Senator FARUQI (New South Wales—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (15:35): Gaza is starving. Words won't feed them. Sanction Israel. That is the truth on the sign that I held up in the Senate yesterday, and I will not back down from this goal, because Palestinians are being murdered, starved and displaced by Israel as we speak and all you can do is crack down on people who protest, who tell the truth, who hold up a mirror to you all for your silence and complicity. Labor and the coalition in this chamber want to avoid the truth. You don't want to see it or hear it, and now here we are. You want to force me to apologise for telling the truth. Well, well done. You can all pat yourselves on the back and move on while Palestinians are slaughtered. MPs here and outside of here are accusing me of being disrespectful and denigrating the parliament. You should all reflect, for a minute even, on your silence and your complicity in and even enabling of a genocide. That is what degrades this place and that is what reflects poorly on this place—not a sign trying to wake you up from your moral stupor. But do you know what? You are more focused on cracking down on black and brown women in this parliament. You've done this before. Honourable senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT: Order! Senator Faruqi. Senator FARUQI: You have done this before. You are more focused— The PRESIDENT: Order! Senator Faruqi, I've asked you to sit down. You may not have heard me because there was too much noise. Senator Faruqi, I'm going to remind you that you should be relevant to the motion, and I have asked other senators in this place, if they can't listen in respectful silence, to remove themselves. Senator Faruqi, nobody has questioned your right to hold an opinion. You need to be reflecting on the motion. Senator Gallagher: I raise a point of order. I seek that Senator Faruqi withdraw the allegation that senators are being racist in this chamber. That is the obvious imputation from what she just said about all of us. The PRESIDENT: I will inform the chamber that, because there was so much noise in here, I didn't hear that comment, but Minister Gallagher has asked that Senator Faruqi withdraw that comment. Senator Faruqi, I am going to ask you to withdraw that comment. Senator FARUQI: President, this is exactly what I said: you crack down in this chamber on black and brown women— The PRESIDENT: Senator Faruqi, sit down please. I have always been very, very clear as the President that offences or alleged offences are not to be repeated. I have asked you to withdraw. That means you stand up and you withdraw the comment. Please do as I have asked you to, Senator Faruqi. Senator FARUQI: Could I ask you, President, to review that comment. I withdraw it for now because I want to get on and talk about the substantive motion. The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Faruqi. I will review it and thank you for withdrawing. Senator FARUQI: I want to draw attention to the words of Martin Luther King Jr in his letter from a Birmingham jail. It seems especially relevant while you all sit here and censure me for breaking what you call the decorum of parliament, for my failure to be polite or respectful while a genocide unfolds, while kids are being killed. He wrote of his frustration with the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice, who seeks only the absence of tension rather than the presence of justice, who says, 'I agree with the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your ways of achieving it' and who has a paternalistic belief they can set the timetable and decorum of another people's freedom. Well, you can set your standards because you don't want to see the truth. You don't want to do anything about the genocide. One day you will all have to explain to your children and grandchildren where you stood when tens of thousands of men, women and children were being slaughtered. I wouldn't like to be in your shoes then, because you are all on the wrong side of history. Instead of sanctioning me, maybe you should think about sanctioning Israel. They are the ones starving, slaughtering and displacing Palestinians; blowing up hospitals; obliterating schools; and wiping out entire bloodlines. But you ignore all of that, you ignore your constituents and you ignore your communities. You can't even read the room. You can't engage with people in your own communities who have, for 21 months—and, for some, much longer than that—been crying out for you to do something, to take real action to stop this genocide, to stop the starvation, to sanction Israel. But I'm not really holding out hope, honestly. I can tell you this: the Greens will not be silent as this genocide unfolds. You will not be able to intimidate me or any of my colleagues. We will never stop fighting for freedom for Palestine and all those oppressed people. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. (Time expired) The PRESIDENT: The question is that the amendment as moved by Senator Cash to Senator Wong's motion be agreed to.