Fatima Payman (WA, Australia's Voice) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on the escalating humanitarian and security crisis in Sudan and to honour the voices of the Sudanese Australian community leaders who met with me recently. The Head of Mission of the Sudanese Embassy, Ahmed Abdelatif, and community representatives in Perth, Mohamed Ibrahim and Yakub Yusuf.

Sudan has endured unimaginable suffering since April 2023, when conflict erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces militia. Since then, the RSF has seized control of one of Darfur's five states, committing acts of ethnic cleansing, mass displacement, sexual violence and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. More than 12 million people have been forced from their homes, the largest displacement crisis in the world today. Recent ABC reporting confirms that the United Nations found credible evidence that the United Arab Emirates have been arming the RSF, the very militia accused of genocide in Sudan. International investigations, including from the Wall Street Journal, have also revealed financial and military support flowing to the RSF through Libya and Chad, forming part of a wider effort to divide Sudan and exploit its resources.

Australia has contributed more than $60 million in humanitarian support since 2023, and, while this aid is welcome, it falls short of the scale of this crisis. Only 20 per cent of Sudan's global humanitarian needs have been met. Yet, at the same time, Australia continues to export arms to the UAE—nearly $300 million in weapons and ammunitions over the past five years, including components for lethal F-35 fighter jets. This continues despite the UAE's alleged role in fuelling the genocide in Sudan. It's a contradiction we must confront and one that demands far greater transparency and accountability from this government. The Australian public deserve to know.

The community leaders I met with made four very clear requests: for Australia to formally condemn the RSF, to apply diplomatic pressure on the UAE, who is enabling this violence, to strengthen and redirect humanitarian assistance through trusted NGOs and to lift the humanitarian visa ban to allow families to reunite. They reiterated that Sudan must not be forgotten in this parliament. I gave them my word—and I give it again tonight—that I'll continue to advocate for these actions.

Let's move on to another matter of urgency. The race to the bottom on the EPBC reforms is on. The environment minister has said:

We will be passion these reforms next week, in the final sitting week of the year.

This has been accompanied by the standard media backgrounding designed to pressure the opposition and the Greens into locking down a deal. It was not so long ago that the minister spoke without using absolutes. When the Senate was debating how long the EPBC reform bill should be referred to committee for, at the end of the last month, the minister's words were:

We should get on with it.

That's 'should', not 'will'. The Senate opted for a more thorough inquiry. Senator Hanson-Young said in a vigorous defence of the Senate's role as a house of review:

We are going to move to make sure that this chamber has the ability to do it its job. If they expect the Senate just to roll over, rubberstamp this and ram it through, they've got another thing coming.

Senator Duniam, in a similar Bartonian fashion noted:

Senator Watt tells us the business community are sending strong messages. If you talk to business community, they say they want time to scrutinise this as well because it's all been rushed.

If the government get their way, which they probably will, at least one of these quotations will have aged quite poorly by the end of this week. We do need to move to update the EPBC Act to better protect the environment, but, if the solution is rushed, we may find ourselves here again in a few years time with the same problem. An outcome that prioritises politics over policy, regardless of who strikes the deal, is not what Australians have sent us here to do. They sent us here to ensure that the EPBC reforms would protect the environment not primary— (Time expired)