Senators Lidia Thorpe and Fatima Payman, who introduced the “” in the last parliament, are working on a new version aimed at ensuring Australia meets its obligations under international law to prevent genocide.
They are hoping other Senators will support the bills, which are designed to create “certain minimum processes” under which Australia must comply.
Thorpe and Payman introduced the first version of this three-bill package to the last parliament, but it was not debated before the May federal election.
Thorpe, a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman, һƷ̽ the package of bills is designed to “stop fuelling the genocide and to hold politicians accountable” by preventing them from “signing up and aiding and abetting genocide here and abroad”.
“It is about not trading in any way, shape or form with any country that is committing genocide or crimes against humanity.”
She pointed to the arms trade with Israel as evidence that Australia is complicit in that genocide.
While Israel’s slaughter in Gaza has abated and more aid trucks are being allowed in, the genocide is not over. Even before the bombing stopped, Israeli MPs to resume their slaughter in Gaza after the Israeli captives are released.
Thorpe believes that Australia needs to make “fundamental changes” in the way it deals with genocide and war crimes, and that the precarious ceasefire in Gaza must not be made a distraction.
“The Australian government is complicit in the atrocities in Palestine,” Thorpe told GL. “We must ensure nothing like this ever happens again, anywhere. These bills are designed to prevent exactly that.”
The first version of the Genocide Red Lines Package consisted of three bills, the first of which is the . It would make it mandatory for governments, or a business entity involved in the manufacture and supply of weapons, to disclose if there is any risk of being involved in a genocide. It would also create an Anti-Genocide Commissioner to ensure compliance.
ճǰ’s&Բ; describes it as “akin to the Modern Slavery Act but with stronger enforcement provisions, including criminal and civil penalties around non-disclosure”.
A second bill would prohibit investments in illegal Israeli settlements by Australia’s Future Fund and would prevent charities from funding companies in these occupier settlements.
Many organisations, including the Jewish National Fund, the Ariel University Australia Trust and the Christians for Israel Foundation, in Australia for “funnelling donations into settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that break international law”, according to in Pearls and Irritations.
The third bill — an amendment to the Defence Trade Controls Act — would prohibit permits for Defence and Strategic Goods List export activity that risks genocide and other serious violations of international law.
The bill would also prohibit the export of military goods where it is likely that they will become available to states, like Israel, that are subject to orders under the Genocide Convention by the International Court of Justice.
Taken together, these bills would create institutional obstacles to further complicity in Israel’s genocide and similar actions by other governments.
First Nations genocide
The Genocide Red Lines Package takes a stand against ongoing genocide of First Nations people in Australia.
Thorpe drew links between the genocide of First Nations people here and the genocide in Gaza when the package was first introduced last November 28. “We are in solidarity now; we are connected through our trauma, through our resistance,” she said.
Colonial violence continues, she said, adding, “You see and hear of the evidence of genocide [in Australia today], you look at the definition of genocide. They are guilty of all of those things.”
Payman, the WA Senator for Australia’s Voice, formally introduced the Red Lines Package last November 28 because Thorpe was for “speaking out against racism” and was not allowed to do her job that day. “I wear those disciplinary colonial actions like a badge of honour,” Thorpe told supporters outside parliament.
Payman at a national day of protest for Palestine outside the opening of the 48th parliament on July 22.
She also drew a link between opposing genocide in Gaza and working for justice here. “Until my last breath, I’ll continue fighting for justice not just for Palestinians for every single person around the world and in Australia,” she told the Canberra Convergence for Gaza that day.
“We have injustices being carried out in our back yard and this government is turning a blind eye,” she said. Payman pointed out that “empty words” are not enough, adding, “We need sanctions, we need to break ties with Israel”.
Thorpe told GL that Australia should not be doing business with “a regime that continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity”. She said Labor must divest from and boycott Israel to “show the rest of the world that we mean business”.
Strengthening the package
Work is underway to strengthen the Genocide Red Lines Package before it is next introduced.
Thorpe is hoping The Greens and Senator David Pocock will support it as “we’re not going to get much support from anyone else in the parliament, unfortunately”.
Thorpe is also planning to push for a Senate inquiry, when the package is reintroduced, to explore Australia’s arms trade with Israel and “what other trade is happening between this country and Israel that’s assisting them to commit these crimes against humanity”.
Labor has responded to the Palestine solidarity movement’s mounting pressure by “recognising” Palestine and making some mild criticisms of Israel. However, its enthusiastic support for US President Donald Trump’s so-called “peace plan” reveals that its alliance with the genocidal Zionist state is unbroken.
The movement for justice needs to continue and it will be important to mobilise support for the Genocide Red Lines Package.