The Albanese Government has breached its own rules for deploying Australian Defence Force personnel to conflict zones when it sent forces to the UAE earlier this month.
The Memorandum on Government Conventions Relating to Overseas Armed Conflict Decision Making was adopted by the Albanese Government on 27 November 2024. It sets out the rules establishing what the Government must do when it "deploys the ADF in a major military operation as a party to an armed conflict overseas."
The requirements include providing an unclassified written statement to both Houses of Parliament outlining the objectives of the deployment, the orders made, its legal basis and setting aside a day of debate in Parliament.
The rules clearly state this must be done within 30-days of the deployment, which was announced on March 10, 2024. The Albanese Government has failed to do any of this and this sitting week is its last chance to comply.
The Greens wrote to the Albanese Government last week seeking it adhere to these rules in the deployment of a E-7A Wedgetail, some 85 Australian personnel and missiles to the UAE in the middle of the war in Iran. The letter from the Greens can be found here, and the Government's reply here.
Senator David Shoebridge, Greens Spokesperson for Defence and Foreign Affairs, said:"The Albanese Government after refusing to support war powers reform in the last Parliament, put forward this memorandum instead. Now they have failed to meet even this extremely low standard.
"A key requirement of the memorandum is that the Government must provide the legal basis for the deployment of Australian military forces. Labor has now refused to do this, almost certainly because there is no lawful basis for Australia joining this war.
"The Memorandum also requires regular reports, public statements on the aims and a day of debate in Parliament. All of that has been scrapped so Albanese could be first in line to support Trump.
"The violence that is spreading through the Middle East, the resulting chaos here in Australia, all of it shows why these decisions need to be under public scrutiny. It absolutely proves how dangerous it is for Australians to be sent into a war zone by a handful of government ministers who have never said no to Trump or the US.
"The response from the Defence Minister is embarrassing for Labor. The idea that the deployment to the UAE is in any way comparable to the sending forces to Poland is ridiculous. Poland is not an armed conflict zone, as the Gulf is today, which is what this Memorandum is based on.
"The Labor Government treats the public with contempt when it comes to foreign policy. They ram through a secret defence committee that excludes the public, then demand we applaud them for it. They cheer in Trump's war and now refuse to tell the public why.
"The war parties of Labor, the Coalition and One Nation aren't protecting the Australian public with their reckless support of this illegal and damaging war.
"Labor's refusal to even debate the war, their refusal to meet their own low standards of transparency, proves once more that they are delivering for their masters in Washington, not their voters in Australia."
