Really strong story from @newcastleherald about the Hunter Region’s role sending F35 jet fighter weapons parts to Israel for its genocide in Gaza. The F35 regional hub in Williamtown isn’t for Australia’s defence, it’s a US controlled global weapons hub run by the US, for the US Documents uncovered by @DeclassifiedAus make clear that the US has been repeatedly using Australia as a supply hub to send weapon parts around the world, including to Israel, for its F-35 fighter jet program

🧵TikTok deal explained. The US Govt forced ByteDance to sell TikTok to American entities (including Trump mates Larry Ellison & Rupert Murdoch) under threat of a nationwide ban, citing national security concerns about China. Big yikes! New TikTok ownership raises questions about political influence over content. With Trump allies controlling the platform will editorial independence survive? This looks like the Govt picking winners/losers in digital speech & the online commons rather than actual security policy.

Israel’s attack on Qatar violated international law and targeted peace negotiators, proving they’re not serious about returning hostages or a negotiated resolution to the genocide they’re committing. The US had invited the negotiators in Qatar for peace talks and the US military had advance notice of Israel’s attack. The US also arms Israel. The US is clearly complicit in this latest Israeli war crime.

BREAKING: The Senate has just voted YES to our inquiry into the social media age ban & search engine age verification codes! This isn't just about kids - it's a national age verification and identification system masquerading as being about online safety for children. The age ban will force EVERY Australian to hand over personal data to access social media. The verification codes will mean the same for search engines. Everybody will go through age-checking to make this work. Our inquiry will examine these massive privacy implications

You cannot make it up, we are debating Labor's first housing bill this Parliament. To build public housing for US troops under AUKUS.

More below 👇 Would you like to know how much public funds we are spending on building houses for US troops? So would we.

But the major parties are refusing to say.

🧵THREAD: Documents forced out of the NACC by the my office under FOI show the Commission has been actively concealing critical information about its Robodebt investigation from the Australian public. FOI docs obtained by my office reveal Justice Jeffrey Nettle found that each of the six Robodebt referrals "raises a corruption issue" but the NACC deliberately hid these findings from their public statement. How do we know this? We FOI'd their draft media release.

Today, the Greens are calling on the Albanese Government to sanction Israel the same way they sanctioned Russia for its illegal war and breach of international law.

Here is what that would look like 👇 Australia prohibits the export of dozens of goods to Russia, listed below.

Australia is part of a 25 nation call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. This is a welcome, if extremely late, step. However Israel has already brushed it aside and said it will continue killing in Gaza. Words and strong statements will not stop the IDF bombing, shelling and shooting Palestinians. Australia and the rest of the world needs to match these words with action, starting with an urgent ban on sending weapons and weapons parts to Israel.

CONTENT WARNING🧵

Israeli arms dealer Rafael recently posted a video of a lone, apparently unarmed, person in Gaza being hunted and killed by their Skipe Firefly drone.

This is a snuff film, made to profit from selling weapons into a genocide. Israeli arms manufacturers use the fact that they have tested their weapons on Palestinians as a sales pitch.

I saw this last year at a 'defence' conference in Perth.

Rafael was selling to the Australian Government by showing images of Israeli attacks in Gaza, Yemen and Lebanon

I want to talk to you about Palantir and its expanding footprint in Australia. TLDR: You should be worried.

This US surveillance tech company has secured multiple Defence contracts worth over $11 million. We need transparency about what data they're accessing & why. 🧵 AUSTRAC signed an $8.1 million extension with Palantir until 2025, on top of a previous $8.6 million deal. This gives Palantir access to financial intelligence data on top of Defence info - a foreign corporation with unprecedented access to sensitive Australian data.

BREAKING:

There is new evidence of Australian-made weapons ending up in Israel, this time with the Israeli Defence Minister appearing beside a 'lethal' remote weapons system in early 2025.

