Senator WONG ( South Australia — Minister for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the Government in the Senate ) ( 14:18 ): Senator, I would invite you—I know that the Greens political party has a narrative about this. Unfortunately, the facts don't fit the narrative. I would really encourage you to look at what the Prime Minister and the defence minister and myself announced this morning. Senator Whish-Wilson: Like the nuclear program, or that Iran was going to attack us first? The PRESIDENT: Senator Whish-Wilson, I'm not— Senator Watt: Maybe you should do better listening. The PRESIDENT: Order! Senator WONG: The first point I would make is that Iran is attacking countries who have not been part of striking Iran. I would make that point first. The United Arab Emirates and many of the other Gulf countries have not been taking part in the strikes on Iran, and they continue to do so. We also have Australians in the region. You speak of Australian lives. I've made clear we have 115,000 Australians in the region. A large cohort of those are in the United Arab Emirates, where there were 24,000 at the commencement of the conflict. The capability we have announced today is defensive. It is to help Gulf countries protect themselves and their citizens, including Australian citizens who are there, from attack by Iran. We have made clear that we are prepared to take defensive action. These assets will operate according to Australian law, policy and directives. I again say what I have said previously: we are not taking offensive action against Iran and we will not be deploying Australian troops— Senator Waters: Point of order on relevance. The question was, 'How did this decision to deploy our troops and assets get made?' The minister has not come to that part of the question at all. The PRESIDENT: There was also a preamble to the question, and the minister is being directly relevant to the question. Senator WONG: This is a government decision made through the appropriate government processes. The PRESIDENT: Senator Waters, first supplementary?