Senator Penny Wong – providing an overview of the Government’s response to Israel and Gaza, particularly in relation to humanitarian assistance and UNRWA

photo of Senator Penny Wong
February 15, 2024

The linchpin of humanitarian support there is UNRWA; it does lifesaving work. However, the recent allegations against UNRWA staff are serious and cannot be ignored. UNRWA’s lifesaving work is why Australian governments of both stripes have provided funding to it since 1951. Right now, nearly 1.7 million Palestinians are sheltering in UNRWA facilities and thousands of its staff are involved in the humanitarian response in Gaza. The need for this critical work to continue is why Australia welcomed UNRWA’s swift response to recent allegations, including terminating staff and launching an investigation and a broader independent review.

Senator Wong: Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the committee. I want to begin by briefly updating senators on our international engagements. The committee will be familiar with my travel as Foreign Minister, visiting some 37 countries, including nine more than once. In the first half of this year, we are focused on bringing the world to Australia. We’ve already had visits by foreign and defence ministers of New Zealand and, last week, we had the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea address the Australian parliament. Over the weekend in Perth, I hosted the Indian Ocean Conference, attended by the President of Sri Lanka and ministers from Bangladesh, Comoros, India, Japan, Madagascar, Maldives, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nepal, Seychelles, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, Tonga, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. And, of course, next month the Prime Minister hosts Southeast Asian leaders at the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit in Melbourne. Speaking of Southeast Asia, I wish to congratulate Indonesia on the successful conduct of its election yesterday. Obviously, the formal count is continuing, but early results indicate that Prabowo Subianto is well ahead. Whoever the Indonesian people have chosen, we look forward to working closely with the next president when he is inaugurated in October. As Prime Minister Albanese has said, there is no more important relationship than the relationship between our two great nations.

Colleagues, last week we were all appalled and outraged by the suspended death sentence received by Australian citizen Dr Yang Jun in Beijing. The Australian government has conveyed our objections to the Chinese government at senior levels. All Australians want to see Dr Yang reunited with his family. We will continue with and persist in our advocacy and, through the dialogue that we have rebuilt, we will pursue the full range of Australia’s national interests in our engagement with China.

Turning now to the Middle East, what I would say to the committee is that my recent travel to the Middle East reinforced that Australia is a respected voice, even if we are not a central player, in that region, and the government is using Australia’s voice to advocate for a pathway out of this conflict and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. We want to see the release of hostages, the upholding of international law and the protection of civilians. Senators, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is dire and it is getting worse. The linchpin of humanitarian support there is UNRWA; it does lifesaving work. However, the recent allegations against UNRWA staff are serious and cannot be ignored. UNRWA’s lifesaving work is why Australian governments of both stripes have provided funding to it since 1951. Right now, nearly 1.7 million Palestinians are sheltering in UNRWA facilities and thousands of its staff are involved in the humanitarian response in Gaza. The need for this critical work to continue is why Australia welcomed UNRWA’s swift response to recent allegations, including terminating staff and launching an investigation and a broader independent review.

Australia is now working with a number of other major contributors to make clear to UNRWA that it needs to demonstrate strong, transparent and accountable leadership for the international community to move forward together. While this work is being done, Australia and 14 other countries, including Canada, Japan, the Netherlands and Sweden are temporarily pausing funding. For Australia, this means that the recently announced $6 million in additional funding for UNRWA has been temporarily paused. I want to emphasise that this does not affect the annual core funding of $20.6 million, core funding which was doubled by this government and which has already been provided for this financial year.

Since the beginning of this conflict, Australia has committed $46.5 million in humanitarian assistance; this full amount will be delivered. Finally, I wish to restate the Australian government’s grave concerns about an impending major Israeli ground offensive in Rafah. This would bring further devastation to more than a million civilians seeking shelter in Rafah, many there by Israel’s direction. For there to be large-scale military operations in densely populated areas risks extensive civilian casualties; Australia believes that this would be unjustifiable. Our message to Israel is: listen to the world; do not go down this path.

Link to Parliamentary Hansard