Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. In fact, I think there has probably not been a more important suspension of standing orders motion that I have spoken on than this one. It is so important that we immediately correct what has gone on in the House with the previous motion. What we have now is a very untidy circumstance, where we have one motion that has been passed in this House that recognises a Palestinian state without conditions, and we have another motion that was passed in the Senate which reflects the work of my friend the Manager of Opposition Business in adding these amendments. I would jealously defend the rights of this House, but we need to think about who is putting this motion together in the Senate.

The Leader of the Government in the Senate is the foreign minister. The Leader of the Opposition in the Senate is the shadow foreign minister. Together, they worked on this motion and put together a series of conditions which reflect, more or less, a traditional Australian foreign policy position on Israel-Palestine. Without these conditions we're seeing what I spoke about in the previous debate, which is a growing gulf between the government and the opposition in relation to Israel and in relation to the Jewish community. As a Jewish Australian I decry that.

I would like to see a bipartisan position in relation to Israel and Palestine. The position that we on this side of the House have held on these issues has reflected the longstanding tradition of bipartisanship on these issues. Fundamentally, that is that you can't have a Palestinian state without Palestinians recognising Israel's right to exist, and that is the first condition that's in this motion put forward by my friend the Manager of Opposition Business. This motion clarifies that there should be no role for Hamas in a future Palestinian state. This motion also acknowledges the realities on the ground; people might like the idea of a Palestinian state, but we have a Palestinian authority in the West Bank that has not had an election for decades. And we know that if an election were held there, Hamas would win that election, so we would have the same issues there. The basic conditions of a stable state are not able to be met, and that's why it's important that we have points in the amendment that relate to the reform of the Palestinian Authority being achieved, including major security and governance reforms. It's important that we have agreed processes to resolve final status issues, including state borders and rights of return; these should be spelled out as a clear condition of Australian foreign policy. And there should be appropriate security guarantees between parties to ensure peace and security between recognised borders.

This very same motion, the motion put forward by my friend the Manager of Opposition Business, was put forward only last Tuesday in the Senate. It beggars belief that the foreign minister's own assistant minister didn't come to the House, if they wanted to move this motion, and have as the starting point the same motion that was handed out in the Senate. This speaks to me of a motion that was dreamed up on the back of an envelope five minutes before the assistant minister came into the House. I think on an issue of such sensitivity, that is a great shame.

I think that the tensions in the community at this point on these issues are completely unprecedented. The antisemitism that I have seen and, indeed, the failure of people in authority to do anything about antisemitism have created a massive sense of abandonment among Jewish Australians. I have to say that I have been very disappointed this government hasn't taken up the offer of a judicial inquiry into antisemitism on campuses. There's also no evidence that this government has provided any directions to the Australian Federal Police to take a tougher line on antisemitism. There was lots of talk about doxxing laws as a result of the doxxing of Jewish artists and creatives. We've seen nothing on that. There has been lots of talk from this government about an envoy on antisemitism. Again, months have passed, and we've seen nothing. There's been talk about strengthening laws, and, again and again, we've seen nothing. We just get motions and empty words.

I think the motion that was just passed, without these clear conditions, undermines social cohesion in this country. It undermines an attempt to get bipartisanship on this issue, and that's why I say to those opposite that it is actually worthwhile thinking about supporting this motion—if nothing else, to bring the House into line with the Senate, the place where the two principal spokespeople for foreign policy for the government and the opposition sat and hammered out these words only a week ago.

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