The Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee has delivered one of Australia’s most definitive assessments of the situation in Myanmar. Its findings are clear: the junta’s 2025–26 election was neither free, fair, nor inclusive. Worse, it risks being used as a “cloak of respectability” to legitimise ongoing military rule. This is not just a humanitarian crisis –the Committee recognises– it is a regional security threat, intertwined with transnational crime, cyber scams, human trafficking, illicit finance, and geopolitical instability.
Yet, as the Committee warns, there is a dangerous shift in regional rhetoric. Terms like “step-by-step engagement” and “political process” are creeping into discussions, signalling a troubling normalisation of the junta’s rule. Thailand’s recent comments about ASEAN’s gradual engagement approach highlight this risk. But Myanmar cannot be stabilised by engaging with an illegitimate regime that is continuing airstrikes against its own civilians.
The scale of suffering in Myanmar is staggering:
- Over 4 million people are internally displaced.
- 16.2 million people –nearly one-third of Myanmar’s population– require humanitarian assistance.
- 8.5 million face acute food insecurity in 2026.
- Schools, hospitals, monasteries, churches, and displacement camps remain under attack.
- Civilians, including children, are being killed in escalating aerial assaults, enabled by military-controlled financial and aviation networks.
United Nations officials and human rights organisations have repeatedly warned that these attacks constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes. In addition, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the UN tripartite agency responsible for the world of work, adopted a historic resolution in 2025 urging governments worldwide to ensure their actions do not enable the junta’s continued repression of workers and violation of fundamental rights. This includes the supply of weapons, jet fuel and financial flows to the junta.
At the same time, cyber scam compounds, operating under the protection of junta-linked networks, are increasingly targeting Australians through organised fraud, romance scams, and transnational crime.
Australia Must Act
While allies like the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and Canada have expanded sanctions against military-linked financial ecosystems, Australia’s response has fallen behind. The Senate Committee itself warned that sanctions gaps undermine collective pressure and create loopholes for the junta to exploit.
Myanmar’s military no longer relies on public legitimacy—it survives through financial infrastructure. The Central Bank of Myanmar, military-controlled banks, aviation fuel networks, and state-owned enterprises function as lifelines, sustaining atrocities and repression. The Senate Committee has explicitly recognised this reality, recommending sanctions against these entities.
The Committee called on the Australian Government to:
- reject attempts to legitimise Myanmar’s military regime;
- align sanctions with key allies;
- sanction the Central Bank of Myanmar and military-controlled banks;
- disrupt jet fuel supply chains enabling airstrikes;
- supplement engagement with ASEAN with stronger engagement with the Bali Process
- expand flexible, locally led and cross-border humanitarian assistance to communities affected by conflict and displacement; and
- formalise engagement with Myanmar diaspora communities.
The Senate Committee has provided Australia with a clear policy blueprint to address the crisis in Myanmar. The question now is whether the Australian Government will act with the urgency this moment demands.
Myanmar’s people continue to resist extraordinary violence in their pursuit of democracy and human rights. Australia must not contribute, directly or indirectly, to the gradual normalisation of military rule through diplomatic ambiguity or delayed action.
Australia must take a clear stand with the people of Myanmar by strongly rejecting the military junta’s attempts at legitimacy and enacting additional sanctions to stop the flow of funds to the regime.