged. I've spoken now at four rallies in Melbourne and here in Canberra, and the amount of sadness and horror they are witnessing back home, and the anger that they are feeling that nothing is happening here, is palpable. Yet this government ignores them. We need to be able to stand up for the people of Iran. We need to be able to show that we care about human rights and about the rights of women and children, and not to stand by idly while people are being shot in the street for exercising a right that we would fight for here in Australia.

This government is all words and no action, and I call on the Albanese government to do more, to bring in sanctions and to stand up for the people of Iran. The coalition government brought in sanctions against the Russians after the invasion—we did it within days, and we had the support of the opposition. We are giving you our support to do the same against the Iranian regime.

A di vision having been called and the bells being rung—