The 48th Australian parliament is a monsters’ caucus
The 48th Australian parliament commenced on Tuesday, the day that 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban starved to death in Gaza. Fifteen others perished the same way, including a six-week-old whose uncle, Adham al-Safadi, told Reuters that the family couldn’t find baby formula to feed him. As Australian politicians took their seats in Canberra, thousands of mothers in Palestine searched desperately for sustenance for babies they had spent months carrying and nurturing.
As proceedings began, Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi held up a small sign: “Gaza is starving. Words won’t feed them. Sanction Israel”. Liberal and Labor senators teamed up to condemn Faruqi for the silent protest. But neither party will countenance sanctioning Israel for its genocide.
Faruqi’s sign referred to a statement, signed by Foreign Minister Penny Wong, condemning Israel’s starvation tactics in the Strip. The hypocrisy of Wong signing the statement is sickening. An investigation this month revealed that Australia is still sending weapons parts to Israel. On 4 July, a package labelled “Aircraft parts” was loaded onto a flight leaving Sydney International Airport. Two days later, the parts arrived in Tel Aviv. They belonged to Lockheed Martin, which supplies Israel’s F-35 fighter jets. According to independent outlet Declassified Australia, the Australian Air Force provided the parts.
By the end of the first sitting day of parliament, at least 85 Palestinians had been killed in airstrikes and shootings. Overnight on Tuesday, Israel bombed a residential apartment in Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood, southwest of Gaza City. Is it possible that the jets carrying out the deadly airstrikes relied on parts delivered by Australia?
On Wednesday, not a single Labor politician raised the prospect of sanctioning Israel for the strikes or the ongoing mass starvation. None of them even questioned whether we should be sending Israel parts for their fighter jets. Instead, Wong moved against Faruqi.
A motion passed by the Senate bans the Greens senator from any overseas parliamentary delegations for the length of the current parliament. Wong then slandered Faruqi as “attention seeking”, implying that she was acting out of self-interest—something Wong has built her career on.
The pile-on against Faruqi is precisely the type of move encouraged by Special Envoy into Antisemitism Jillian Segal’s recent report, which calls for a severe crackdown on free speech and the hounding of Palestine solidarity activism.
When the report was released, human rights and civil society organisations criticised its likely chilling effect on freedom of speech. Albanese responded by insisting that it would not limit criticism of Israel because “you can put forward those views respectfully.”
The sanctioning of Faruqi suggests otherwise. Faruqi did not shout or swear—she didn’t even speak. She was in no one’s way. She sat silently in her chair and held a small sign with a simple political message. If this was not a respectful, acceptable act of protest, then what is? The answer is clear: nothing.
In the eyes of Israel’s defenders, protest damages the reputations of those who aid the genocide. So every act of protest is a potential target for repression.
But Faruqi’s small act, and the thousands who protested outside of parliament as its doors opened, show the path forward for those who stand with Palestine. No matter the pushback, we need to keep speaking out. As the genocide continues, so must the resistance.
