Senate debates

Wednesday, 10 May 2017

Answers to Questions on Notice

Question Nos 408 and 410

3:07 pm

Photo of Scott LudlamScott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

Pursuant to standing order 74(5), I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Brandis, for an explanation as to why an answer has not been provided to question No. 408, regarding the decision by Australia not to participate in the UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards Their Total Elimination and, secondly, question No. 410, regarding Israel's automatic prosecution of Palestinian children in military courts. These questions were asked on 17 March of this year. I understand some notice has been provided to the foreign minister's office that I was intending to raise this. I would be interested to see whether the minister can enlighten us as to why answers to these questions are so long overdue.

3:08 pm

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

I note that you say you have provided notice, but I am advised that my office has not received any notice that you were going to raise this matter today. But given you have done so, I will have a look into it.

3:09 pm

Photo of Scott LudlamScott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of Senator Brandis's contribution.

I understand the Attorney is here in a representing capacity. I hope that lines of communication are open between your office and that of the foreign minister, but we will leave that to you to explain. I will speak at some length on the matters raised in question 408 and briefly on question 410. I will speak to the substance of the questions.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Just a moment, Senator Ludlam. Senator Brandis?

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order. What Senator Ludlam is taking note of is my answer, but what he has foreshadowed that he proposes to speak about is the substance of the issue raised by the question. Now, my answer was that my office has not been advised of the fact that he proposed to raise this issue today. In those circumstances, it seems impossible that anything beyond noting the fact that my office has not been advised that he proposed to raise this issue could be relevant. I am not seeking to limit Senator Ludlam, of course, from addressing this issue at the appropriate time, but no motion to take notice of an answer that my office has not been advised of the matter that he proposed to raise could possibly be relevant.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brandis. In taking note, Senator Ludlam is free to either take note of the explanation or take note of no explanation, and in his response he can be wide-ranging and can canvass the issues that it seems he was going to.

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

I put a further point of order. Neither of those are alternatives of what I said. What I said is my office has not been advised of the matter that Senator Ludlam proposed to raise. Now, Madam Deputy President, I have not explained why the questions have not been answered and I have not said that the questions have been answered. I simply do not know, because my office has not been advised of Senator Ludlam's intention to raise this matter. That is all I have said, and that is all that can be taken note of.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brandis. Advising beforehand is a convention, and Senator Ludlam has said he advised, and you have indicated that your office did not receive that advice. It is a convention. If you look at standing order 74 and, in particular, at 74(5)(c), it says:

in the event that the minister does not provide an explanation, the senator may, without notice, move a motion with regard to the minister's failure to provide either an answer or an explanation.

Senator O'Sullivan? Senator Brandis, Senator O'Sullivan has the call; please resume your seat.

Photo of Barry O'SullivanBarry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I am happy to yield to Senator Brandis.

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

With great respect, Madam Deputy President, you are completely missing the point here. I have not provided an explanation and—

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Senator Brandis!

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

I am moving a point of order.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

I think you are now debating.

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

No, I am not; I am taking a point of order.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

You are debating.

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

I am not; I am taking a point of order, and I ask you to listen to the point of order before you rule on it.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

If it is the same as the previous one—

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

No, it is not.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Make your point then.

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

Madam Deputy President, I am not providing an explanation and I am not failing to provide an explanation. I am merely advising the Senate that my office has not been advised of this matter being raised today; that is all. That is the only thing that I have said, and that is the only thing that, therefore, note may be taken of.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brandis. It is the same as the previous point you raised, and I have answered that. Senator O'Sullivan.

Photo of Barry O'SullivanBarry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I am seeking some guidance from you, Madam Deputy President. I am the second speaker on this list today, and I am entitled, of course, to express myself in relation to this topic, but there is no topic upon which I could prepare.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Senator O'Sullivan, we are on a different matter. I will explain to you where we are up to. We are not at the point of taking note. Senator Ludlam has, quite correctly, stood up and sought the call, and he is referring to standing order 74(5).

Photo of Scott LudlamScott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

I note that Senator Brandis appears to be abusing a courtesy and a custom of this place.

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

That is very unfair.

