The Thorpe-Payman Genocide Bills Would Ensure No Complicity in Gaza Genocide

Recent days have seen major breakthroughs in reporting on evidence of Australian-made weapons parts and entire locally produced weapons systems, continuing to end up in Israeli military hands during a genocide, via aboveboard, yet opaque, export arrangements, which provide further reason as to why the Albanese government attempted to sink the Thorpe-Payman Genocide Red-Lines Bills.

Since the onset of the Israeli-perpetrated mass murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza commenced in October 2023, Labor ministers have vehemently denied that Australian weapons and components are making their way to the site of an active genocide, although these excuses have had to evolve as nonmajor politicians, journalists and activists have uncovered evidence that refutes their claims.

Senators Lidia Thorpe and Fatima Payman introduced three pieces of genocide-related legislation on 28 November 2024, which would prevent nongovernment entities from having to keep the government honest in aiding and abetting nations committing genocide, in both a preventative and responsive manner, as well as ensuring that our governing body doesn’t support genocides.

But there is an unspoken reluctance to approach the crime of genocide in Australia, even as the mass slaughter in Gaza continues 18 month on, and this is due to a number of reasons, including an unofficial prohibition on criticising Israel, and this nation, just like the Zionist state, being founded on genocide, so to genuinely approach this crime risks disturbing more than Israeli sensibilities.

The appearance of the Genocide Red-Lines package of bills last November was hailed by the legal community and civil society, because these precisely drafted reforms would remove this nation from all its links to the current Israeli-perpetrated genocide. However, this outcome too appears to be the reason that Labor sought to block these bills in the dying days of the 47th Australian parliament.

Guaranteeing genocides

“The government’s story is that the Red-Lines package is divisive and unnecessary because they claim Australia is already following international rules on genocide,” explained Senator Thorpe. “But that is a lie.”

“It’s a tactic to dodge scrutiny, which is why they refuse to let these bills go to inquiry — a standard parliamentary process — and why they’re withholding the legal advice on this very topic from the Australian Government Solicitor,” the Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung senator continued.

Senator Payman introduced the package of three genocide bills into the Senate in November 2024, but on 6 February 2025, the Selection of Bills Committee reported to the federal upper house, which recent pieces of legislation it had selected to progress to the committee inquiry process and on to a chamber vote, and all three pieces of the Red-Lines package had been denied this process.

Indeed, Thorpe too introduced the Criminal Code Amendment (Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes) Bill 2024 in February last year. It sought to remove a law known as the “attorney general’s fiat”, which requires the AG to greenlight any international atrocity crime prosecution under Australian law, as it serves to block genocide prosecutions.

The major party members in the Senate all voted against removing the block on genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes prosecutions in March, which is a legal mechanism that’s been used to block prosecutions of perpetrators of alleged atrocities committed against Tamils, Rohingyas, Palestinians and the First Peoples of this continent.

“If the government were to formally acknowledge genocide and apartheid occurring here or overseas, it would trigger a series of obligations and actions which, for political reasons, they are not willing to take,” Thorpe underscored. “It’s important to note that those obligations — and the breaches and consequences — exist whether or not they formally admit it.”

Laws that value human life

Despite foreign minister Penny Wong stating Labor does not support the Red-Lines bills during 27 February Senate estimates, and the committee denying an inquiry into them, this doesn’t mean these bills and the laws within them will not play a part in the next parliament, as while parliament’s makeup may be different after the 3 May vote, the Gaza genocide will only have worsened.

In an 8 February article, Australian Lawyers Alliance national criminal justice spokesperson Greg Barns SC hailed the introduction of the bills. He suggested they be a “litmus test” on how to vote in the coming election, as who wants to vote for pollies who don’t want to uphold international humanitarian law? And the lawyer further pondered why these laws aren’t already in place.

The first piece of legislation is the Genocide Risk Reporting Bill 2024, which creates an obligation on businesses to ensure that they’ve prevented being involved in supply chains or operations that risk being a part of genocidal practices. Businesses would need to proactively report on this, with penalties applying for noncompliance, and it would also establish an Anti-Genocide Commissioner.

Next on the agenda is the Treasury Laws Amendment (Divesting from Illegal Israeli Settlements) Bill 2024, which seeks to prevent Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, The Future Fund, and registered charities from making investments in companies that are operating within illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. A UN database that lists such companies would inform this process.

The final piece of legislation is the Defence Trade Controls Amendment (Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity) Bill 2024, which is legislation that broadly takes aim at the goods, software and technology on the Defence and Strategic Goods List, so that export permits are only issued when there are no risks of involvement in serious violations of international law, including genocide.

Thorpe told Sydney Criminal Lawyers that without these bills most politicians in the Canberra Bubble are “blindly following orders from higher-ups” without any real understanding that they have an obligation under the 1948 Genocide Convention to prevent the atrocity. So, they’re oblivious to the fact they could be making decisions that leave them open to criminal charges of genocide complicity.

A world leader in denial

“Australia is a world leader in denying genocide,” Thorpe, a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman, made clear, “and that’s because it has carried out, and continues to carry out, similar violence against Blackfullas on this land.”

“This country has a record of signing up to international treaties and then taking very little concrete action to adhere to those treaties,” the Independent Senator for Victoria continued. “Look at what is happening to children across the country in the criminal legal system, for example — that clearly contravenes the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and OPCAT.”

Australia ratified the Genocide Convention in July 1949, which creates an obligation upon state parties to stop genocide. This nation ratified the Rome Statute in 2002, which required parliament to enact the various forms of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes into federal law, however the attorney general’s fiat was included to prevent such prosecutions being raised.

Regardless of these legal obligations, as well as any moral qualms about slaughtering innocent people those making up the Albanese cabinet might have, the government has backed Israel in its mass slaughter of Palestinians for land, repeatedly claiming that this genocide was the Israeli state “defending itself”. This support has been either blatant or subtle depending on the political climate.

Unbeknownst to much of the population, Australian firm Birchgrove Legal presented International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan with a genocide complicity claim that detailed evidence against PM Anthony Albanese, Wong, defence minister Richard Marles and Liberal leader Peter Dutton, which the highest criminal court has added to its inquiry into the Situation in Palestine.

“Voters have made it clear,” Thorpe continued. “They do not support genocide. But the government is ignoring this, putting Australians and businesses at risk of being complicit. These bills are about protecting us from that.”

“To me, it’s clear that governments in this country have long been aware that they’re implicated in genocide — both overseas and here, against First Peoples,” she asserted in conclusion. “They go to great lengths to avoid and suppress scrutiny around these crimes.”