Media release – various groups, 15 October 2024
PEACE ACTIVISTS CALL OUT PENNY WONG’S SUPPORT FOR ISRAELI GENOCIDE
At 7pm this evening, a broad coalition of community groups including Grassroots Action Network Tasmania (GRANT), Weapons Free UTAS and Resistance will rally outside UTAS’s Stanley Burbury Theatre, peacefully disrupting Penny Wong’s address on international relations. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has spent the last twelve months refusing to apply any real pressure to Israel – despite their ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. The community wants to make it clear: until Australia ends relations with Israel, Penny is not welcome in our town.
Ignoring the horrors inflicted on Palestinians in the last twelve months – for that matter, over the last seventy-six years – the Australian Government has refused to hold Israel accountable for its crimes. Penny Wong’s office has met the carpet bombing of Lebanon and the ongoing starvation of the people of Gaza with empty words and inaction. Tonight, the community in nipaluna/Hobart will picket the entrance to the theatre and demand Penny enforce sanctions on the genocidal Israeli state.
GRANT spokesperson Fergus Freeman calls out Penny Wong, saying that he “condemns the hypocrisy of platforming an address on international relations by someone who has been complicit in massacre and ethnic cleansing. Lack of action against this war is complicity with Israel. If this is Penny’s version of international relations, she will go down in the history books as a self-serving coward.”
Penny Wrong, the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, is a key player in Australia’s spineless approach to Israel’s genocide. It couldn’t be clearer that Penny is in the wrong with Australia’s abstention in the recent UN vote to end Israel occupation of Palestine. The vote was overwhelmingly supported 124-14. Wong is directly accountable for denying over 7000 Palestinians visas and pausing funding to the UNRWA during one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time.
The groups present at the picket demand Penny Wong’s department sanction the fascist state of Israel by cutting diplomatic ties and ending all trade, particularly ongoing military trade. Australia and Israel maintain annual trade worth $1.4 billion. Many weapons parts produced in Australia and are currently being used by the Israeli Occupation Forces in the genocide, including parts of the F-35 Fighter and the Spike Missile. There are 66 active military export permits in Australia for Israel.
“Australia is providing real support to Israel right now,” said Fergus. “If Penny Wong had any real intentions to end the war, she would end the flow of weaponry and money between Australia and Israel. Anything short of that is a self-serving political game.”
By platforming Wong’s speech, UTAS is supportive of Australia’s pusillanimous approach with the genocide of Palestinians. UTAS currently maintains contracts with Hensoldt, a German radar company that provides Israel with surveillance technology; it has also worked with weapons giants Thales and Lockheed Martin within the last five years, and has an active research partnership with the University of Haifa. Earlier this year students maintained an encampment at the University for three months with the demand that the university end all relations with Israeli institutions and weapons manufacturers. UTAS refused to comply.
The protest will be happening at the Stanley Burbury Theatre at UTAS’s Sandy Bay Campus throughout the event. Participants will make it clear that nipaluna/Hobart is a city that holds politicians accountable.
