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

We tried in committee to at least fix some of this bill by preventing it just being a Labor-Liberal stitch-up and you are having none of that. So we're now left with a situation where, as this government has decided to join an illegal war, this parliament is looking to set up a secret closed-shop committee for two of the war parties—you might invite the third war party in due course—the Labor and the Liberal parties, to work out how we should back in the next illegal war from Donald Trump, the next illegal war from Benjamin Netanyahu. As Greens, we're going to have none of that.

We are the only party in this place that is committed to peace, not war. We seem to be the only party in this place that can see the obscene dangers, the bluster, the violence, the threats of Donald Trump. We see him not as a dependable ally, which is how Labor and the coalition see him, but as a dangerous threat to world peace. In fact, when the Australian public are asked about who the greatest threat to world peace on the planet is, they don't point where Labor and the coalition want them to point to, or One Nation; they point to Donald Trump. And they demand of this place to at least have the imagination to think about an Australian defence and foreign policy that isn't tied at the hip to a dangerous, increasingly despotic, random, violent man who seems to be want to visit war, assassinations and arbitrary power on whoever he chooses in the world regardless of international law and constraints.

Increasingly, we see the US's partner of choice in their wars being Israel. We saw the US Secretary of State in just the last few hours come out and criticise the United States' allies, the UK in particular, because they haven't shown the same commitment that Israel has shown to support illegal wars, to ignore the constraints on international conflict, and to not want to openly target hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure. The United States is clearly saying that it wants more of that, more of those illegal, unrestrained wars wherever they choose against whoever they choose.

While the Albanese government has been hiding, while Foreign Minister Wong has been refusing to make any statement about the legality of the current appalling conflict—the bombings and the missiles coming from the United States and Israel against Iran. Instead, she says, 'Well, that is a matter for the United States to work out—if it is lawful or not.' Last time I checked, international law was only supported when the international community stood up and supported it. To simply contract out our morality and our thinking to the United States on whether this is legal or not is a gross breach of duty from the Foreign minister and from the Prime Minister.

This is an illegal war based on lies. The current lies are that this was required to deal with an imminent threat from Iran's nuclear capacity. I mean, Donald Trump just barely, not even a week ago, in the State of the Union address told his own congress that the United States had 'obliterated' Iran's nuclear capacity. He said that repeatedly. So which current lie from Donald Trump should we believe—that he has obliterated the Iranian nuclear capacity or that it is an imminent threat to world peace? Which lie is Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, relying on? Is it the most recent lie from Donald Trump that it's an imminent threat, or is it the earlier lie about the obliteration? What is the basis for the Prime Minister and the Foreign minister to come out and tell the Australian public repeatedly that this war is somehow justified to deal with an imminent threat from Iran's nuclear capacity? How do they square that with Donald Trump's statement from barely a week ago that he had obliterated that? We can see these lies in plain sight. You can see them in plain sight. And then we have the Australian government here, the Labor government, and the coalition and One Nation—the war parties—giving false hope to the Iranian diaspora that this is about regime change and democracy.

In the last 24 hours, we've seen the United States, Donald Trump and the Secretary of War clearly say they're not interested in regime change and they're not interested in democracy. It's about the raw exercise of US power. They have said it clearly. How many times are we going to watch the United States betray people? They betrayed the people of Afghanistan. They betrayed the people of Iraq. They betrayed the Kurds and others in Syria, and they're in the process of betraying the people of Iran. It's as sure as night follows day that, as soon as Donald Trump loses interest in this campaign or he starts seeing the 24-hour news cycle spinning the wrong way while he's eating his burgers late at night, he'll just dump the Iranian people. He'll drop them like a gun. That's what he'll do. Then we'll have our prime minister and our Foreign minister and our deputy prime minister spinning wildly to try and come up and agree with the latest fantasy coming out of Donald Trump and the United States and desperately say that that was the plan all along—it was never about democracy and it was never about regime change; it was about destroying the already destroyed nuclear capability and destroying the Iranian defence forces. They will desperately spin it that that's what it was all the time—just watch! Watch how the lies morph and change as this conflict rolls out and as the violence spreads across the Middle East.

Will the Australian Labor government and its supporters in the coalition and in One Nation share any responsibility for the lives lost in the countries surrounding Iran as the conflict spreads? No. Will they say a single word today about the Lebanese lives lost in Israeli attacks on Beirut and Southern Lebanon? No. We can pretty much guarantee they won't, because the three war parties are all fine with Israel continuing repeatedly to bomb and kill in Lebanon. That's what you do—you back in these illegal wars.

We see you. We see you for your warmongering and your moral cowardice and your hypocrisy, and, perhaps, at the centre of this hypocrisy is that you are backing in Israel to attack Iran for Iran's potential, at some point, to have an illegal nuclear weapons program when Israel, right now, has hundreds of nuclear weapons in breach of the non-proliferation treaty and illegal under international law. And what? It's just 'nobody mention it'? It's really the emperor has no clothes and nobody mention that we're backing one nation with illegal nuclear weapons to attack another nation so it doesn't get illegal nuclear weapons, and somehow we're just not meant to mention that the first one has nuclear weapons?

If you want the ultimate irony in all of this, which country gave Iran its first nuclear reactor? Let's try and think—which country gave Iran the first nuclear reactor? The United States, when they had their own little despot in place and they wanted them to have a nuclear reactor in the 1950s. The layers of deceit and betrayal and hypocrisy—they just stink. I'll finish with this. If the war weren't illegal in the first place—and it so clearly was; its purpose is might and power, disconnected with any even vague excuse of legality—the war is now being conducted by the United States in gross breach of international law.

Foreign Minister Wong, Prime Minister Albanese and Defence Minister Marles are saying nothing. Well, while they're saying nothing, this is what the US secretary of War said just a few hours ago:

America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history. B-2s, fighters, drones, missiles, and of course classified effects. All on our terms with maximum authorities. No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don't waste time or lives.

They have said it with utter clarity. They don't think they're bound by international law. They don't think they're bound by the rules of engagement such as proportionality. They don't think they have to protect civilians. They have no time for those rules of restraint in wars. They are fighting a brutal, illegal war, and who will be at the front line of that brutal, illegal war? It will be civilians in Iran, people trying to keep their families are safe, dads worried about their kids, kids worried about their parents, uncles and aunties worried about who will be coming together to share a collective family meal, people desperately anxious about their kids at school and their relatives in hospital as the bombs and the missiles rained down with no rules to constrain them, because the United States have said they are not bound by these rules and, to their utter, contemptible shame, the Albanese government is backing this in.

You are making the world less safe. You are making Australia less safe. You are backing in two violent, aggressive regimes who show no restraint, and you pretend that you have the best interests of Australia at heart. We see you. We see the war parties and we despise what you're doing.