In the period since 7 October 2023, serious questions have arisen as to whether the Australian Government is properly discharging its obligations under international law in light of Israel’s devastation of Gaza, invasion of Lebanon and the escalation of settler violence in the illegally occupied West Bank. In November 2024, Senators Lidia Thorpe and Fatima Payman introduced a package of 3 bills — the Genocide Red Line Package — aiming to require compliance by Australia with its international law obligations in relation to genocide, serious breaches of international law and illegal settlements in occupied Palestine.

Despite the gravity of these issues, these bills have received almost no media coverage and have attracted very little public attention. How the major parties, the Greens and Teals respond to these bills should be a litmus test as to the commitment of this nation’s political class to international human rights law.

It was obvious, very shortly after the horrific events of 7 October 2023, that Israel’s response in Gaza wasn’t going to be limited by the constraints of international law. The evidence quickly mounted up – indiscriminate bombing of civilians, mass destruction of vital infrastructure, the killing of aid workers, journalists and health-care workers, attacks on hospitals, children murdered by drone and sniper attacks, restriction of vital food and aid. By January 2024, the International Court of Justice’s Provisional Measures Decision made it clear that there was a plausible risk of genocide. This view was strengthened when in November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. By the end of 2024, a range of human rights organisations and prominent commentators had concluded that Israel’s conduct in Gaza was genocidal, including Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg, Lee Mordechai, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Last week, Prof. Daniel Blatman and Prof. Amos Goldberg of the Holocaust and genocide studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem argued forcefully and definitively that the action of the Israeli Government in Gaza is genocide.

But it is not just in Gaza that breaches of international law are occurring. In recent months, violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories has escalated significantly, and we are now seeing significant Israeli military action in the West Bank. Last month, Angelita Caredda, Middle East and North Africa regional director of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said; “We are seeing disturbing patterns of unlawful use of force in the West Bank that is unnecessary, indiscriminate and disproportionate. This echoes the tactics Israeli forces have employed in Gaza.” Caredda noted, correctly, that under “international law, Israel must bring its occupation of Palestinian territory to an end as rapidly as possible. Until then, it must fully comply with its obligations as an occupying power, including the protection of civilians".

The Australian Government’s response to all of this has been, to many of us, entirely underwhelming. Apparently uninterested in maintaining a history which included this nation being a founding member of the UN and helping put in place the 1948 Genocide convention, the Albanese Government has instead parroted other Western governments in saying, “Israel has a right to defend itself”, initially defunded UNRWA, generally supported the US backing of Israel’s actions, suggested that protests against them are contrary to civil harmony, and generally remained sotto voce on day after day of live-streamed atrocities, holding out until December 2024 before voting in favour of a permanent ceasefire at the UN. In particular, the Australian Government seems to have obfuscated on the question of Australia’s involvement in the military supply chain to Israel, including Australian manufacture of parts for F-35 fighter aircraft and parts for the Spike missile (believed to have been used to kill Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom). It has taken no action to restrict arms exports to Israel (direct or indirect), nor to use sanctions to press the Israeli Government to comply with international law.

This is the background to the introduction on 28 November 2024, by Senators Thorpe and Payman of a package of three bills to the Senate – tagged together as the Genocide Red Line Package. We briefly summarise the bills below.

The first is the Defence Trade Controls Amendment (War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide) Bill which would prevent export permits for weapons, military equipment or technology that may be used in serious breaches of international law, including genocide, and prohibit export of military goods and technology where there is a risk of Australia breaching its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention or the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty.

These are all fairly obvious and mechanical steps to comply with our international obligations. One might wonder why they are not already in the statute books.

The second is the Treasury Laws Amendment (Divesting from Illegal Israeli Settlements) Bill which seeks to implement Australia’s international law obligation that requires it to abstain from economic or trade dealings with Israel in relation to, or which assist in the maintenance of, Israel’s illegal settlements in occupied Palestine. To this end, the Bill would prohibit Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Future Fund, from investing in companies involved with the illegal settlements, and ensure charities do not send, directly or indirectly, aid to the settlements.

Again, this bill seems a very straightforward implementation of our international law obligations.

The third is the Genocide Risk Reporting Bill that seeks to address Australia’s obligations under the 1948 Convention. These obligations include obligations to prevent genocide, to punish genocide and not to be complicit in the commission of genocide. It adopts the reporting framework created under the Modern Slavery Act 2018, and would require annual public reporting from defence companies, the Commonwealth Government and its agencies on risks of genocidal practices in their operations or supply chains, including details of due diligence conducted by the entity as to genocide risks and remediation where those risks are found. The Bill also creates an Anti-Genocide Commissioner to support business and government in their compliance with the Act, with the power to make a written declaration of a location, industry, product, supplier or supply chain that is regarded as carrying a high genocide risk.

In better times — or under a better government — the bills which make up the Genocide Red Line Package wouldn’t be necessary. An Australia which treated its international law obligations seriously would already have put measures like these in place.

It is a sad indictment on our polity that neither major party has taken these steps – nor even conceded that they are necessary. Instead, it takes two independent senators to call out Australia’s apparent indifference to its obligations under the most fundamental of international human rights laws.

But now that Senators Thorpe and Payman have done so, it is incumbent on the media, and ultimately each of us as voters, to ask our federal parliamentarians where they stand on these bills, and if they do not support them, why not. For those of us who want to see our nation uphold international humanitarian law, their responses should be a litmus test in the coming federal election.