The Greens and Payman on their support for the Islamists
2024-06-25
Attributable to Greens Leader AdamBandt:
Despicably, Labor and Liberal joined together to vote againstrecognising the state of Palestine. This is a shameful act, and it's cowardlyfrom 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 othercountries around the world have done, and that is recognise Palestine. Peoplewant Labor to act. People want Labor to put pressure on the extremist Netanyahugovernment that is carrying out a genocide and instead, today, Labor despicablyjoined with the Liberals to refuse to recognise the state of Palestine. I paytribute to one Senator, Senator Payman, who had the courage to do the rightthing.
What Senator Payman's action shows is that every Labor MP who said theycare about the plight of Palestinians are utterly cowardly and full of nothingbut hollow words. If Senator Payman can cross the floor, to vote to recognisePalestine, then why can't Peter Khalil or Ged Kearney, or Justine Elliot, orGraham Perrett or Jim Chalmers? All of them represent communities that want tosee peace and want to see an end to the invasion and yet they have refused touse 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 refusedto cross the floor and to vote to do the right thing.Attributable to Senator Mehreen Faruqi:
Today, I moved a simple Greens motion, calling for a fundamental act ofjustice to recognise Palestine, and I'm so proud and pleased of my friendSenator Payman who had the courage, the conviction and the principle to supportthis motion and cross the floor - that showed real moral courage. The rest ofLabor, I have to say, completely and utterly failed this moral test. All theytried to do was water down the motion, which was calling to recognisePalestine, which is Labor policy. They used Senate tactics left, right andcenter to avoid taking a position on this motion. Labor wants to have it bothways. Labor does not want any accountability on Palestine, but the communitiescan 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 needsto develop a backbone and actually take some action on Palestine. They need tolook at their own Senator and find some inner courage and get rid of thecowardly 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.
