Peace, Disarmament, and Demilitarisation
Our wars cost lives, billions of dollars, and make huge profits for the corporate war industry.We need a new approach to keep people safe. It’s time to stop handing public money to corporate weapons makers and build cooperative relationships with our friends and neighbours
Billions of dollars are being thrown at weapons manufacturers with little scrutiny.
The Greens plan includes:
- Renegotiate the US alliance to secure a new relationship focused on making us a better global citizen
- Pass War Powers legislation to ensure governments can’t send us to war without Parliamentary approval
- Close all military bases that foreign militaries have set up in this country
- Sign and ratify the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty
- Ban the development and use of Lethal Autonomous Weapons in line with the international campaign ‘Stop Killer Robots’
- Reduce military spending to 1.5 % of GDP by buying fewer guns and tanks, and ensuring that we have a light, readily deployable and highly mobile force that meets the needs of our place in the world,
- Increase oversight of defence procurement by establishing a Parliamentary Defence Office to provide independent advice to Members of Parliament.
Human Rights and Foreign Aid
Countries in the Global South are facing the climate crisis, a public health crisis, and an economic crisis.
As a wealthy, colonial country, we have a responsibility to contribute its fair share of aid, and pay reparations for its role in the climate crisis and the ongoing damage caused by imperialism.
Too often our aid is used to further our national ambitions or greedy trade interests instead of addressing local needs. And those fleeing war or oppression are being locked up in onshore and offshore prisons, rather than supported as refugees seeking asylum.
Our Pacific neighbours are already feeling the climate crisis with rising seas, more extreme weather and less drinkable water
The Greens plan includes:
- Increase Australia’s aid budget to 0.7% of GNI by 2030
- Adopt a human-rights centred approach to foreign policy
- Use diplomatic relationships to advocate for human rights around the world
- Place the human rights and self-determination of women and girls at the centre of Australian development assistance programs
- Provide climate finance and reparations of $4.5 billion from 2022-2025, more than tripling our current commitment
- Establish an independent development oversight agency
- Cancel future loan repayments from all countries in the Global South who owe debt directly to Australia
- Advocate for other financial institutions and foreign governments to cancel any outstanding debt payments from countries in the Global South
People seeking refuge
People seeking asylum have been the subject of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment for the political benefit of the Liberal and Labor parties.
Both major parties support indefinite detention for people who seek safety in Australia.
And in the last Budget, the Australian Government dropped its annual humanitarian refugee intake quota from 18,750 to 13,750.
Australia will spend $1.2 billion in 12 months to detain fewer than 300 refugees and asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea and Nauru
The Greens plan includes:
- End offshore detention on Manus Island and Nauru, bringing refugees to safety and freedom in Australia, and ensuring we create a fairer and safer system that helps more people and meets our international obligations
- Increase Australia’s humanitarian intake to 50,000 per year
- Push for a faster, fairer, and more affordable family reunion visa system that actually
reunites families - Provide an additional 4000 humanitarian places for refugees from Afghanistan and protect Afghan citizens already in Australia
- Establish a regional solution for people seeking asylum
- Introduce a 7 day limit for onshore detention and provide fair support for people seeking asylum
- Abolish Temporary Protection Visas and reintroduce Permanent Protection Visas for refugees
No more weapons exporting
Both major parties have previously taken donations from weapons manufacturers and now the Coalition government, supported by Labor, is intent on making us a top 10 global arms exporter.
The ‘Defence Export Facility’ makes us complicit in overseas atrocities, like war crimes committed by the Saudi regime in Yemen.
Our government has committed over $4 billion of public money to arms exporters.
The Greens plan includes:
- Immediately abolish the Defence Export Facility
- Introduce legislation that prohibits us from exporting weapons
Together, we’re powerful.
We're fighting to get real climate action, make the big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of tax, and get dental and mental health in Medicare. The Greens are fighting for your future.