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

Right now, Israel's ambassador to Australia, Hillel Newman, is addressing the National Press Club. This is a man who, just three weeks ago, questioned on live television whether the 165 girls killed in the first strike on Iran were even in the school. This is a representative of a country that has perpetrated a genocide in Gaza that continues to this day and a country that is expanding northwards, bombing the people of Lebanon and stealing their land.

Israel bombs hospitals and schools, treats non-Jewish citizens as second class and commits murder and ethnic cleansing with impunity. Overnight, Israel's parliament passed legislation allowing them to impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners. When it passed, Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who wore a golden lapel pin in the shape of a noose, popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate. This is the kind of racist dehumanisation that is embedded in the very fabric of our so-called ally.

It is shocking and bizarre that the National Press Club—a champion of media freedom, according to its website—would invite the ambassador of a country that has murdered 300 journalists since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza—and two days ago they murdered another three journalists in Lebanon, dropping four precision missiles on a clearly marked press car. Meanwhile, Australia is increasingly cracking down on free speech in support of Palestinians and criminalising critique of the state of Israel. It is a disgrace that the Israeli ambassador is addressing our National Press Club, and it is a disgrace that Labor has not expelled the Israeli ambassador from this country.