Photo of Scott LudlamScott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

It is not unfair, Senator Brandis, and you know that it is not.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Through the chair.

Photo of Scott LudlamScott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

Through the chair, I am just going to focus my remarks on the fact that I notified the foreign minister's office. Her failure to contact you, as the representing minister, or your failure to pick up the phone is not my problem, nor is it the Senate's problem. So I will address my comments briefly to the unanswered questions on notice. They were placed on the Notice Paper on 17 March. The custom in this place is that within 30 days the Senate is provided with a reply, and that has not occurred. Senator Brandis has failed to provide the Senate with any satisfactory explanation as to why these questions remain unanswered. The substance is the decision by the Australian government, I would argue, an unprecedented decision, under longstanding policy by both Liberal and Labor governments to participate in good faith in negotiations at the United Nations level to work towards the elimination of the existence of nuclear weapons. And it is a remarkable lapse—

Photo of Ian MacdonaldIan Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Madam Deputy President, on a point of order on the grounds of relevance: the motion is to take note of the answer given by Senator Brandis. It had nothing to do with the United Nations. It had nothing to do with violence. Senator Brandis's answer, as I heard it, was simply to say that his office had not been contacted. Senator Ludlam can debate why Senator Brandis's office was not contacted, that he does not have efficient system, or the minister he is representing did the wrong thing. That would be part of a legitimate debate, but talking about the United Nations has nothing to do with the answer given by Senator Brandis.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Macdonald. That is very similar to the point that Senator Brandis raised and I have already made a decision in relation to that. Please continue, Senator Ludlam.

Photo of Scott LudlamScott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

This is starting to stray very close to disrespecting the ruling that you gave quite some time ago.

An opposition senator interjecting

Yes, it is.

Photo of Ian MacdonaldIan Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

You have got to follow the standing orders.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Order!

Photo of Scott LudlamScott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

Between them, you might learn something, Senator Macdonald, if you just keep your trap shut.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Senator Ludlam, please direct your comments to the chair.

Photo of Scott LudlamScott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

I am in enough trouble as it is, I will do so. Nine nations between them, today, hold more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenals. And some of them—most of them—are vastly more powerful than the weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Australia was one of the founding nations of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. It was signed in 1968 and it came into effect in March 1970. Today, there are 190 signatures to that international agreement, and I am proud that Australia is one of them. There are actually only nine states in the world left that remain outside this international agreement. These are countries such as South Sudan, North Korea, Pakistan, India and Israel. These countries have turned their backs on the international rules-based order and insist on maintaining and deploying these weapons, despite global international agreement as far back as the late 1960s that these devices should be abolished. But Australia has remained a part of this agreement. And I would argue that over time, we have played on occasion an extremely confused role but, on some occasions, a really important and constructive role, particularly under the Labor governments and under Labor prime ministers and foreign ministers. But there are some achievements that you could notably point to on the other side as well.

Article 1 of the nuclear nonproliferation agreement goes to importance of nonproliferation—no transfer. It is one of the reasons that Australia has signed up to—what I would argue would be an ineffective, nonetheless they are there at least on paper—agreements that we will not sell uranium to states that will then divert that material into nuclear weapons. It is a documented fact that Australia sells to many nuclear weapon states. We sell uranium from South Australia and from the Northern Territory, from a dwindling number of uranium mines to nuclear weapon states—we do that. But there are processes on paper that are meant to safeguard against diversion of that material into nuclear weapons programs. We would argue that simply tipping Australian uranium into a bucket, and then tipping out a certain amount for civil nuclear power and a certain amount for nuclear weapons is thoroughly ineffective. But those agreements stand for a reason: that uranium remains today the only fuel for an energy source that is also a source for weapons of mass destruction.

Article 1 of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty says no to the proliferation of technology that would allow countries to do what North Korea or India did, which was take these devices, these plants, these processing facilities, meant the civil nuclear power and immediately—not through any change of technology but really just a flick of a policy switch—turn those facilities over to fissile material production for nuclear weapons programs. The nonproliferation regime has, when compared with some of the more dire predictions from the fifties, sixties and seventies that proposed that maybe by now, by 2017, we would have 20 or 30 countries deploying nuclear weapons, ensured there is a much smaller number.

