WE SAY NO TO #US #FOREVERWARS

By #Greens Senator #DavidShoebridge

As you will have already seen on your TV screens and social media feeds, the US and #Israel earlier this month launched an #illegalWar on #Iran. It is a devastating escalation, particularly for people across the #MiddleEast who for weeks now have been subjected to continuous bombing.

This should be a moment for #Australia to take a clear stand. To stand on the side of #humanity and #internationalLaw and make it clear we do not support #Trump and #Netanyahu’s illegal war.

Instead, the #Albanese #Labor Government, cheered along by the #Liberals and #OneNation, has committed Australia to another disastrous US-led forever war.

By deploying #Australian personnel to the Middle East and deepening our involvement, Labor is repeating the same catastrophic mistakes of the past. For decades, we have seen the consequences of being tied to the United States’ military machine. #Iraq. #Afghanistan. #Vietnam.

Wars that promised security and delivered destruction. Yet the Labor government remains unwilling to learn from that history.

Rather than charting an independent #defence and foreign policy grounded in #peace and de-escalation, they are choosing to double down on military alignment with the Trump-led US.

And that alignment runs deeper than many Australians realise.

Australia’s integration with the US military and the US industrial base has gone further than most people would expect. We host #USBases on our soil like #PineGap and #NWCape that are critical to US global warfighting. We buy billions of dollars worth of US weapons and have designed our entire military to be “interoperable” with the US.

We have hundreds of Australian personnel embedded throughout the US military. This includes three Australian personnel on the US nuclear submarine that sank an Iranian frigate and left the survivors to drown. Labor plans to have Australians make up 10% of all personnel on US nuclear submarines by 2030, allegedly as preparation for #AUKUS.

That is the reality of AUKUS. It locks Australia’s military into the US chain of command and draws us into US military actions before the public, or even Parliament, has had the chance to have a say.

Which raises a simple question. Who decides when Australia goes to war?

Right now, it is a decision made behind closed doors by a handful of politicians. In fact Australia can be sent to war with the decision being made by just the Prime Minister and Defence Minister.

That is why the Greens’ push for #WarPowers reform is more urgent than ever. We have introduced a new law that would require a #vote of #Parliament before Australians are sent into any overseas #conflict, and we forced it to be debated in parliament this week.

If lives are on the line, it should be the Parliament that millions of Australians elect, not a handful of government Ministers, who make that call.

At the same time as conflict abroad escalates, the Labor government is closing Australia’s door to people who are desperately in need of protection.

In a stark display of tripartisanship, the war parties of Labor, the Liberals and One Nation have come together to pass laws to refuse up to 7,200 #Iranians who already have valid Australian #visas from coming to Australia. The express reason they did this was so none of them could do what members of the Iranian women's football team did, come on shore and make an asylum claim.

It is the height of hypocrisy.

As all this chaos rolls out, instead of calling for peace, Labor has cheered the war on and sent 85 military personnel and hardware into the US warzone. Then they change the law to prevent people fleeing places like Iran from finding safety here. These measures go so far as to block people of certain nationalities from even applying for a visa, punishing individuals for the actions of regimes they are trying to escape.

We must not be a country that profits from and promotes conflict abroad, then turns its back on those displaced by it.

#TheGreens are the only party in Parliament willing to stand against this approach and speak and vote for peace not war. We are the only ones calling for a foreign policy grounded in human rights, international law, genuine independence and the core needs of the Australian people.

We say no to US forever wars and the war parties. We say yes to peace and cooperation. We say no to secret decisions to send Australians into conflict and yes to giving the Australian people a say over this war and every other war. We say yes to a defence policy that defends Australia and does not threaten our neighbours, as part of a broader commitment to genuine human security that is far broader than just guns, bombs and missiles. #auspol #uspol #TrumpRegime #RogueNation

https://greens.org.au/magazine/we-say-no-us-forever-wars

The #Senate this morning debated a #bill that will require #both #houses of #Parliament to vote before the #Government can send #Australians to #wars overseas.

90% of Australians support this reform with most astounded that the Parliament does not already have this reform.

The #Albanese #Labor Government and the #Liberals #oppose this.

Both are committed to keeping the decision to send Australians to war as a #secret decision made by a handful of #cabinet members with no democratic #oversight.

