Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025
Senator HANSON-YOUNG (South Australia—Manager of Australian Greens Business in the Senate) (12:54): Minister, there is no suggestion that all information is to be, you know, posted on Facebook. You seem to be arguing that it's either that or total secrecy. Our contention here is that you have chosen, with the cosy club between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, that only you, the chosen few, get to make these decisions, get to have a look at what's really going on and get to make the judgement.
My proposition is that the Australian people call BS on that—that you are not trusted to monitor yourselves and that you are not trusted to just sit there and collude, year after year after year. We know, in relation to the existing joint committee, the cosiness between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party—that there has been only one report in 20 years that hasn't been unanimous.
That's testing the proposition? That's having robust debate, is it? And this is what people are talking about.
The collusion between the major parties is continuing today with this piece of legislation and the attitude that—despite the fact that there is a growing parliament, and diversity of voices and representation, and growing concern in the Australian community—that should all be ignored, and that, because it has always been the case that Labor and Liberal can collude on military operations, information and decisions, we should all just roll over.
Of course, we are having this debate at a very prescient time, when the world is watching the horrors in Iran, the bombs falling in Lebanon, airports around the Middle East being shut and Australian citizens stranded, for a war that is being led by Donald Trump. And we have the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Liberal Party and One Nation all saying: 'It's fine.
The US said it's fine, so we'll just follow.' No wonder people are sick and tired of the secrecy and the cosy relationships, and, of course, the collusion between the major parties—the war parties. You're not the major parties; you're the war parties. We have seen this story before.
We saw what happened when the Australian government just followed suit with the United States in Iraq. We saw what happened in Afghanistan. Dozens of Australian defence personnel lost their lives.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens were killed. There were decades of further unrest, suffering and oppression. All you need to do is ask any mother or schoolgirl in Afghanistan how they feel right now about the US led intervention in Afghanistan and all the promises of hope and freedom.
History is repeating itself again. And we have no excuse to be ignorant about this. Donald Trump, as President of the United States, is making it crystal clear how callous he is prepared to be, how irresponsible he is prepared to be, and how he does not care about the innocent lives of mothers, of fathers, of babies, of children, in his quest to drop bombs.
I find it extraordinary that our government here in Australia, the Albanese government, was the first to jump on board with this bombing from Donald Trump. I find it extraordinary that the Australian Labor Party has swung in behind this atrocity, this blatant abuse of international law—dismissal of international law. We have Democrats in the United States showing more opposition than the Australian Labor Party are.
Senator Shoebridge: Republicans. Senator HANSON-YOUNG: You've got Republicans in the United States condemning what is happening. Where is the spine?
Where is the forethought? Talk about, 'Shoot now; ask questions later.' The world is in a terribly fragile, complex situation, and the last thing we need to be doing is pumping up the egos of erratic, irresponsible, nasty bullies like Donald Trump. I've listened to the words from the Australian government ministers over the last 48 hours: 'We've asked those questions of the United States, and we're just doing this.' You do realise this is a war being launched in one of the most volatile regions on the planet?
It's not just bombs being dropped on schools in Iran; the entire region is now a tinderbox, and Australia has a responsibility to say, 'No, we're not having anything to do with it.' The lack of moral courage is staggering. It makes me feel sick, frankly—and many other Australians as well—to hear the defence minister weasel his way out of answering direct questions about what is being done from Australia, from the Pine Gap base, to facilitate the bombings that are killing innocent children, mothers and fathers and keeping Australians stranded overseas, separated from their families.
I know the government would prefer we just didn't ask these questions and we didn't have this debate. I get it; it's uncomfortable. Well, war is messy, and it requires questions.
If you don't have the ticker and the courage to respond and to be honest with the Australian people, you don't have the courage to hold the decision-making solely among yourselves—and certainly not in secret. Bill agreed to. Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.