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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Foreign minister to my colleague Senator Waters.

Foreign Minister Wong was asked what you would think is the simplest of questions. The question was: is Australia at war? I listened carefully to Senator Wong's response. There was something about collective self-defence. There was something about Iran. There was something about civilian targets. There was something about civilian infrastructure. There was something about the UAE and gulf nations. There was something about the national interest. There was something about the Greens. But do you know what we didn't get in two minutes of answers from the Foreign minister? We didn't get an answer from the Foreign minister about whether Australia is or isn't at war.

If the Foreign minister can't answer a four-word question about whether Australia is at war or not without ducking out and phoning up Donald Trump and asking and checking, it shows the exact nature of our relationship and the damage that has been done to our sovereignty and our national interest by Labor, the coalition and One Nation—the three war parties in this place—tying us to the hip of Donald Trump and his illegal, aggressive war making across the planet. In this parliament, at a moment like this, when Australians are embedded across the US military, when Senator Wong's government is sending military personnel into the Middle East and when Senator Wong is asked by Senator Waters, 'Is Australia at war?' and the Foreign minister squibs the question and can't answer the question, it goes to show the deceit, the hypocrisy, the double standards and the doublespeak that's coming from Labor.

I'll answer the question for Senator Wong. Australia is at war. We were always going to go to war whenever the United States went to war because the war parties—Labor, the coalition and One Nation—have, with AUKUS, tied us to every single illegal US war. End AUKUS. Get us out of this mess. It's time for an independent Australia.

The second remarkable part about Senator Wong's answers was when my colleague Senator Waters asked about Lebanon: 'Why the silence on Lebanon? Why are there two standards? Why do you say nothing about Lebanon?' I read and listened to Senator Wong's answer, and do you know what she didn't say once in her answer? I'll let you guess: Lebanon. The silence is deafening.