Article 6 of the nuclear nonproliferation agreement is, if anything, even more important. This is the article that binds nuclear weapons states and their allies, such as Australia, to participate in good-faith negotiations leading to total and complete nuclear weapons disarmament. Sometimes you could imagine, maybe, in a foreign minister's or a Prime Minister's office that this agreement only relates to nonproliferation—other people cannot have nukes, but we are comfortable with those who do. But, in fact, the agreement that we signed up to nearly 50 years ago says that all nuclear weapons states under this agreement are obliged to negotiate for complete and total disarmament of these weapons. That is the agreement that we signed up to.

So how are we going 47 years later with these good-faith negotiations? The first point to note is that compared to the height of the Cold War there are fewer of these weapons in the arsenals of the world's nuclear weapons states. There are fewer. Negotiations have taken place between governments of the United States and Russia—or the Soviet Union at the time—to stand down many of these weapons. That did occur. That is possible. It can happen. But are these negotiations proceeding in good faith towards disarmament? No, they are not. We know they are not because every nuclear weapons state in the world, bar none, is currently actively refreshing, renewing, redeploying, redesigning their nuclear weapons arsenals—47 years after that agreement came into effect.

It does not catch rogue states like North Korea or Israel who stay outside these binding international agreements. But it should catch the policy and doctrine of states like the United States, the government of Russia and the government of China. But we know that the United States government is redeveloping nuclear weapons. We know that the government of Great Britain is proposing to rebuild its Trident submarine capability and that Russian rearmament is a matter of record. This is not good faith. This is the opposite of good faith. While negotiations are bogged down in the United Nations, the nuclear weapons states are not only refusing to disarm but actively maintaining and upgrading their nuclear weapons stockpiles.

On 6 August 1945, the United States government dropped a 16-kilotonne weapon on the people of Hiroshima in the closing days of the Second World War. Sixteen kilotonne means the equivalent of 16,000 tonnes of TNT in one device dropped from one aircraft. A device of that destructive power completely destroyed an area one mile across, killed 70,000 to 80,000 people in the blast wave and resulting firestorm, killed 30 per cent of the population of Hiroshima and created 70,000 injuries immediately. Goodness only knows how many casualties there have been over the longer term from radiation sickness. That compounds through the generations.

Over Nagasaki three days later, a 21-kilotonne plutonium weapon detonated and immediately and instantly killed 40,000 people—one device dropped from one aircraft. A 21-kilotonne weapon is the largest nuclear weapon that has even been used against people, a civilian population, in a time of war—to say nothing of those devices that were tested on Australian service personnel and unwittingly on the Aboriginal people who were bombed off their lands around Maralinga and the Montebellos in the northwest of WA.

I say without reservation that Minister Dan Tehan should be congratulated by everybody in this place for doing what he could to right that historic injustice for, as Senator Brandis provided some details on in supplementary answers to Senator Lambie a short time ago, those personnel who, in service to their country, were bombed and exposed to nuclear radiation by an ally, the British government, in the 1950s and 1960s. Minister Tehan has done what the previous Labor government refused to do and what other governments have refused to do all the way back into 1950s and 1960s, which was acknowledge that those horrific wrongs were done to Australian personnel and to Aboriginal families living in the immediate area.

A 21-kilotonne weapon remains the largest used on a population in wartime. But, in 1961, the Russian soviet government tested a 57-megaton hydrogen bomb—equivalent to 57 million tonnes of TNT; an unimaginably destructive weapon. It is the largest nuclear weapon that has ever been tested because, at about that time, global civil society had discovered the incredibly damaging effects of the global spread of nuclear fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing and had begun to draw the nuclear powers back into line so that nuclear weapon testing would cease.

In 2014, a coalition of medical experts convened a conference in Vienna—a humanitarian initiative—effectively, to put before the governments of the world and global civil society the argument that, in the event of the use of nuclear weapons, the global medical community will not be able to help. There is no kind of healthcare system or emergency support structure that you can put in place to remediate the damage done to civilian populations by the effects of nuclear weapons. That message was heard loud and clear. That set in motion an open-ended working group within the United Nations setting out a process, finally, to make these weapons illegal in international law—illegal in the same way that chemical weapons, biological weapons and cluster munitions are illegal. Not everybody signs up; you do not wait for North Korea or Syria to sign up to pass an agreement like this into international law. Countries of good will get together, they craft international law and then they sign up, like Australia did with the NPT.