Currently, in Australia, the #PrimeMinister or #DefenceMinister can #unilaterally take Australia to war with no parliamentary oversight before that decision is made.

#Polling has routinely shown an #overwhelming #majority of Australians want there to be parliamentary oversight prior to the #deployment of #troops.

War power reform bills have been proposed in various forms for over 20 years, but have been routinely rejected by the Liberal and Labor parties.

The Albanese Labor Government has sent 85 military personnel, including an RAAF E-7A Wedgetail aircraft and medium-range air-to-air missiles, to the #UAE.

This decision was made in a closed room by a handful of Labor cabinet members, with zero parliamentary or public engagement or consent.

We now know that the information collected by the E-7A Wedgetail is being provided to the #US in this disastrous war of choice on Iran.

Senator #DavidShoebridge, Greens spokesperson on Defence and Foreign Affairs, said: "The Albanese Labor Government has dragged Australia into another US #foreverWar, and the public never got a say.

"Having Parliament vote before sending a country to war is common in #democracies. That is the case in #Germany, #France, #Finland, #Denmark and #Spain, to name a few. But the war parties here want to keep making that decision in a dark room that only they can enter.

"The majority of Australians do not support #Trump and #Netanyahu's war on Iran or the Albanese Labor Government backing it in. This is why the war parties are so resistant to giving Australians a say on this latest disastrous war.

"We are living through the chaos of a war that was supported by a handful of powerful people without public consent. If we had this law in place, then the Government would have had to justify their position before committing troops and the public would have had a chance of stopping it.

"Right now we are seeing death and violence spreading across the #MiddleEast, and Australians are feeling the #economic #impacts with cost-of-living increases and #chaos.

"Australians should decide if we go to war, not #Washington, not a handful of people in the war parties and not #Trump.

"We needed this law before #Vietnam, before #Afghanistan, before #Iraq and we certainly need it now." #auspol

#Greens senator #DavidShoebridge says the deployment of #troops (85 defence personnel will be sent on the surveillance E-7A Wedgetail) is contrary to the national interest.

“It’s been just over a week & the mission creep & deception from #Labor is frightening. Labor has gone from supporting the war politically, to having #Australian personnel part of US military attacks, to now putting troops on the ground.” #auspol

#Greens’ Shoebridge on #Iran strikes: ‘#Labor knows it’s illegal’

Greens senator #DavidShoebridge has accused Labor, the #Coalition and #OneNation of being the “three war parties”, and criticised the government for “rushing” to back the strikes on Iran.

Speaking on his amendment to the Coalition’s motion, Shoebridge doesn’t hold back, saying the three parties have “never seen an attack by #DonaldTrump, an attack by #BenjaminNetanyahu, that they haven’t wanted to back in and support”.

“We have seen the #Albanese Labor government rush to be the first country in the world to back in Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest #illegalwar, literally rushing to back in a war that Labor knows is in #grossbreach of #internationallaw.

There’s a reason that the foreign minister has refused to discuss, even discuss, whether or not this war is illegal. It’s because Labor knows it’s illegal.”

Shoebridge accuses the government and opposition of being “reckless” about the consequences of the #bombing on the Iranian people.

“I can tell you that the mums who are pulling their kids out of the rubble, they don’t see freedom. They’re not talking about #regimechange. They’re grieving about the loss of their kids, their daughters.
They see through your endless support of war … they see their country potentially being thrown into chaos.“ #auspol #TrumpRegime #RogueNation #uspol

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2026/mar/02/politics-updates-federal-parliament-anthony-albanese-labor-angus-taylor-coalition-nsw-budget-estimates-iran-war-reactions-ntwnfb?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-69a4d5508f0863f6a3eff706#block-69a4d5508f0863f6a3eff706

The #Greens defence spokesperson, #DavidShoebridge, was scathing of #Trump #BoardOfPeace plan, writing on social media:

“Trump is trying to sell #Palestinian sovereignty for $1 billion per seat while Palestinians are still being bombed and starved under the so-called “ceasefire.”
This isn’t #diplomacy, it’s #profiteering off #genocide. #Australia better not touch this with a 10-foot pole.”

#auspol #TrumpRegime #IsraelGenocide #Gaza