Red Lines Package Omnibus Bill 2026
Dr SCAMPS (Mackellar) (10:38): I move: That this bill be now read a second time. Today I'm honoured to be introducing a suite of bills designed to ensure that Australia does not arm, fund, invest in or profit from serious violations of international law. I want to start by acknowledging that our country has a long and proud history of upholding international law and human rights.
Successive Australian governments acted against the apartheid regime in South Africa. We upheld international law by supporting the people of Timor-Leste. And we mobilised in the face of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, imposing more than 1,800 sanctions in response.
We are a founding member of the United Nations, and one of the eight nations that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Australians are extremely proud of this history. We know that we play an important and influential role as a middle power on the world stage, and Australians expect our government to show leadership and integrity consistently.
That is what this bill is all about. Australia is a signatory to the four Geneva Conventions. In 1949, in the shadow of World War II, the Geneva Conventions were significantly updated because the horrors of that war had proved that international laws had major gaps and utterly failed to protect vulnerable people.
A fourth convention was also created with new laws to protect ordinary civilians, including those living in enemy occupied territories. Australia has a legal and moral duty under international law to prevent genocide and illegal occupations and to not be complicit in these. But there are significant gaps in our domestic laws—meaning that they don't do enough to ensure that we always meet this obligation.
As an example, despite repeated government assurances that Australia had not supplied weapons or ammunition to Israel, more than 350 defence export permits for Israel were approved between 2017 and 2023, with this information only becoming public through Senate scrutiny. Australia also continues substantial defence trade with the United Arab Emirates, our largest weapons export market, with almost $300 million in arms and ammunition exports over the past five years.
Yet there is no requirement for defence export decisions to assess and prevent the risk of contributing to genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity. Currently, through our Future Fund, superannuation investments, and charitable structures, Australian capital can flow to companies that contribute to illegal settlements. And, while genocide has been criminalised under Australian law since 2002, there is no comprehensive framework requiring transparency, due diligence or risk prevention.
The package of bills I'm introducing today closes these gaps and ensures that Australia doesn't fund, arm, or invest in illegal settlements, war crimes, or genocide anywhere in the world. Schedule 1 requires the responsible minister to establish a program to monitor defence supplies and verify the end user of those supplies. It imposes record-keeping obligations, including maintaining a public register of defence supplies and exports—and imposes penalties for any contraventions.
Schedule 2 amends relevant acts to stop the Future Fund, super funds and registered charities, including universities, investing in companies or activities connected to illegal settlements or other serious violations of international law. It also requires divestment where such investments are identified. In 2021, it was revealed that Australia's Future Fund had invested $123 million in holdings related to international oil and gas companies financing the Myanmar military through revenue payments and $158 million invested in companies directly linked to the Myanmar military.
Australia's current autonomous sanctions framework relies entirely on ministerial discretion and is ill-equipped to meet the challenge of genocide prevention. The prevention of genocide and illegal settlements are not matters that should be governed by individual-by-individual sanctions alone. They warrant stronger, clearer prohibitions.
Schedules 3 and 4 establish a new Anti-Genocide Commissioner, whose functions include supporting entities to mitigate genocide risks, holding public inquiries, and reviewing whether Australia is meeting its obligations under the genocide convention. It creates a reporting requirement for large businesses, any entity that supplies arms or related material, universities, and the Future Fund Board of Guardians—requiring them to report each year on the genocide risks in their operations and value chains, and on what they have done to address them.
Those statements would be published on a Genocide Statements Register, free to access online. Schedule 5 creates five offences: for importing or selling settlement goods; acquiring or providing settlement services; and extracting natural resources from an occupied territory. This bill—and the Red Lines Package more broadly—is a truly collaborative effort.
It was developed by independent legal experts, senior practising lawyers, and academic specialists in public and international law, alongside policy researchers, industry based professionals and human rights advocates. Various iterations have been moved by others here in the House and in the Senate. And it has been endorsed by countless organisations—from ActionAid, Oxfam and Amnesty International, to the Australia Tibet Council, the Australian Centre for International Justice, the Jewish Council of Australia, and so many more.
I want to give a heartfelt thankyou to the many people and organisations who contributed to the research, drafting and promotion of this incredibly significant package of bills. It is time to draw a clear red line. We must do everything in our power to ensure that Australia does not fund, enable or profit from human suffering—and that means fixing our laws here in Australia so that responsibility is sensibly shared across our public institutions and regulators.
Our international human rights obligations are too important to be left to the discretion of the government of the day. We must have the courage of our convictions reflected in our domestic laws to ensure Australia upholds international human rights law consistently, strongly and wholeheartedly. Other UN member states, including Spain, Ireland and Slovenia, have already moved to translate such obligations into domestic law, and Australia, too, must act.
In doing so, we would reassure communities across our wonderful multicultural society that no genocide will be tolerated. 'Human rights' means human rights for all people all the time. I cede the rest of my time to the member for Clark. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Buchholz ): Is the motion seconded?