We have some questions for the Australian government as to why—given 47 years of what I would argue would be deliberate paralysis and the opposite of good-faith negotiations to ban these weapons and, with the first crack in the armour that we see, moves by global civil society and a majority of governments around the world to ban these weapons and to finally have them accepted and understood to be illegal tools of genocide under international law—Australia would participate in a boycott of those negotiations. How is that good faith? How is that anything other than sabotage? That, effectively, is what our questions to the foreign minister go to. That was what we wanted to see an answer to when we put these questions to the minister on 17 March.

What are the reasons for the decision by Australia not to participate in the UN conference? Were we told not to participate by the US government, because there was some heavy-duty arm twisting going on from the nuclear-weapon states and their client states in advance of the open-ended working group's determination to actually put this to the UN First Committee. Is it the fact that it settled Australian defence doctrine, in successive white papers under governments of both flavours, that Australia relies on the US nuclear weapons umbrella? Given everything that we know about the effect of these weapons—the humanitarian catastrophe that unfolds when populations are bombed by these devices—and all that we know in the many, many years since those days, three days apart, in August 1945, is it still a matter of fact in Australia's defence doctrine that we would support, under some conditions, the use of US nuclear weapons in defence of Australia? Is that why we are boycotting these talks? Is that why the US government demanded that we not participate? Did they even need to demand, or did we just fold? It is unprecedented, in my experience, that the Australian government would sit this out.

There is an argument to be made that we are better off out of the room, if all we were intending to do was sabotage the talks as we so clearly attempted. Our diplomats, what an utter disgrace—attempting to sabotage the work of the open-ended working group. Maybe it is better that we are out of the room. What would be better than that would be to be in the room, arguing in good faith for the banning of these weapons. For a nuclear umbrella state like Australia to be doing so would be of enormous consequence.

One country after another will sign onto this agreement. The closing negotiations are occurring in June and July 2017. I intend to be in New York when that is happening. I think it is going to be an absolutely historic moment. Australia can be left behind by that—we can go under the wheels as a saboteur or, as we have been called in these negotiations, a 'weasel state'—or we can be part of the movement to bring into effect that agreement that was signed in 1970. That is where I think most Australians want us to be.

I want to acknowledge and celebrate the work of ICAN, which started in Melbourne, here in Australia, and is now a global movement, helping to unite a deep and old and very wise civil society collection of movements from around the world. It is a movement that got its start after that white flash on 6 August 1945. ICAN, started in Melbourne, is a successful Australian export, I would argue—and those governments and civil society partners around the world who have made this happen. Where the hell is Australia? Where are we? We should be in the room and we should be doing our bit to bring this agreement to a close and ban these weapons, once and for all.

I will also make brief reference, as I said I would at the outset, to the non-response to question on notice No. 410, which relates to Israel's prosecution of Palestinian children in military courts. My Senate colleague Janet Rice will have more to say on this, because she has seen the situation up close. I want to draw the Senate's attention to a report by UNICEF in March 2013. It is titled Children in Israeli military detention. It found that the ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the Israeli military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalised through the process, from the moment of arrest until the child's prosecution and eventual conviction and sentencing. The report by UNICEF made 38 recommendations, which the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it would study and work to implement in cooperation with UNICEF.

What has changed since 2013? In May of last year the Israel Prison Service stopped regular monthly prison statistics. They just stopped collecting them, or maybe they stopped publishing them, in accordance with the freedom of information application from the Israeli organisation B’Tselem. Despite repeated requests, it is the first time in more than 15 years that the IPS has not disclosed the number of adults and children held in its facilities on a regular basis. We know from the latest public figures that 319 children were held in military detention at the end of August 2016. We were not able to find anything more recent than that. But even that is an 82 per cent increase compared with the monthly average for 2015. And 10 of these children were being held without charge or trial in administrative detention.

