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

Productivity and AI—they're words everyone in this place is obsessed with, but no-one seems to know exactly what they mean by them. Maybe it's 'the vibe' or something. Well, let me tell you what I think they mean. When this government talks about productivity, it means squeezing more output from fewer people. When they talk about AI, they mean replacing human workers with machines that don't need inconvenient things like wages, sick leave or human dignity. Even if the government doesn't think that's what they mean, the corporations flogging AI certainly do. 'Clankers' are being rolled out across our country with virtually no oversight, and it's telling that our youngest generation has already given AI this new slur. Generation alpha can smell the false promise of technology that won't actually benefit them but will likely impoverish their lives and devastate the planet they'll inherit.

The Prime Minister promises this will make us a productivity powerhouse. Well, I call bull on that. It's 'workhouse', more like, and the lesson of the last decades is clear: we need more humanity, not less. When robots decide entitlements, people die under robodebt. We need to stop just asking billionaires, 'Please be nice to us,' with their rapacious, extractive technology. The choice is clear: we can have technology that serves humanity or humanity that serves technology. We must act now before the clankers have become so embedded that we lose control of our own destiny. The future of work, creativity and human dignity hangs in the balance.

Ayman, a proud Palestinian Australian, reached out to tell me this today about his family in Gaza:

My family, my father, my siblings, my cousins, who live in Gaza City, in one of the old neighbourhoods in Palestine, are facing two choices: to be killed or displaced.

We have seen Israeli tanks, 15 minutes from my family.

There has been total destruction of the northern neighbourhoods in Gaza City. People have been witnessing unimaginable bombings.

The families, the people, have been pushed to the heart of Gaza City.

That is where my family is. Now I have heard from my cousin in Gaza City, that random missiles and tanks are just hitting constantly where all the people are.

The random bombing is just paving the way for the troops to occupy Gaza.

I want to say to the media and the Australian politicians, you are talking about the 2 million people in abstract.

But these are people I have hugged, eaten with, and laughed with. They are trying to survive, live through this unbelievable suffering.

Israeli troops are now asking people to be displaced again. Unlikely when they did this at the start of the genocide, they are doing this, starved, after witnessing loss and being displaced so many times.

Many are not able to walk, people stay home not just because of the bombs falling but to conserve their energy because there is no food.

We need to act now.

Yes, Ayman, we do. In fact, we needed sanctions against Israel yesterday.

While the genocide in Palestine has impacted all, I spoke to Christian Palestinians this week who have relayed some horrific information. The compound of St Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church and the compound of the Holy Family Latin Church in Gaza City, which sit side by side, have become shelters for hundreds of women, children and the elderly. Like the rest of Gaza City's residents, the people who are sheltering within these walls are listening to the bombs drop around them and fighting off starvation. Members of the community told me that, today in Gaza, fewer than a thousand Christians remain in what was once a vibrant community. In their words:

Leaving Gaza City and trying to flee south would be nothing short of a death sentence for them. For this reason, the priests and sisters have decided to stay and continue caring for all those who remain inside the compounds.

We do not know exactly what will happen on the ground, not only to our faithful but to all residents. We can only repeat what we have said before: there can be no future built on captivity, displacement, or revenge against Palestinians.

Thank you for those words.

Israel's attack on the Christian community in Palestine is not just in Gaza. In Jerusalem they have frozen the bank accounts of the Greek Orthodox Church, crippling the church's ability to serve their community, while priests and nuns are assaulted and spat on. The wall around Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ—and I've been there—has turned into an open-air prison. In the West Bank, Israeli settlers are attacking Christian villages like Taybeh, uprooting ancient olive trees and seeking to erase the Christian presence and more than 2,000 years of history.

Regardless of faith, regardless of age, regardless of history, Gaza has become a killing field and occupied Palestine has become a prison and a place of fear and displacement. This is the reality, and this is why the world is crying out to free Palestine and ensure equal rights for all.