Barnaby Joyce and the Greens have formed an unlikely alliance over US plans to livestream an execution.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last Thursday that the public will be able to watch the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan on December 3.

Hasan faces the death penalty for killing 13 people and injuring another 32 at the Texas military base in 2009.

It will be the first US military execution in 65 years, the first known execution by firing squad in the country since World War II and the first time a lawful killing has ever been broadcast. The decision to livestream it has been condemned around the world.

On Monday, One Nation MP Joyce said the death penalty in the US was “a discussion for the American people to have”. But he didn’t agree with it being a theatre event.

“This is Roman amphitheatre stuff,” Joyce said.

“I don’t agree with that … we don’t have the death penalty in Australia, and I certainly don’t want any children, or anybody to be honest, to witness another human being, being shot by a firing squad.”

Greens communications spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young Hanson-Young said earlier on Monday that the stream should be banned in Australia and tech platforms punished if they show it.

She has written to the eSafety Commissioner and Communications Minister Anika Wells requesting efforts be made to block access to the livestream in Australia.

“Inaction on this will jeopardise millions of Australians’ online safety and expose both adults and children to this harmful content,” Hanson-Young wrote.

Labor minister Daniel Mulino welcomed previous efforts to protect social media users from harmful content but raised questions about how to target the execution livestream itself.

“We need to walk a fine line with social media between imposing protections where appropriate and making sure that people have the freedom to express themselves,” he told the ABC.

“This is a a difficult balance at times.”

Liberal leader Angus Taylor has refused to comment directly, declaring it a matter for the United States.

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson told the ABC it was “enormously problematic” to tolerate violent content but raised concerns over censorship impacting the internet more broadly.

New Zealand is also looking at ways to blocking the livestream. A spokesperson for the NZ Classification Office said it and all other bodies were powerless to block access to a livestream event as it happened.

Whether the broadcast will proceed at all remains unclear after US Vice President JD Vance poured cold water on the announcement on Friday.

“This is a guy who committed, in my view, the worst terrorist attack on American soil outside of 9/11,” Vance said, but added that if the execution was broadcast live, “I’m not going to be watching it”.

President Donald Trump has said he supports the death penalty for Hasan but has left it uncertain whether it will be publicly broadcast.

“They are making a determination about that, but he will be killed,” Trump said. “I really don’t care how he goes, as long as he goes.”

Republican lawmakers and a leader of the US Catholic church have criticised the move.

-with AAP