Senator Rice, as I said, who has seen this system in operation up close and has much more current information than has been published or that we were able to find, will make some remarks. But our request to the Australian government is to have observers at these trials. It was actually an undertaking of the former foreign minister. There is something that Australia can do. It is not going to be good enough to hear that because these things happen on the other side of the world there is nothing we can do. Australia, at least at a government level, as a staunch supporter of the government of Israel, can do a lot—and we can certainly do more than we are doing. I thank the Senate.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Thank you. Senator Rice?

3:32 pm

Photo of Janet RiceJanet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy President.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Just a moment, Senator Rice.

Senator Brandis interjecting

Senator Rice stood first but—

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

No, I was standing and I take—

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Senator Brandis, you were walking across there, but Senator Rice has sat down so you have the call.

3:33 pm

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Rice, I appreciate that. Madam Deputy President, for the second time today we have seen an abuse by the Greens of the process of this chamber. The first abuse of process we saw was when the Senate sat this morning, and a motion was moved by a Greens senator, Senator Whish-Wilson, to, in effect, debate the budget, although it was clear to all senators that the program of Senate business for this week provided an opportunity tomorrow evening for party leaders and other senators to make statements, in relation to the budget. So the responsible parties in this chamber, the grown-up political parties—the government and opposition—defeated the attempt to abuse the process of the Senate.

We have, again, seen an attempt by Senator Ludlam to abuse the process of the Senate by wrongly invoking the procedure provided for by standing order 74(5). Since Senator Ludlam rose I have made some inquiries.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brandis, please resume your seat. Senator Ludlam.

Photo of Scott LudlamScott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

Madam Deputy President, on a point of order. In claiming that I have wrongly invoked the standing order, the Attorney-General—who has been here longer than me and should know better—is directly calling into question a ruling that you made at least four times, and I ask you to call him to order. If he is in a hurry to proceed with business he should sit down, but, at the very least, he should respect the ruling that you made a short time ago.

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

Madam Deputy President, on the point of order, for reasons that I am about to express, my assertion that Senator Ludlam has abused standing order 74(5) has nothing to do with the ruling you have lately given.

Photo of Gavin MarshallGavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brandis. I believe that you are within your rights to respond to Senator Ludlam's contribution in whatever way you want. So please continue.

Photo of George BrandisGeorge Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy President. Let me make it perfectly clear that, although we believe your ruling was wrong, we respect it because we respect your office.

Since Senator Ludlam rose to make the speech he has just made, I have now been advised of certain matters concerning the two questions on notice. Might I remind honourable senators that the purpose of standing order 74(5) is to require an explanation of a minister if the minister does not answer a question within the stipulated time, and the convention to which reference has been made in the debate on an earlier point of order is the convention or indeed the courtesy that a minister called upon to give an explanation will be given advance notice of that fact. And, as I say, that was not given.

I can now tell the Senate why that advance notice apparently was not given. Senator Ludlam's office first contacted the foreign minister's office to advise that this procedure was going to be invoked at 2.45 pm today—2.45 pm today—three-quarters of the way into question time. No doubt because the foreign minister's office had more important things to do—and the foreign minister being in question time, as, of course, was I—that request, made at 2.45 pm today, was not conveyed to my office by the time that Senator Ludlam got to his feet to move this motion. I leave it to all honourable senators to consider whether to give advance notice 15 minutes before the end of question time is a good faith invocation of standing order 74(5). Plainly it is not. So, Senator Ludlam, please do not come in here and get on your high horse and go on about 'bad faith' when you have, for the very purpose of giving the speech in which you accuse others of bad faith, engaged in the worst of bad faith and trickiness.

I can also advise the Senate that one of the two questions concerning which the answer was sought only fell due yesterday. That is the advice that I have been given. So, if there has been a default, it is a default of a matter of hours. Once again, it might be thought to be bad faith and trickiness for a senator to invoke this procedure in relation to a question the answer to which on any view is a few hours late. If you were genuinely interested in providing the answer, one would have thought that, as a matter of common courtesy and common sense, you would have contacted the foreign minister's office directly. But I am sorry to say that, when it comes to the trickiness and bad faith of Senator Ludlam, it gets even worse. I have also learnt that Senator Ludlam in fact had a meeting with the foreign minister herself as recently as this morning and never raised this matter with her. So I think we can draw our own conclusions about the way in which Senator Ludlam—not for the first time, I am sorry to say—has conducted himself in abusing the processes of this chamber.

