House of Representatives
29 May 2024
I oppose the suspending of standing orders.
This is the wrong motion at the wrong time moved by the wrong people.
The Coalition supports a two-state solution.
But we are opposed to the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.
A Palestinian State should only be recognised by Australia after a peace agreement has been reached with Israel and after negotiations have concluded on the ground.
Key to that recognition is for Palestinian Leaders to recognise Israel inherent right to exist which many of them simply don’t.
The Member for Melbourne’s motion undermines the work of peacemakers on the ground.
And rewards those who would choose violence over negotiation.
What recognition means
This motion coming at this sends the message that Hamas’ violent terrorist acts, its murders, its abductions, its gang rapes, and its dismemberment of innocent children and its torture of hostages could somehow be defendable.
This motion means recognising a Palestinian State when Palestinian Leaders refuses to recognise the right of Israel to exist.
This motion means recognising a Palestinian State when Hamas refuses to release more than 130 Israeli hostages.
This motion means endorsing the protests on universities campuses today who are elevating their right to protest above the right of Jewish students and staff to access their education.
This motion runs contrary to traditional Australian foreign policy principles.
Australia doesn’t recognise countries that have not yet come into existence.
From a historical perspective Australia only recognised the State of Israel in January 1949 after it had come into existence and until it had proved itself able to control its borders and run a state and defend itself.
The Palestinian Authority is not an independent government it was created by the Oslo accords. They have not had an election there for nearly two decades. The PA is regarded as corrupt and incompetent and Fatah who has run the PA since inception would likely lose an election to Hamas.
As we know Hamas which has been the governing authority in Gaza is a listed terrorist organisation in this country. Hamas squandered the aid brought into Gaza spending money on terrorist infrastructure rather than feeding and caring for its people.
Hamas has not demonstrated any capacity to run a State
Hamas leaders like Moussa Abu Marzouk have even said that looking after the welfare of the Palestinian people is the not the responsibility of Hamas that it is the responsibility of UNRWA and Israel!
Greens and antisemitism
This Greens motion amazes me.
Why is it that a party which spends so much of its time talking about the rights of women’s and LGBTI people is so keen to advance the cause of organisations like Hamas which are among the greatest abusers of women, LGBTI people in the world.
The Greens have selective memory that are content to ignore those inconvenient facts.
We should not be surprised by the Greens actions.
This is a party that has a terrible history when it comes to the antisemitism.
A party which has no moral courage and repeatedly fails to stand with our Western liberal democracies against terrorism.
Antisemitism has become a central plank of Green philosophy.
Every time that the Greens have had the chance to stand with the Jewish community in this country and our western liberal democracy.
They have chosen to stand against the Jewish community and have decided to side with terrorists.
This is a party which has failed to acknowledge our ally Israel shared intelligence with Australia saved Australian lives and prevented a major terrorist attack on our soil.
The Greens voted against the bipartisan motion that condemned the 7 October terrorist attacks that passed this House on 16 October – even before Israel had begun its operations in Gaza.
They voted against a bipartisan motion in the Senate last week condemning ani semitic chants at universities.
They refused to condemn Greens MP Jenny Leong for her comments that said Jews have tentacles and that Jews should not be able to participate in the public life of this country.
On Insiders the Greens Leader could not bring himself to clearly say that he thought Hamas is a terrorist organisation.
He kept saying that Hamas is listed by Australia as a terrorist organisation – but when pushed to say whether he would agree that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, he refused to do so.
Similarly, when directly asked whether he supported the idea of a Jewish homeland state, he would not answer.
The real Greens agenda
Many people who vote for the greens think they are a party of environmentalists.
But their actions in this place show that they are more interested in rewarding terrorists than in protecting the environment.
Of the 9 suspensions of standing orders the greens have moved since 7 October. Only 1/3rd relate to the environment. More than 55% relate to issues of middle east politics.
This is not an environmental party.
This is party that is obsessed with Israel and Jews.
This motion is a sign of a dangerous future.
One outcome of the next election is a hung parliament with a Labor Greens coalition.
Given the Greens obsession with Israel they will make support for the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state and the weakening of the Western alliance a price of government.
It is bad enough that Labor foreign policy is made on the floor of their national conference where they sell out one ally – Israel – to placate the Corbynites from attacking AUKUS.
But how much worse would it be if Labor allowed the Greens to dictate our foreign policy as the price of government.
Its time Labor stopped preferencing the Greens on their ballot papers.
This motion must be opposed.
