Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Saturday, 4 November, a former member of this place who represented the Fremantle electorate, Melissa Parke, was awarded the 2022 Jerusalem Peace Prize at a ceremony held at Melbourne Town Hall. The award recognises the long-standing contribution that Melissa has made in seeking justice and fairness for the Palestinian people. In doing so, Melissa has been the subject of ongoing personal attacks in the media and in political commentary, but she has never wavered from her convictions.

Melissa had previously spent time in Palestine working for the UN and saw first-hand the daily hardships, violence and repression of Palestinian people and the ruthless incursion of Israeli settlements into their land. Almost daily, new reports of violations against Palestinian people are exposed, and all too often the victims are children. There is also the case of Mohammed El-Halabi, a World Vision aid worker who earlier this year was sentenced by an Israeli court to 12 years imprisonment on charges that World Vision found no evidence to support in a trial where procedural fairness and transparency did not meet international standards. That is a glaring example.

I congratulate Melissa on being awarded the Jerusalem Peace Prize, and I commend her for her ongoing human rights work throughout the world.