Every Australian taxpayer now has on their conscience the terrifying prospect that their hard-earned dollars went towards financing the rape, mutilation, torture, kidnapping and murder of innocent Jewish girls, women, babies, boys and men on 7 October in southern Israel. That is the legacy of the disgusting recklessness of Labor’s Penny Wong.

Writing in this magazine in October, 2017, regular columnist Andrew L. Urban explained how that year alone, ‘half of the US$693 million that the Palestinian Authority receives as foreign aid… was paid out as stipends to convicted terrorists and their families’. Mr Urban went on to detail how various governments were responding to increasing concerns about the way their funds were being used to finance Palestinian terror and called on our government to do the same.

In March, 2018, we went further. With an unapologetically hard-hitting cover, we showed a dead Israeli with an Australian 100-dollar bill as the murder weapon. ‘Aussie tax slayers’ was the headline to the accompanying article by Dr David Adler of the Australian Jewish Association. ‘According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website, Australia will contribute $43.8 million to the “Palestinian Territories” in 2017-18,’ Dr Adler wrote. ‘DFAT claims, “Australia seeks to align its support with the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) objectives”. Well, the PA’s objectives include providing incentive payments to terrorists who injure and kill innocent Israeli civilians.’

Dr Adler named the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and cited the Palestinian policy of ‘pay for slay’, whereby Palestinians are financially rewarded for murdering Jews.

‘UNRWA is not a neutral service provider, having repeatedly been found to be involved in political activism. In the 2014 conflict between Israel and Hamas, rockets were found stored in two UNRWA schools in Gaza, and staff were found making anti-Israel commentaries.’ Dr Adler also described the ways children in Gaza are schooled in the arts of murder and terror with Western-funded educational material. ‘A terror attack on an Israeli civilian bus using Molotov cocktails is described as a “barbeque party”. A poem describes Jews as the devil’s aides.’ (For more on the history of this blighted organisation, see Rebecca Weisser’s column this week.)

Dr Adler also explained how then President Trump was substantially reducing aid to UNRWA, before pointing out that, ‘Australia in 2017-18 committed $17.6 million to UNRWA, making us the 12th most generous nation in funding this agency. Unlike the US, Australia has not taken steps to reduce its UNRWA funding despite the matter having been drawn to the attention of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.’

Following that article, and after appearing on Outsiders on Sky News Australia with the editor of this magazine, Rowan Dean, Dr Adler went to Canberra with further visual evidence of Australian taxpayer funded bodies’ involvement in terror, where, with the help of Senators Eric Abetz, David Leyonhjelm, Pauline Hanson, James Paterson and others he persuaded Ms Bishop and the Coalition government to redirect ten million dollars of funding. On 2 July 2018, in a media release awash with diplo-jargon, Ms Bishop explained that, ‘Any assistance provided by the Palestine Liberation Organisation to those convicted of politically motivated violence is an affront to Australian values.’ In other words, we will not fund ‘pay for slay’. Commendably, in the 2020 Budget, the Coalition went even further, halving DFAT funding to UNRWA from $20 million to $10 million.

And so it remained until Labor won office in 2022, when, without any apparent hesitation, that reduction in funding was fully re-instated by Foreign Minister Penny Wong. Then, following the barbaric terror attacks of 7 October, Australian aid to the Palestinians was again further increased by many tens of millions with six million dollars earmarked specifically for UNRWA. After an outcry, Ms Wong made the ludicrous claim that she had told the Palestinians that the money must not be used to fund terror. What a joke.

Last week, the New York Times and  Wall Street Journal revealed horrendous details about the direct involvement of UNRWA employees, teachers and others in the 7 October murders, rapes and kidnappings. ‘UNRWA’s problem is not just “a few bad apples” involved in the 7 October massacre,’ a senior Israeli official said. ‘The institution as a whole is a haven for Hamas’ radical ideology.’ The intelligence reports cited claimed that nearly 50 per cent of all UNRWA employees had close relatives with official ties to Hamas or other militant outfits and one-in-four male employees took part in Hamas activities.

The following questions must be answered: What risk assessment did Penny Wong or her department undertake before she reinstated (and then increased) Australian aid to UNRWA and other Palestinian bodies? And: Who provided the advice to Penny Wong that DFAT’s and Julie Bishop’s determination  that Australian tax dollars risked being used to fund terror no longer applied in 2022?

If an individual provides funds to a terrorist organisation they go to jail. Penny Wong must resign, and those at DFAT or Home Affairs who failed in their duties to the taxpayer must resign too.