More below👇 2/ The photo above is of an R400, which is an Australian-made weapon station that the manufacturer describes as “lightweight lethality with precise mobile engagements up to 2 km.”

BREAKING - the Inspector of the NACC has made the most damning findings against NACC Commissioner Brereton finding a comprehensive failure by home to deal with a clear conflict of interest in the Robodebt referral. naccinspector.gov.au/system/files/2… This is what the NACC Inspector Gail Furness SC found: “The NACC Commissioner made a number of declarations describing the interest in relation to that person as a person 'he knows well', 'who is well known to me' and 'with whom I have had a close association'.

I’ll be asking questions today on the inquiry into Senator Thorpe’s bill which would remove the requirement for the AG to consent to prosecutions for genocide - given the conflicted nature of governments on this issue that makes a lot of sense The first panel supports the change and also says it would be assisted by a specialist Australian War Crimes Investigation unit possibly in AFP or CDPP. This would draw together existing expertise, keep communities safe and show leadership on international law.

BREAKING

For months the Labor government has been misleading the public on its role in the two-way arms trade with the State of Israel.

Now we have a picture of an Australian-made DroneGun being used by an Israeli soldier.

And a picture of Albanese holding the same weapon.

We know that Australia is exporting military equipment to Israel from drone engines and military steel to parts of the F35 fighter jet.

The DroneGun is another stark example of the depth of the two-way arms trade, despite the Albanese Government trying to mislead the public.

🧵THREAD

We have obtained satellite imagery of destroyed Australian graves in Gaza.

This is a window into the scale of the impunity and destruction the State of Israel is currently enacting.

The picture below is from before the recent invasion of Gaza.

More below👇 This image is from March 2024 when the Australian Government was first made aware that the grave site was hit.

There are clear signs of damage.

The Albanese Labor Government said nothing about this and made no protest to Israel.

1/🧵Now we have had time to look at the deeper impacts of the Budget, as Greens spokesperson on Immigration and Defence, it is clear that Albanese just wants to be Dutton.

Massively militarising the region while punching down on migrants and refugees.

Read more below📉 2/ The first place to start should be the staggering increase in defence spending, which has doubled over the last decade.

Does this spending make anyone feel safer?

@SIPRIorg has released its yearly data on global military expenditure.

It showed the world is militarising and Australia is playing an outsized role in fueling this.

My main takeaways are below👇 2/  World military expenditure increased for the ninth consecutive year in 2023, reaching a total of $2.4 trillion, a 6.8 per cent increase.

LIVE

Currently in the final hearing on the AUKUS nuclear waste regulation bill.

There is only one witness this time, the arms manufacturer BAE Systems.

Follow below 👇 If you want a quick update, here is the live tweet from first hearing on the Bill.

https://twitter.com/DavidShoebridge/status/1767687689950974118

Australia has a secret defence industry cooperation deal with Israel and you’re not allowed to know what’s in it because apparently Israel has a veto on Australian FOI!?

Why, and what, are they hiding?

Defence says they can’t tell us about their MOU with Israel on defence because: “The release of such information could harm Australia's international standing and reputation."

That’s not a reason for even more secrecy, it’s why we need scrutiny of these arrangements.

LIVE THREAD:

I am about to head into a hearing that will decide where Australia will store nuclear waste from AUKUS submarines.

More below👇 We are starting with the @RoyInstNavArch followed by Australia's nuclear regulators @ANSTO and @ARPANSANews.

After lunch we have @IPAusNet @AusConservation & @ican_australia as well as @ASFUnions

And will finish the day with Defence.

Watch here👉
aph.gov.au/News_and_Event…

BREAKING

This year is looking like the first and only anniversary of AUKUS.

With the US budget making enough for US needs but no one else, more below.👇 2/ The US Navy Budget is out and the US has only budgeted for one Virginia-class nuclear submarine (the exact type Australia is meant to get under AUKUS).

The issue here is that the US will need to produce at least 2.3 a year to have enough to sell to Australia.