Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

To every Australian out there who feels like they are being gaslit by our current government: we feel the same. To stand here and listen to members of the government telling us that they are sending troops and missiles to the UAE to protect Australians feels like Orwellian doublespeak.

The justification is that there are hundreds if not thousands of Australians in the UAE. Well, there are also thousands of Australians in Lebanon. Israel and the IDF are dropping bombs on them, and we have not heard a peep out of you on that. It seems that there's no red line that can't be crossed—and with the opposition and PHON just cheering you on. You're quick to condemn the strikes on the UAE, but, when we saw the illegal strike by the US on Iran that started this war, you were the first out the gate to support it. There's been no condemnation of the ongoing strikes by the IDF in Lebanon.

We see a government minister who was really happy to pose with Iranian soccer players who we're giving asylum to but was quite happy to see the US and the IDF continue to drop bombs on their families and friends, and now we hear that you're going to block the visas of Iranians who are trying to escape the disaster that is before them. We see a PM who states his support for women on International Women's Day but comes out straightaway in support of the bombing of a girl's school. I feel like we are living in a dystopian parallel universe.

You might have been able to get away with this stuff in the past, but every Australian can see it on their screens—schools and schoolgirls bombed, rivers of fire, acid rain, hospitals destroyed and aid workers killed. It seems that your hypocrisy and your doublespeak know no bounds, and it is appalling.