QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (16:47): 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 Australia and Israel. Once again Senator Wong has woken up this morning and chosen to sit on her hands in the face of horrifying violence and terrorism.

This government continually decides to look away while schoolchildren are murdered and Palestinians are beaten to death by settlers for defending their own land, aided and abetted by the depraved Israeli government, just like it has looked away for the last three years of genocide, just like it looked away when an Australian aid worker was hunted and murdered by Israel and just like it looked away when Australians aboard a humanitarian aid flotilla were kidnapped and physically and sexually abused by the Israeli military.

Minister Wong, your words today are as empty as they have been every single day—evasive and worthless, no action, no consequences for the perpetrator. For years you told us you could not act alone. Australia is just one country, after all, you said.

Then 12 countries moved together, and the excuse changed overnight. Now it is that we cannot act in case it disadvantages Australian businesses. Forget the genocide.

Forget the ethnic cleansing. Utterly shameful. Even worse, you say a trade ban would have unintended consequences for Palestinians.

It is abhorrent to use the suffering of Palestinians to justify the Albanese government's inaction. You hide behind the very people being driven from their homes as they are razed to the ground by terrorists. How pathetic.

How craven. When asked about your cowardly lack of action today, you said: I would also make the point that we certainly do not want to see Palestinian jobs and livelihoods affected. Palestinians have been systematically murdered, tortured, abused and displaced for decades, and you draw the line at their livelihoods being affected?

What an absolute joke. Two days ago, the British foreign secretary stood in the House of Commons and said it clearly. He talked about a deep sense of shame at what has unfolded in Palestine.

He recognised the need for his government to change direction. He declared the occupation unlawful. He said what is happening in the West Bank is ethnic cleansing perpetrated by settler terrorists.

And then he said the thing you will not: he banned the trade in goods from stolen land. His closing words were these: Britain is not silent in the face of deep injustice and nor is it powerless. You have the same choice, yet you choose silence.

You choose to side with terror. Where is your sense of shame? Where is your sense of morality?

What this chamber has heard is the classic Labor playbook: express concern, deflect and then, only if pushed, deliver the literal bare minimum you can get away with. We could have written your response before you opened your mouth: 'What is the least we can do to look like we are acting without doing anything that might upset Israel?' You lecture this chamber about international law.

Illegal settlements are a textbook breach of international law, and you can't even draw a line there. You allow free trade in goods grown on stolen land. You allow Australians to bankroll illegal settlements and then you hand them a tax deduction, so the taxpayer helps put that bill.

Is it any wonder the Israeli ambassador has applauded you? You have won his applause and your country's contempt. The tide has turned though, Senator Wong.

The protection racket run by Labor, the Liberal Party and One Nation cannot hold for much longer. In June, the Pew Research Center found that 79 per cent of Australians hold an unfavourable view of Israel. Just 19 per cent view it favourably.

Let the record show it plainly. Senator Wong and the Albanese government have again chosen to side with settler violence, ethnic cleansing, genocide and terror. Question agreed to.