QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS
Senator THORPE (Victoria—Independent VIC Whip) (15:29): I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the Middle East. In my question to Minister Wong, I asked, 'What unintended consequences are the Albanese government concerned about in relation to a ban on importing goods from illegal settlements in the West Bank?' The minister did not answer or provide any new information at all.
Minister Wong listed things that have been in place for a long time already. Your government isn't doing anything genuinely new. Minister, you say that the Netanyahu government is unhappy with this country's targeted measures.
How can anyone with a shred of humanity hold this up as a measure? The measure of effective action by the Albanese Labor government must be that it stops trade and stops weapon parts being shipped so that Palestinians stop being slaughtered and stripped of their land. The Albanese government is weaker than what we have seen from the UK, Canada and France, among others.
The UK has banned imports of all goods from settlements and banned all companies from providing services for the settlements. Your government is refusing to do this, caving to pressure from Trump and Netanyahu. UK Labor foreign secretary Ed Miliband has rightly said that settler terrorists are carrying out ethnic cleansing and that Israel is turning a blind eye.
We never hear this clear language from your Labor government. The genocide continues, and your government is complicit in Israel's genocide, selling fighter jet parts to Israel, importing products produced in illegal settlements, making a few concerned statements when your own citizens are killed and harmed, such as the immensely courageous Zomi Frankcom and the crews on the flotillas to bring aid to Gaza.
Minister, you're taking the public for fools, saying you're concerned but taking no real action. Throw the ambassador out of this building for a start, and expel him from this country after that. Question agreed to.