Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Middle East conflict

Tim READ (Brunswick) (17:01): More than 670 days into Israel’s genocide in Gaza I am sad to say that the state of Victoria is still a willing and enthusiastic contributor to the connected Israeli, American and Australian military industries. This week the Albanese Labor government finally announced recognition of Palestine as a state, 14 months after a Greens motion calling for this in the federal Parliament – which, by the way, led to Senator Fatima Payman’s departure from the Labor Party. Recognition of Palestine is decades overdue, but recognition is not going to feed the starving children or stop the bombs; we need real action. Australians want sanctions on Israel and want an end to the arms trade, and this tiny step by the Albanese government only happened because hundreds of thousands of Australians have taken to the streets week after week to demand action. These protesters are the conscience of the nation, and they know that our federal and even our state government deal with Israel’s military industries. They know these dealings are levers our governments can pull to influence Israel, and we want the government to pull those levers to end the forced starvation and to stop the bombing, the ongoing slaughter and maiming and the killing of journalists, including Anas al-Sharif and four colleagues on Sunday. With hundreds of thousands dead, wounded or missing in Gaza, almost all homes destroyed, most buildings destroyed or damaged and schools, hospitals and crop land destroyed or seriously damaged, this is genocide, and in the face of genocide, we are legally and morally bound to do everything we can to stop it.

Today I will outline some evidence indicating that, unfortunately, Victorian Labor is doing the opposite. According to Victoria’s most recent economic growth statement, our state will spend $240 million attracting new priority industries, with defence and advanced manufacturing at the top of the list. The Victorian government proudly advertises that when it comes to weapons, Victoria is open for business, as demonstrated by our state sponsoring both the Land Forces weapons exhibition and the Avalon airshow where, back in March, Premier Allan met with some of the biggest names in war, including the heads of Thales, Hanwha, Boeing, BAE and Marand. Premier Allan even met with Lockheed Martin’s president of missiles and fire control Tim Cahill, despite Lockheed Martin continuing to supply missiles for Israel’s Apache helicopters.

Victoria’s love affair with the Israeli war machine has precedent. In 2017 Premier Andrews opened an Invest Victoria office in Tel Aviv, and five years later Andrews signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel’s Ministry of Defense. We were pleased to learn in late 2024, after a great deal of protest and even a debate here in Parliament initiated by the Greens, that Labor under Jacinta Allan would not renew the MOU. That was a welcome decision and clearly demonstrated what we already knew: pressure works. But it was only the first and smallest divestment from Israel’s genocide that we need to see in Victoria, because Labor continues to deliver that political support. Even in May 2025, over a year into Israel’s invasion of Gaza, Premier Allan toasted Israel at a private birthday event. That would be like Anthony Albanese toasting Russia as Putin attacks Ukraine. Curiously, in 2024 she declined to do so, and oddly, the Premier was not present at any events commemorating the first Nakba, or the catastrophe, as Palestinians refer to the beginning of their colonisation.

When we talk about Victoria helping arm Israel, there are two main villains: investments in Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems and the manufacturing and export of key parts for F-35 fighter jets. We know that Elbit makes the drones, weapons and tanks that help Israel slaughter hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, yet down in Port Melbourne, Elbit is still operating a research centre thanks to an old contract from the Andrews Labor government. Out in Geelong Elbit is helping Hanwha make tanks for the Australian Army thanks to a $900 million contract from the Albanese Labor government signed off last year months into the genocide. We also know Israel uses Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jets to attack Palestinians as well as other countries across the Middle East. Lockheed Martin requires a complex supply chain for the F-35 which involves more than 75 Australian companies. Here in Victoria that includes some of the big names like BAE Systems and Boeing, but it also involves local manufacturers like Marand in Moorabbin which makes F-35 parts. There are also castings made in Dandenong by AW Bell and precision gears from flight specialists Ronson Gears in Highett. Thanks to Declassified Australia, we know that Australia not only exports F-35 parts, but we are still sending them directly to Israel as recently as July this year.

Labor’s support for the war machine does not stop at Elbit Systems or F-35s. In March this year the Albanese Labor government bragged that it had grown Australia’s supply chain program for weapons companies to over $2 billion. The media release from the Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy boasted that under Labor the global supply chain program has almost doubled from seven to 13 ‍defence primes, meaning major companies on long-term contracts with the federal Department of Defence. Mr Conroy either did not know or did not care, but several of those so-called primes are directly arming Israel’s genocide. The UN has specifically warned governments not to do business with five of them: BAE Systems, Boeing, Rheinmetall, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. But there goes Labor anyway, not even hiding it, but in fact publishing media releases to crow about their business acumen. It is one thing for Australia to have its own military and to make weapons for the defence of Australia, it gets complicated when we allow multinational companies to do that while they are also making weapons for countries that may use them in ways we do not entirely approve of. But it is another thing altogether when we know that those companies are supplying weapons to a country that is actively carrying out genocide. It is not only seeing someone set a fire and declining to reach for the fire extinguisher, but it is also actively giving them lighter fluid.

