{"id":891171,"date":"2026-09-14T02:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T02:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/891171\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T02:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T02:10:12","slug":"crossbench-mps-launch-push-to-stop-australian-military-exports-being-used-in-human-rights-breaches-australian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/891171\/","title":{"rendered":"Crossbench MPs launch push to stop Australian military exports being used in human rights breaches | Australian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crossbench MPs including David Pocock and Sophie Scamps will put pressure on the Albanese government to ban Australian goods from being used by the Israeli military \u2013 including for F-35 fighter jets<\/a> \u2013 by introducing a bill designed to force it to adhere to international obligations.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s \u201cred lines\u201d legislation, to be presented on Monday, would outlaw defence equipment, technology or services being used where they could breach Australia\u2019s international human rights obligations.<\/p>\n

They hope the bill would end Australia\u2019s involvement in manufacturing parts of the F-35 aircraft used by the Israeli air force in Gaza<\/a> to \u201cstrike terror targets and assist ground forces in very close proximity strikes\u201d \u2013 which the government has been under increasing pressure to stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf all the issues many people contact me about, human rights and the Gaza genocide is by far the biggest,\u201d Pocock said. \u201cI have received thousands of emails from Canberrans desperately concerned by the indiscriminate killing we have seen overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has previously described Australia\u2019s contributions to the F-35 supply chain as \u201cnon-lethal in nature<\/a>\u201d. The defence minister, Richard Marles, has accused critics of \u201cmisinformation\u201d and said Australia has contributed to program for decades as part of a multi-lateral agreement with Lockheed Martin in the US, rather than with Israel directly.<\/p>\n

The prime minister was roundly criticised last week, including from within his own ranks<\/a>, for not following the UK and other like-minded countries in banning trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

The crossbench group \u2013 who also include the Greens and the independents Lidia Thorpe, Andrew Wilkie and Fatima Payman \u2013 say their bill could also prevent companies and institutions investing in activities connected to illegal settlements and serious international law violations.<\/p>\n

The proponents of the laws say they would put Australia\u2019s legislation in line with its international human rights obligations and establish an independent anti-genocide commissioner.<\/p>\n

Large companies, defence businesses and commonwealth entities would also be forced to report and intervene on genocide risks in their operations and supply chains.<\/p>\n

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The Greens\u2019 deputy leader, Mehreen Faruqi, challenged the government to \u201cprove that all their talk about international law and human rights actually means something\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis package is far from radical and delivers exactly what Australians expect of their government,\u201d she said. \u201cAustralian governments and corporations should not be sending military parts, trading with, or profiting from, a genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bills are backed by international law advocates and experts including the former president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, and the executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, Rawan Arraf.<\/p>\n

Scamps said the legislation would help ensure businesses and the government were not \u201cunknowingly complicit in war crimes and genocide and other human rights violations\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not about a single country, there are grievous human rights abuses going on all around the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not nearly good enough for our government to say they are not sure if components we manufacture here in Australia are being used in F-35s that have killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thorpe said the bill \u2013 to be concurrently introduced in the house and Senate this week \u2013 was about upholding fundamental human rights that the government \u201cis already committed to under international law\u201d.<\/p>\n

Labor is not expected to support the private member\u2019s bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crossbench MPs including David Pocock and Sophie Scamps will put pressure on the Albanese government to ban Australian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":891172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-891171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}