The Australian government has demanded that Israel comply with orders issued by the International Court of Justice, but rebuffed the Greens’ calls to describe the war in Gaza as “a slaughter”.
In a fiery debate in parliament on Wednesday, the Greens said the government’s claim to be playing a constructive role was “a sick joke”, while the Coalition accused Labor of “trying to walk both sides of the street”.
It prompted the assistant foreign minister, Tim Watts, to argue that both the Coalition and the Greens were seeking to “divide our community for political gain” and “never let the truth get in the way of a campaigning opportunity”.
The Greens failed in an attempt to suspend standing orders so they could propose a motion stating that parliament “does not support the State of Israel’s continued invasion of Gaza and calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire”.
The leader of the Greens, Adam Bandt, said Israel’s actions had “moved beyond self-defence – this is now a slaughter”.
“Every day matters – 27,000 people have been killed, many of them children, and meanwhile the standing position of this parliament and this government is to back the invasion,” Bandt said.
The Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown said the government was wrong to suspend $6m in funding to a key UN agency pending investigations into allegations that some of its staff were involved in Hamas’s 7 October attacks on Israel.
“The need for basic supplies just to stay alive, for a roof over their head, has not suspended in Gaza,” she said.
“This government must restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and uphold Australia’s obligation under international law to prevent genocide.”
Watts responded that the Australian government had taken “a principled and consistent approach to the conflict in the Middle East and the way it rebounds in our community at home”.
He said the government had repeatedly stated “that Israel does have a right to defend itself against these appalling terrorist attacks, but the way that Israel exercises that right matters [and] that Israel must respect international law”.
Watts said the proposed motion was “absolutely correct in citing the appalling death toll of this conflict and the increasing scale of humanitarian suffering”, but the parliament must not forget “that more than 130 hostages are still being held by Hamas”.
“Nor can we forget the murder, the rapes and the sexual abuse of October 7, conducted by Hamas, as this motion does,” he said.
Watts said Australia had “made plain our expectation that Israel act in accordance with the ICJ’s ruling, including to enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance”.
The ICJ has yet to make a final decision on South Africa’s allegations against Israel, but in a provisional ruling last month ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent” genocidal acts and also to “prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide”.
The UN’s top judicial organ, based in The Hague, said Israel must “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said levelling the charge of genocide against Israel “is not only false, it’s outrageous, and decent people everywhere should reject it”.
About 100 pro-Palestine protesters gathered outside Parliament House on Wednesday to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and to claim the Australian government was “complicit in genocide”.
“Shame, Albo, shame,” the protesters chanted.
