Bob Carr (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the question; it is a serious question. The answer is no. Indeed, I would have liked, during the period when we were campaigning for votes for the Security Council seat, to have been able to have said: 'We will not oppose the bid signalled by the Palestinian delegation.' I would have liked to have been able to say that.

In September, we received a letter from the Palestinian delegation, indicating they were disposed or they were planning to make a bid for increased non-state status. We did not reply to that letter. At a meeting in New York, at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, in September, between me and the Gulf Cooperation Council—a large number of Arab nations—the foreign minister of Oman asked me what would be the Australian response to the Palestinian bid. My reply was, 'We won't make a decision until we see the wording of the draft resolution.' Let me say, uninhibitedly, that the job I had of lobbying for a vote would have been easier if I had been charged with the possibility of saying: 'We are committed not to oppose the Palestinian bid that is expected in November.' But we did not say that. I did not say that. I would have liked to have been able to say it. I could not say it, because it was not our position. On that one occasion, as I said, when the matter came up at a meeting between me and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, my reply was—disappointing to my interlocutors, I am sure—'We would need to wait until we see the wording of the motion.' We won that bid, without having made a commitment anywhere that we would 'not oppose' the— (Time expired)