3:39 pm

Photo of Janet RiceJanet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

I also seek to take note of the minister's explanation; both parts of it. The question that I am concerned with, regarding Palestinian children in military detention in Israel, was put on notice by Senator Ludlam on 17 March. With 30 days to answer that question, it means that that question is at least a month overdue. I think that is more than enough notice to respond to this very significant issue.

The issue of children in detention is one that I know this parliament has had a very strong interest in for a very long time, whether it is children in detention in Australia or under Australia's control, or other children in detention, as in the case of these Palestinian children in Israel. There are currently approximately 300 children from the age of 12 jailed in Israeli military prisons. There are 6½ thousand Palestinian prisoners overall, 550 of whom are in administrative detention, which means that they are detained indefinitely without charge or trial. Of those 550, there are approximately 13 children who are being held in administrative detention, out of that total of around 300 children. International human rights law says that child detention should only be used as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period. This situation is continuing in Israel, and it is something that this Senate and this parliament have previously been interested in. It is very important that we get a timely response to concerns being expressed about it by the Senate.

There was a gathering here earlier this year that included a number of senators—myself, Senator Rhiannon, Senator Marshall—speaking out in support of the international movement to remove children from Israeli military jails. In fact, the concern about the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinian children goes back a number of years. Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, when he was foreign minister in 2011, responded to media coverage that was outlining the appalling treatment of Palestinian children in detention. In that media coverage, he was reported to have instructed Australian diplomats to visit juvenile military courts.

This was the background to my first question regarding this issue in December last year, when I asked—given that former foreign minister Kevin Rudd had instructed our diplomats in Israel to attend juvenile military courts—whether this had occurred. I got an answer—quite a timely answer, in fact—that said no; in the time since that was reported in 2011—some six years ago—no Australian diplomats had attended Israeli military courts as observers. That is the context for Senator Ludlam's question—which was a follow-up to my question from December. His question was, given that it was reported that foreign minister Rudd had directed our diplomats to attend these military courts, could the government explain why this directive was not followed; was there a counter-directive; and, if so, who issued this counter-directive? That is the question that we are still awaiting an answer to. The fact that we have had no response so far is a big concern.

I visited Israel and Palestine last month. I met with people who have been very concerned about this issue of abuse of human rights of children. They told me that diplomats from other countries regularly go and observe Israeli military courts. There are diplomats from the UK, the US, the European Union, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Cyprus and the UN. But not Australia. When I was in Israel and Palestine we spoke to many people. We spoke to Israelis and Palestinians, people who were working to end the illegal military occupation of Palestine by Israel and to remove the illegal Israeli settlements. We spoke to the Israeli human rights organisation, B'Tselem. We spoke to the New Israel Fund. We spoke to the lawyer Gerard Horton, an Australian lawyer who heads up the organisation Military Court Watch, which has a particular focus on trying to get justice for these Palestinian children and trying to make sure that even what is set out in Israeli law is being followed.

When I was in Israel and Palestine, I observed the massive impact of the military occupation of Palestine: the huge military presence, the illegal Israeli settlements, the massive number—50,000—of demolitions of people's homes, the huge number of arrests of children and adults, the harassment, the control, the violence. The jailing of Palestinian children fits into that. I was particularly interested, given these questions that I had asked through the Senate, in what was actually happening in these Israeli military courts, so I took the opportunity to be the first Australian federal parliamentarian to visit one of the Israeli military courts—the Ofer military court, which is near Jerusalem—because there has been no former Australian federal politician and, as I said, not even a diplomat who has visited these courts.

