John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a brief personal explanation as I claim to have been misrepresented.

Leave granted.

I thank you, Mr Deputy President, and I thank the Senate. In last Saturday's Weekend Australian, on page 14, Gerard Henderson wrote an article entitled 'Occupied' East Jerusalem stunt confuses fact and fiction'. He wrote:

JUNE 4 in the Senate foreign affairs and trade estimates committee resembled the Labor-Greens alliance of recent memory. Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon tagged with Labor's Sam Dastyari and John Faulkner with help from independent senator Nick Xenophon to confront Attorney-General George Brandis on Israel.

The article went on:

Despite the evident support given to Rhiannon by Dastyari, Faulkner and Xenophon, there is no evidence to suggest that any Australian government minister has referred to 'occupied East Jerusalem'.

Mr Henderson backed up these claims yesterday on the ABC's Insiders program when he said:

This was a political strike by Lee Rhiannon. I'm surprised she got the support of Labor Senators Sam Dastyari and John Faulkner... and also Nick Xenophon.

There is simply no truth to these claims in relation to me. Of course I cannot and will not speak for others. But I did not tag with Senator Rhiannon or anyone else. I did not support, nor for that matter did I fail to support, Senator Rhiannon. I did not engage in any substantive way in the committee's deliberations on that issue.

The fact is I had no idea that either Senator Xenophon or Senator Rhiannon would raise this issue at estimates. None. And I played virtually no role in the matter as the record shows. An objective examination of the committee Hansard, pages 107 to 119, records that on 4 June: I raised a number of committee process issues. Those brief contributions were supported by Senator Brandis, and I did utter a couple of jibes about Communist Party affiliations and former US Senator Joseph McCarthy, which I accepted, along with what other senators were saying about those matters, had no relevance to the hearing.

On the substantive subject of Mr Henderson's article, 'Occupied' East Jerusalem stunt confuses fact and fiction', I made only one very brief intervention. That intervention appears on page 118 of the Hansard. It is a most unremarkable comment, as was Senator Brandis' response agreeing with me! Let me quote it:

Senator FAULKNER: It wouldn't be a proper noun if it didn't have an upper case O, would it?

Senator Brandis: Quite right, Senator Faulkner.

Then he went on to address Senator Rhiannon. I urge anyone interested, if there is anyone who is interested, to read the committee Hansard of 4 June and also pages 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the transcript of the proceedings of Thursday, 5 June. There is no doubt Mr Henderson's comments about my role at the committee on this issue are wrong and quite misleading. I spoke to Mr Henderson this morning, as is my practice before I make a personal explanation in the Senate chamber, and I believe that he now accepts that this is the case, and I am confident that he will ensure that the inaccuracies in the article are corrected. For the record, I have consistently supported Labor's policy and platform for an enduring and just two state solution for Israel and Palestine.