Submissions

Ministerial Correspondence, 21 November 2023
To Senator the Hon Penny Wong, Minister for Foreign Affairs

I am writing to you in relation to the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which has triggered an unprecedented level of concern in my community.

The volume of emails I have received from constituents in my community demanding the government call for an urgent ceasefire is greater, by several orders of magnitude, than the volume of emails relating to any other issue in my time in office.

Overwhelmingly, a majority of this correspondence is asking me, as the representative for North Sydney, to do everything in my power to urge the Australian Government to call for the immediate release of all hostages, an urgent humanitarian ceasefire, and to facilitate aid agencies to get the necessary aid into Gaza, including esssential medical equipment. It is on this basis that I write to you.

In doing so, I note that the following countries, international humanitarian agencies and religious leaders have issued the same urgent call:

• United Nations
• France
• Spain
• Ireland
• World Health Organisation
• Medecins Sans Frontieres
• Unicef
• Save the Children
• Oxfam
• Caritas Internationalis
• Amnesty
• Human Rights Watch
• The International Red Cross and Red Crescent
• The Committee to Protect Journalists
• His Holiness Pope Francis
• The Most Reverend Archbishop of Canterbury

I know that the urgings of the Australian Government may have little impact on the actions of other international states. But our urgings will reinforce this country's commitment to international humanitarian law, and be heard loudly by multicultural Australians, and humanitarians who care deeply about all life .

I ask you, respectfully, at this fraught time, to consider strengthening our country's calls for an urgent ceasefire.

Kylea Tink
Independent Member for North Sydney