Mehreen Faruqi sanctioned for Gaza sign protest as Greens senator accused of ‘street theatre'
Faruqi held up the sign urging sanctions against Israel while the governor general, Sam Mostyn, addressed parliament on Tuesday. As Anthony Albanese left the upper house chamber, Faruqi asked: 'Prime minister, Gaza is starving, will you sanction Israel?'
Earlier that morning, Australia had joined with 27 other nations, including the UK and France, to condemn Israel for the 'drip feeding of aid' and the 'inhumane killing' of Palestinians.
Faruqi is now banned from taking part in any overseas parliamentary delegations for the remainder of the 48th parliament – a move which the Greens senator said showed Labor was 'cracking down on people who speak out against a genocide'.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, moved the motion shortly after question time on Tuesday, accusing Faruqi of attention-seeking to impress her 'hard line' supporters.
'I think we all understand that what senator Faruqi wants most of all is attention, and it may well be her move is designed to sow her base – Greens base – that she's more hard line than the current leader,' Wong said.
'The reality is, this is a very difficult conflict. I have often spoken in this place about the need for all of us to be responsible about how we deal with it here.'
The opposition's Senate leader, Michaelia Cash, sought to bring further sanctions against Faruqi with an amended motion that would also ban her from the Senate for the remainder of the week.
'We do not believe that it goes far enough,' Cash said.
'Rules without enforcement are meaningless. Standards without accountability are hollow, and institutions without discipline become irrelevant. The Senate is not a forum for street theatre.'
A protester from the public gallery interrupted Cash's statement with chants against the Israeli government, including 'Netanyahu is a war criminal', before he was removed by security.
The opposition's amendment was unsuccessful with Labor choosing not to vote with the Coalition.
Faruqi told senators she would 'not back down' because Palestinians were 'being murdered, starved and displaced by Israel as we speak'.
'Labor and the Coalition in this chamber wants to avoid the truth. You don't want to see it or hear it, and now here we are … you want to force me to apologise for telling the truth,' Faruqi said.
Albanese told ABC's Afternoon Briefing the governor general's address is about the country but 'senator Faruqi wanted it to be about her'.
The Senate president, Sue Lines, said the actions were 'utterly disrespectful' given she was not in the chair and therefore could not instruct Faruqi to remove the sign during the address.
'Your actions during the governor general's address were utterly disrespectful and showed a complete disregard for the rules, the traditions and the customs of this place,' she said.
Faruqi accused her Senate colleagues of being 'more focused on cracking down on black and brown women in this parliament' but withdrew the comment.
In a statement to Guardian Australia after the Senate motion passed, Faruqi accused Labor of 'cracking down on people who speak out against a genocide, while ignoring the perpetrator'.
'They've done it to Senator Payman, they've done it to Senator Thorpe, and now they're doing it to me,' she said.
'The Labor government don't like a mirror being held to their complicity in a genocide.'
Israel is facing intensifying international condemnation for its killing of starving Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and its attacks on humanitarian efforts.
According to UN officials on Tuesday, more than 1,000 desperate Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the end of May trying to reach food distributions run by the controversial US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
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