I met there with the families of some of the children that had been arrested and were serving time in jail. In fact, I met with a number of mothers of children who were there, waiting for the trials of their 12- or 14-year-olds. They described to me the process that they were going through. First of all, the process was that they were there awaiting the trial of their child. They had been there since six o'clock in the morning because they were not given any particular time when their child's trial was going to be heard. Sometimes, if the weather was bad in these circumstances, they would have to wait out in the boiling sun or the pouring rain because of the inadequate facilities for the families of these children.

We talked to these mothers—there were about half-a-dozen of them—and we heard the same story from all of them. They told of their teenage sons being arrested at gunpoint at around two o'clock in the morning. That arrest occurred with 10 to 15 Israeli soldiers bashing down the doors of their home, coming into the house with their machine guns pointed at all members of the family and saying that they were going to arrest this young person. In many circumstances, they told us they were not even being told what this young person was being charged with. One of them said that all they were told at that stage was that he was a troublemaker, and she was admonished: 'Why don't you stop your son being a troublemaker?'

What then happens is that, given half the chance, these soldiers would drag off this 12- or 14-year-old in their pyjamas. Often, the parents have to struggle to even get their child properly dressed before they are dragged away in the middle of the night. They are then taken off—in often very violent ways—in the back of a truck to be taken into detention. The two charges that we heard about them then being charged with were throwing stones or incitement on Facebook. They were being charged with putting a comment on social media that was critical of the repressive regime that the Israeli government was keeping them under—of the oppressive military occupation that is recognised internationally as being unacceptable and that needs to end.

We were at the military court and attended one of these trials. In fact, we attempted to attend the trial of one of the young people and we were barred from doing so. Even though the Israeli standing orders for these trials say that, if there is support from the family, the trials of juveniles can be open and observers can be present. But the judge at that stage said no. It was his ruling that, because it was a juvenile, we were not to be there, so we were barred from attending that juvenile's trial, but we did manage to attend the trial of a 23-year-old.

The story of this 23-year-old was typical of the story of what young people in Palestine are up against. This 23-year-old had already served six months in prison, and his six months had been served because of incitement on Facebook. He had served his time and had managed to get back to studies and do his exams. He was studying accounting at a local university. And then he was arrested again, and the charge this time was that he had been talking to some friends—not even accused of leading the conversation. He was just talking with some friends who, it was alleged, had been talking about acquiring weapons. That was enough for him to be arrested again in the middle of the night and taken off to prison, and he was now there shackled in this military court.

Because we were there in the court hearing, I think it actually had a significant bearing on the trial. We heard that these Israeli military courts have a 99.7 per cent prosecution rate. That is because if you are a 14-year-old or 23-year-old who is being accused of something like incitement on Facebook, you are encouraged to plead guilty. If you plead guilty, you are likely to get a prison term of three to four months. But if you do not plead guilty and if you contest the charge, you are likely to be in detention for over six months. But we were there, and the judge, I think, knew there were observers in that courtroom, and there was what seemed to be a blue moon miracle—the 0.03 per cent of circumstances where the charges were dismissed. The family was extremely happy for our presence there as observers in that military court. That is the context of why it is so important for observers to be present, to actually let the Israeli government know that the world is listening and that their human rights abuses and complete abrogation of international law are being seen and watched. It is something that Australia can do.

Australia is seen as being one of the very strongest allies of Israel in the world. So, as one of Israel's very best friends in the world, we are in a position where we can do what other nations cannot—that is, to be honest with our best friends and to tell them when something they are doing is not appropriate and that it should cease. I think it is of critical importance that our diplomats do take up that opportunity, like the diplomats of other countries all around the world, to be there as observers. It is something very practical that Australia can do to help keep the pressure on Israel, to actually be serious about their expressed intent. They say that they are interested in a two-state solution. My visit to Israel and Palestine showed that the only way that Israel is going to be serious at the negotiating table, negotiating for a two-state solution, is going to be through international pressure. Australia has a critical role to play in that international pressure.

In responding to this issue today, I acknowledge the interest that our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, has in the issue of Israel and Palestine. Indeed, as Senator Brandis said, she met with my colleague this morning. I call upon this government to take our responsibility as international citizens seriously, so that we try to get improvements in the human rights and get at least, in some small way, improvements in the life conditions that are being faced by Palestinians in Palestine today.

Question agreed to.