As put by Greens Leader Adam Bandt:
Despicably, Labor and Liberal joined together to vote against recognising the state of Palestine. This is a shameful act, and it’s cowardly from a Labor Party that went to the election promising to recognise Palestine. Labor has broken an election promise and failed to do what over 140 other countries around the world have done, and that is recognise Palestine. People want Labor to act. People want Labor to put pressure on the extremist Netanyahu government that is carrying out a genocide and instead, today, Labor despicably joined with the Liberals to refuse to recognise the state of Palestine. I pay tribute to one Senator, Senator Payman, who had the courage to do the right thing.
What Senator Payman’s action shows is that every Labor MP who said they care about the plight of Palestinians are utterly cowardly and full of nothing but hollow words. If Senator Payman can cross the floor, to vote to recognise Palestine, then why can’t Peter Khalil or Ged Kearney, or Justine Elliot, or Graham Perrett or Jim Chalmers? All of them represent communities that want to see peace and want to see an end to the invasion and yet they have refused to use the one thing that they’ve got in this Parliament which is their vote. Senator Payman’s courageous actions now show up every Labor MP who has refused to cross the floor and to vote to do the right thing.
As put by Senator Mehreen Faruqi:
Today, I moved a simple Greens motion, calling for a fundamental act of justice to recognise Palestine, and I’m so proud and pleased of my friend Senator Payman who had the courage, the conviction and the principle to support this motion and cross the floor – that showed real moral courage. The rest of Labor, I have to say, completely and utterly failed this moral test. All they tried to do was water down the motion, which was calling to recognise Palestine, which is Labor policy. They used Senate tactics left, right and center to avoid taking a position on this motion. Labor wants to have it both ways. Labor does not want any accountability on Palestine, but the communities can see right through it. The communities can see what the Greens are doing. And the community has also seen what Senator Payman has done today. Labor needs to develop a backbone and actually take some action on Palestine. They need to look at their own Senator and find some inner courage and get rid of the cowardly act of staying silent and doing absolutely zero to stop the genocide, or to push for justice for Palestine or to put an end to apartheid and occupation.
