Government & politics, explained.
Australian Greens Senator for New South Wales David Shoebridge is the new party leader (Photo by Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images)
Opposing the arms trade is meant to stop atrocities – refusing to help Ukraine defend itself only enables one.
Subscribe to The Informer for monthly expert analysis, and to Events for advance notice of visiting world leaders and distinguished guests.
You may unsubscribe from Lowy Institute newsletters at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
The Greens have squibbed it on Ukraine, abandoning a democracy under attackThe Greens have squibbed it on Ukraine, abandoning a democracy under attack
In one of his first statements since being elected leader of the Australian Greens last week, David Shoebridge explicitly stated that Greens policy (Opens in new window) was to oppose military support for Ukraine.
The Greens oppose Russia’s invasion and support sanctions, but on the defining geopolitical question of this decade – arming a democracy under attack by an authoritarian aggressor – they have squibbed it.
Shoebridge, who is retaining the defence and foreign affairs portfolios, said the Greens would support humanitarian aid, anti-corruption work and sanctions, but not weapons. Military aid would be acceptable only under a Security Council resolution, which he acknowledged Russia would veto.
The Greens’ opposition to the arms trade is long-standing. Their 2021 election platform (Opens in new window) promised legislation “that prohibits Australia from exporting weapons”, and current policy (Opens in new window) seeks an end to Australia’s participation in “the international arms trade”. However, the new leader’s explicit application of the policy to Ukraine exposes its inconsistencies.
The opposition to the trade has always been about complicity in atrocities. The 2021 platform cited “war crimes committed by the Saudi regime in Yemen”, and the current policy targets export licences to states with “significant breaches of international human rights law or international humanitarian law”. The whole point of arming Ukraine is to prevent such abuses.
Challenging power means something different when you've been invaded by nuclear-armed Russia.
Article 51 of the UN Charter recognises the “inherent right (Opens in new window)” of self-defence to an armed attack, and making Ukraine’s defence conditional on the consent of the state invading it is not so much a principled stand as legitimating imperial aggression.
The Greens deserve credit on sanctions, but sanctions alone will not stop Russia’s invasion.
Shoebridge is also on record backing Australia’s own military industry as a way of ensuring sovereign independence from the US and AUKUS. In March 2025 he announced $4 billion (Opens in new window) for Australian-made drones, missiles and uncrewed vehicles for our own defence, which he called “a lesson that’s come to us from the Ukraine war”.
If the Greens want Australia to invest in these technologies, why oppose their use in a defensive war against an authoritarian aggressor? And why not partner Australia’s fledgling drone industry with the world’s most innovative, where technologies evolve daily from battlefield data?
The Greens rightly argue that human rights should be defended wherever they are threatened. The same logic applies to democracy, the only political regime where those rights are enforceable.
Ukraine is the clearest case. An imperfect but functioning democracy invaded by an authoritarian, ultranationalist state intent on annexing at least part of it, with the rest turned into a vassal state.
A Ukrainian firefighter walks past a burnt-out and damaged building following several Russian attacks on a residential area in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, 4 October 2026 (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The main counterargument to weapons transfers is that weapons feed escalation, but Ukrainian civilians and troops are already dying (Opens in new window) on a daily basis. An under-armed Ukraine invites further aggression.
Shoebridge’s criticism of AUKUS and reliance on the US is legitimate, but doubts about Australia’s alliances only increase the importance of demonstrating its independence to support a democracy under attack.
The Greens’ position instead seems to conflate the war in Ukraine with Iraq. Former Greens leader Bob Brown heckled (Opens in new window) US President George W. Bush in parliament in October 2003 after Australia followed the US into an illegal war. The Greens’ new deputy leader, Steph Hodgins-May, explicitly recognised this moment as inspiration (Opens in new window) for joining the party: “This is challenging power.”
Challenging power means something different when you’ve been invaded by nuclear-armed Russia. Iraq was an illegal war. And so is the invasion of Ukraine. In Ukraine, Australia would be helping an invaded country, not an invading one, yet the Greens deny it the means to resist.
Countries that have lived under Russian or Soviet rule understand the stakes. The previously occupied Baltic states (Opens in new window) give among the highest shares of GDP to Ukraine, while Georgia, invaded by Russia in 2008, still has a fifth of its territory occupied by Russia.
A party born of activism should understand why people need to fight under repressive rule. In Myanmar, a 2021 military coup was met with peaceful nonviolent mass street protests. They were soon mowed down in the streets by the junta, with activists tortured to death. In my recent research (Opens in new window) with colleagues, we found some environmental activists responded by taking up arms. Without democracy they saw no prospect of environmental protection or justice, so armed struggle became environmental activism by other means.
Germany’s Greens, a party with pacifist origins, reversed course (Opens in new window) after the invasion and has repeatedly urged (Opens in new window) Berlin to expand military support to Ukraine, including the supply of Taurus cruise missiles. Being close to the conflict makes the risks of Russian expansion more visceral.
All reasonable people want peace, but sometimes it has to be fought for. Nonviolence only works when the antagonist has respect for human life, a characteristic that neither Myanmar’s generals nor the Kremlin have exhibited. Against such regimes, slotting flowers into gun barrels does not work. Ukrainians have asked for weapons.
About the author
Adam Simpson
Dr Adam Simpson is Senior Lecturer in International Studies in the School of Society and Culture, Adelaide University.
The most-pressing world events explained by Lowy Institute experts and global contributors, in your inbox, every Thursday.
You may unsubscribe from The Interpreter at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