Thanks to the diligent work of activists and investigators, we know it is not only defence and weapons companies in Victoria and around Australia that are the problem; other private companies and institutions are also directly profiting from Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Even now Australia’s Future Fund and Australian Super all invest in weapons companies like Elbit Systems, and those shares have gone up in value since the invasion of Gaza in a damning illustration of the perverse incentives of our economic system. Another super fund HESTA is investing in banks and other companies supporting illegal Israeli settlements.

Last Thursday thousands of brave university students across Australia went on strike demanding sanctions on Israel, including here in Melbourne at the University of Melbourne, RMIT, Deakin, Swinburne, Monash and Latrobe. These students demanded action from their governments but also their universities which are increasingly accepting blood money. Until recently, RMIT even partnered with Elbit Systems, that same Israeli weapons company that we mentioned earlier. Students and staff successfully pressured RMIT to divest from Elbit and are now targeting dozens of other defence partners.

To hear the way this government talks about anti-genocide protesters, you would think that it is not the mass murder that is the problem, but the act of publicly objecting to it. The Premier herself recently brought a motion to this Parliament that sought to portray those who protested the genocide in Palestine as antisemitic when they rallied outside the National Gallery of Victoria in July. It brought to mind the Vietnam War, when anti-war protesters were branded Viet Cong sympathisers and they, along with those protesting nuclear weapons, were called communists. When you make a stand against a narrative built to defend the powerful, you should expect to be cast as a wrongdoer, even if you are standing against a genocide, but Parliament does not have to join in.

I have been to many protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and I am sure the crowd outside the NGV were not motivated by antisemitism. They did not get out of bed that morning saying, ‘We’re going to be antisemitic.’ They were motivated by pictures of emaciated children in Gaza, where Israel is blocking food trucks. That is a war crime. People are watching this happen and are rightly horrified. They feel powerless, and peaceful protest is one of the only things they can do to try and stop it.

It reflects poorly on members of this place if we misrepresent the motives of protesters. By all means disagree with them, but misrepresenting them can only worsen the situation. This government has repeatedly sought to portray peaceful protest as outside the bounds of acceptable behaviour, but if we cannot protest outside the NGV and we cannot hold up signs in Parliament and we cannot march down Swanston Street or walk to the King Street Bridge, then how can we protest a genocide?

Ohad Kozminsky of the Jewish Council of Australia spoke about the conflation of political protest and antisemitism, stating:

Such language inaccurately conflates Jewishness with support for Israel, and undermines the fight against real antisemitism. This narrative is inaccurate and dangerously misleading. It is fuelling moral panic and justifying repressive and unnecessary police powers that will do nothing to combat the real problem of antisemitism, anti-Palestinian racism and other forms of racism.

There is no Jewish safety in a society where criticism of militarism is banned, protest is criminalised, and war crimes are excused.

In the case of the NGV, people were protesting not because the Gandels are Jewish but because of the Gandel Foundation’s role as prominent supporters of Israel’s actions and because John Gandel has publicly defended Israel’s assault on Gaza, saying they had to go ‘all out’. That is a political position, and people have every right to peacefully protest that. What every level of government should be doing right now is cutting ties with Israel to stop them from bombing and starving people. Instead of harnessing their very real power to reduce the flow of weapons and withhold political funding and financial backing from the Israeli government, Labor is demonising protest, whether it is on the streets, outside weapons companies or even holding up a sign in Parliament.

When we say Labor needs to shut all of this down by sanctioning Israel, ending the two-way arms trade and expelling the ambassador, it is not just a request, it is international law. Australia is a signatory to the Arms Trade Treaty. Article 6 of the Arms Trade Treaty prohibits transfers of weapons if the state party has:

… knowledge at the time of authorization that the arms or items would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such …

We have seen all of that in Gaza, and that also means supplying components to weapons that facilitate genocidal acts, and it may result in legal liability for both states and corporations.

For all of the reasons I have outlined here today Victoria cannot claim that this is only a federal issue. Our state is a key player in the supply chain that culminates in a bomb dropping on a tent of refugees in Gaza. But instead of doing something – anything – that really could make a difference, Labor makes symbolic calls for a ceasefire in public, toasts Israel in private, condemns protesters and does very little in terms of real, concrete actions to pressure Israel to finally put an end to its genocide. So I grieve today for the horrors that our government is forcing us to support against our will. I grieve for Victorians who want peace while their government does all it can to grow the Western war machine. And I grieve for the millions of people in Gaza who are paying the price.