Senator Fatima Payman’s riveting conversation with David Speers on Sunday’s ABC Insiders program was powerful, erudite, compassionate and completely in line with Labor Party policy on Palestine.
With her call for the party to recognise Palestine and take action to stop the massacres, the genocide and the forced starvation that is currently taking place in Gaza, she also raised the important issue of the multicultural nature of the current government and she called on the government to listen to these multicultural voices. Clearly they are not. Does the power still lie in the hands of three white middle class males and one woman, Penny Wong who together last Sunday expelled Senator Payman from the Labor Caucus?
It seems that this government is well and truly out of step, not only with Labor rank and file, but also significantly with the Australian multicultural community, whose votes and presence in Parliament are important. The government lauds the importance of this community and is proud to have so many members of this community in the Government so long as they tow the party line and put their consciences on hold. But this government is also ignoring one of its most important backers, and also its partner, The ACTU and the national union movement that it represents.
Many unionists have been regularly attending rallies across Australia calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and for justice and recognition of Palestine. The NSW branches of the Australian Nurses and Midwives Association has passed motions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and for recognition of Palestine as a state. Numerous bodies such as Unionist for Palestine, Union Students for Palestine, Labor Friends of Palestine and Arabic Friends of Labor, the Jewish Council of Australia, among others are joining a chorus of voices asking the government to take action and join those nations that are isolating Israel and implementing sanctions against that rogue and extremist nation that continues to kill and massacre and starve Palestinians with impunity.
It is important to repeat this ACTU message calling on the government to take action. In April of this year, the organisation released a significant statement on its position on Gaza. In that media release the ACTU “called on the Australian Government to take immediate steps to secure peace by:
1. Using all influence, pressure, and diplomatic measures to achieve a permanent ceasefire.
2. Ending all military trade with Israel
3. Enacting targeted sanctions on Israeli officials who have called for the denial of aid, and military and civil servants denying essential food and materials to civilians of Gaza.
4. Committing additional funding of $100 million in humanitarian assistance to Gaza and the West Bank.”
The statement went on to call for “an end to the occupation of Palestine and a just and sustainable peace in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions. Including the removal of illegal settlements, the withdrawal of Israel from all Palestinian lands along with the dismantling of the separation wall. In line with the ACTU’s commitment to a two-state solution with the security of borders for both nations, we call on all countries to recognise, without delay, Palestine as a sovereign state with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Similar statements have been made by the Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) in March calling “on the international community, including Israel, to allow for medical supplies and aid to enter Palestine and for healthcare workers to be afforded the right to do their job effectively and safely”. HACSU went on to state that:
“There needs to be the immediate recognition of the state of Palestine—which is in line with Labor Party policy—and an end to Israeli settlements that are contrary to international law and an impediment to a sustainable peace”.
And on the 21st of May at a delegates meeting of the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association, the committee, among other resolutions, called on the Federal Government to “Do more to compel Israel to enact an immediate ceasefire to allow aid to flow, and to implement sanctions immediately against Israel if it does on enact the above and to cease all military trade with Israel.” They also called on the government to endorse the ICC jurisdiction processes.
Clearly the ALP federal government is not listening and its silence on this matter is deafening and frankly we are tired and angry by this deafness.
Yes, both the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have made statements calling for a ceasefire but that has not been followed by any action at all which is why so many people across Australia are angry and disgusted with this Government. And it is why they support Senator Payman. Yes, she may have broken party rules but she is driven by a higher order than rules and conventions, she is driven by her conscience.
Senator Payman is also driven by her knowledge of the horrors of war and her knowledge of the unimaginable horror of the large number of those killed and wounded in Gaza, the complete and deliberate destruction of all infrastructure and hospitals, housing, of schools and universities and of the unbelievable cruelty of starving an entire two million people. She is driven by her knowledge of the unbelievable cruelty and barbarity of an unleashed and uncontrolled military that tortures Palestinians by telling them to move to one safe place and then bombs them in their flimsy tents and does that again and again and again. And still our Prime Minister and Foreign Ministers keep silent at this barbarity. We ask them why?
Senator Payman also knows from her own Afghan history that such oppression, such cruelty, such lack of action and silence in the face of barbarity and genocide by the world community will eventually lead to more extreme parties emerging from the ashes of Gaza as she has witnessed in her own country of origin. If Israel believes that war will bring peace then they have not learnt from the lessons of history. If they believe that by killing so many women and children and humiliating, dehumanising and torturing so many Palestinian men, that they will have peace, then they are sadly mistaken. It is for all of these reasons that our government should be doing much more than just mouthing words calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, they should be working actively and openly for peace, to end the brutal occupation and apartheid in Palestine, and to end the war in Gaza. That is what the ACTU, other unions and hundreds of thousands of Australian citizens, along side Senator Payman are asking them to do.
Helen McCue
Dr Helen McCue AM is a former United Nations consultant, working in the Middle East with refugees and displaced. Dr McCue has been a strong advocate for Palestinian human rights including the rights of Palestinian refugees for over 40 years. She is co-founder of Union Aid Abroad APHEDA and co-founder of Rural Australia for Refugees (RAR). Dr McCue is the 2024 recipient of the Jerusalem Peace Prize.
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