The Albanese government fails to answer our questions.
In November 2025 Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR) wrote to the Foreign Minister Penny Wong about Australia’s military exports which could be contributing to the mass killing of civilians in Sudan.
We have now received a response from the Defence Department, but sadly, it fails to address the crucial issues we raised.
To say that the reply lacked transparency would be quite an understatement.
Our letter referred to multiple media reports suggesting thousands of unarmed civilians had been massacred including over 400 people at a maternity hospital.
The issue is directly related to Australia because we export military equipment to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Credible accounts indicate that the UAE has provided weapons to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, who are responsible for widespread killings.
Incredibly, Australia approved over 60 export permits to the UAE between 2021 and 2022 and it seems none of the permits have been suspended or cancelled in light of the slaughter of civilians in Sudan.
The letter we received from Defence provides no answers to the questions and suggestions we put forward. Rather it simply recites the existing policy surrounding all military exports.
We suggested that the exports to the UAE and Sudan may be breaching our legal obligations, but this was not addressed.
We also recommended that all current exports be subjected to an urgent review, but this wasn’t addressed.
We pointed to a comprehensive report, published in August, which raised serious concerns about military exports but this was also ignored in the letter.
The level of secrecy and lack of accountability is unacceptable.
We intend to follow up this matter with both correspondence and media coverage.
The idea that Australian equipment could be used in the Sudan civil war against unarmed civilians is a grave concern and warrants widespread public discussion.
Read our original letter to Senator Wong: https://warpowersreform.org.au/are-australian-military-exports-being-used-in-sudan/
Read the response: https://warpowersreform.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Defence-response-arms-exports.pdf
See also: VIDEO – “Senator demands answers: are Australian weapons fuelling Sudanese genocide”. In this heated Senate hearing a number of senior defence officials simply can’t or won’t answer several basic questions from Senator David Shoebridge about Australian military exports:
