Tuesday, 29 July 2025

Middle East conflict

Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (19:14): (1217) My adjournment tonight is to the Premier. The action I seek is to admit the absolute horror of mass starvation that we are seeing in Gaza, for the Premier to commit this Victorian Labor government to divest the state of Victoria from all defence companies involved in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Every night I put my-three year-old to sleep in his bed – my three-year-old with his chubby cheeks and his mop of long curly hair and his chunky thighs that are only now just starting to turn from those rolls of a toddler into the slender legs of a boy. I look at his sleeping face, but all I can think about are the children of Gaza. All I can think about are the images that we have seen of the mum holding her own toddler, who should have chubby thighs but whose backbone and ribs you can see sticking out, whose legs are twigs, his emaciated face pressed against her neck – a child who is probably now dead because he did not have enough to eat, even when trucks full of food were just a few hundred kilometres away, but Israel would not let them in so that he could live.

I wanted to say something about it in this chamber today because as a mum and as a human I have a platform, and how could I not use that platform to say something about this preventable, deliberate starvation that is being perpetrated against the children and the people of Palestine? Time and time again we are told that this is not the right place, that this is not the right way to protest. We are told it is not okay to hold up signs peacefully in Parliament asking our government to do more, to apply pressure to Israel. We are told that we should not be protesting in the streets or outside weapons manufacturers or outside organisations with ties to the Israeli government. But if these are not the right ways to protest against the deliberate starvation of children, what is?

We are told the Victorian government is not dropping the bombs so we should keep this Parliament out of it. But last December Labor Premier Jacinta Allan released a $240 million plan designed to support defence industries in Victoria, and that means giving money to the same weapons manufacturers that are providing parts for planes and parts for weapons for Israel to use against the children of Gaza. Victoria wants these companies here for the jobs, but jobs at what cost? Israel could not slaughter children without the weapons and the parts that our state and federal government are supporting these companies to create. In March this year Jacinta Allan met with executives from all the top weapons companies, including a private meeting with Lockheed Martin’s president of missiles and fire control.

Premier, Victoria might not be dropping the bombs on Gaza, but we could be doing something more to stop the people who are. International pressure works. My son, when he grows up, will look at me and ask what I did to prevent starvation in Gaza. We should be doing more.