Australian international affairs officers can’t — or gained’t — say what number of Australians have been evacuated or killed because of the final 12 months of warfare within the Center East.
Crikey requested the Division of Overseas Affairs and Commerce (DFAT) for the data on Friday, October 11, and what adopted was a protracted back-and-forth of emails, which ended with the division declining to provide a solution and refusing to place its reasoning on the document.
Crikey requested what number of Australians have died in Israel, Lebanon, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories within the previous 12 months, and what number of had been evacuated from these locations in the identical interval.
The one bit of knowledge that the division determined to offer was this, within the phrases of a division spokesperson: “As of at the moment [October 15], a complete of three,170 Australians and their quick relations have departed Lebanon on assisted departure flights.”
It’s understood the division’s reasoning for not answering the opposite questions was knowledgeable by worries that the privateness of particular person households may probably be affected, and issues that gathering the data for publication within the media would affect consular assets. It’s additional understood the division doesn’t monitor the variety of Australians situated abroad. DFAT didn’t reply to a request to place its reasoning for refusing to reply the questions on the document.
DFAT stories on its work helping Australians in disaster conditions overseas in its annual Consular State of Play report, with the latest concern overlaying the 2022-23 monetary yr. It’s understood the subsequent report is due earlier than the top of the month.
Crikey will not be alone in struggling to get data out of DFAT — final week, it was revealed the division didn’t reply on time any of the questions it had taken on discover over the past spherical of Senate estimates.
“DFAT undertook to reply 264 questions on discover. Zero have been tabled by the due date,” Overseas Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Commerce Minister Don Farrell wrote in a reply to their Senate colleagues dated October 17.
Opposition international affairs spokesperson Simon Birmingham stated DFAT’s responses have been “true to kind for the Albanese authorities”.
“Regardless of speaking an enormous sport of better transparency and accountability earlier than the final election, the efficiency of this Labor authorities has been pitiful,” he informed Crikey.
“Australians deserve higher, in reality, Minister Wong has been one of many worst offenders, with DFAT responses to Senate estimates questions on discover routinely getting used to cover data that Australians have a proper to know.”
Greens immigration spokesperson David Shoebridge stated the federal government had taken a “head within the sand” strategy to the conflicts.
“With such distinguished international battle zones it’s astounding the federal government says it doesn’t even attempt to monitor the whereabouts, and even the deaths, of Australian residents,” he informed Crikey. “This assertion is tough to just accept at face worth given the data the federal government has beforehand launched on Australians overseas when it fits them.
“Figures on Australians abroad are available for ministers once they want a speech in Parliament, however are refused to reporters or the general public for accountability measures. This exhibits an absence of respect for each transparency and the general public, it erodes belief within the authorities.”
A handful of Australian casualties have been revealed publicly, together with a lady who was murdered by Hamas terrorists within the October 7 assaults on Israel, a person killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon in December, a person killed in an ambush whereas serving with the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza in December, and an assist employee killed in an Israeli strike on a automobile convoy in April.
