Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Over the weekend we saw the start of another illegal, dangerous and senseless imperial war, launched by the same forces who have ruthlessly massacred Palestinians for more than two years now. It is beyond shameful that our supposed leaders, Prime Minister Albanese and Foreign Minister Wong, not only have failed to condemn this illegal aggression from Israel and the US but were among the first to enthusiastically back this bombing. You are all imperial warmongers. The foreign minister refuses to comment on the legality of the US and Israel's actions because she knows the answer: these actions are illegal, plain and simple. You don't get to pick and choose if Russia's brutal attack on Ukraine was illegal; so are the United States's attacks on Iran, as are their attacks on the myriad other countries they have attacked over the last few months.

Those who support this war will claim that they are in support of the Iranian people and their liberation from a brutal dictatorship. But do you seriously want us to believe that the US cares about the human rights of anyone after what they did in Iraq and Afghanistan? The very people that claim to be liberating the people of Iran are the same exact people that have cheered on a genocide in Gaza. These very people who claim to support women's rights have nothing to say about the tens of thousands of women and children murdered by Israel in Gaza, let alone those murdered by US-Israeli bombs in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Qatar. They also have nothing to say about the girls' elementary school that was targeted in Iran just yesterday, with the death toll currently over 150 and continuing to climb. The Greens have been consistent in our condemnation of the Iranian regime, the IRGC, and their violent oppression of Iranian people. But no-one has bombed their way to peace.

We are at a critical juncture in history. The rules based order has been blown to smithereens by the West's complicity in Israel's genocide on Gaza. But we must continue to seek justice, to seek liberation from oppression and to seek an end to state violence and to do so through diplomatic means. When we abandon diplomacy—when we ignore international law, when we say that one set of rules applies for some and not others—we can guarantee a path to death and destruction.