Motions

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. A. Piccolo (resumed on motion).

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (19:48): As I was saying in closing my remarks, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and I were having discussions about what potential amendments could be moved. I have circulated an amendment to be moved in my name, as follows. I move:

In paragraph (a)(ii) delete the word 'current'; and

In paragraph (c)(i) delete the word 'is' and insert the word 'when', and delete the word 'and' and insert the word 'is'; and

In paragraph (c)(ii) delete the word 'has' and insert the word 'have'.

I want to restate to the house that the government's position on Israel is unchanged. The events of 7 October that were perpetrated by Hamas are condemned. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.

What we are doing here today is what the United Nations in 1977 declared would be an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, and we are celebrating that day. The government's view is that that day needs to be commemorated. Members have made remarks; those remarks are their own and they are heartfelt. The government does not wish and is not attempting to combine the two events.

This is a standalone motion regarding the 1977 declaration by the United Nations on Palestine and Palestinian people. I do not want people to confuse what we are saying today. Palestinian people deserve recognition, they deserve support, they deserve their time to be recognised. I stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, as declared by the United Nations in 1977, and I commend the amendments to the house.

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (19:50): There are a number of amendments that have come through on this motion and all I would say is that the original motion that the Hon. Tony Piccolo has put down first and then some more amendments from the member for West Torrens that I have just heard are all valid. I am not here to pick winners and I am not here to choose which one we should be following.

All I will say is that I have been privileged enough to have been given a speech that has been heard outside this chamber that sits in the ownership of the Hon. Connie Bonaros. I am going to read it out word for word and, as I do, apparently the words I use are 'and I quote' when I start and obviously the quote is finished.

It is a good speech. I like the speech. I have read it two or three times and I think it is very valid and crosses all prescriptions. What is important here in my limited knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian land ownership of a home, a destination of a country and peoples is that if there is no harmony there will be no life there for anyone. That has certainly been proven the case over decades now and particularly just recently when this conflict started in an abhorrent way where there has been massive death. The Hon. Connie Bonaros stated, and I quote:

It has been 53 days since the Hamas attack in Israel.

Sadly, it is civilians—from both sides—who have paid the price.

1,200 Israelis who were massacred on 7 October have paid with their lives, as have almost 15,000 Palestinians, including 6,150 innocent children and over 4,000 women.

As we here today know only too well, Palestinian people, innocent children, have paid with their lives for [more than] 75 years.

On 24 September, the Israeli Prime Minister displayed a map to the General Assembly titled 'the new Middle East' in which Palestine was erased and replaced entirely with Israel.

It is clear the world is witnessing a new, horrific chapter in the ongoing Nakba that the Palestinians have been suffering since 1948.

I have seen it referred to—in many [famous] forums—as a 'conflict'.

Let us be very clear—the Israeli occupation of Palestine is not a conflict or war.

It is not a conflict—it is an occupation.

And that is why context matters.

Language matters.

What plagues many of us most about it is—what we are actually doing in response here in South Australia and Australia?

Because it seems to me the political response does not represent what Australians are really feeling.

A recent Roy Morgan poll revealed a significant disconnect between politicians and public sentiment.

Only 32.6% of Australians surveyed supported the continued presence of Israel's army in Gaza.

A mere 24.7% aligned with the Australian government's stance on a ceasefire.

A substantial 56.1% of Australians advocate for an immediate ceasefire.

These numbers should deeply concern each and every politician who has been sitting on the sidelines.

Perhaps most notably, 84.6% of surveyed Australian's expressed their profound concern about civilian casualties in Gaza.

While doctors in Gaza are operating on children, on injured men and women in open air, without medical care, without food, water, electricity, cutting into their bodies without anaesthetics, pleading for a pause knowing only too well more bodies will need to be sewn back together tomorrow, we here are tying ourselves in political knots over carefully crafted motions that are ultimately approved by those higher up and well beyond South Australian borders introduced into parliament so as not to offend.

Our first instinct as a state and as a nation was to light up the city in the Israeli colours and ask for forgiveness from our Palestinian brothers and sisters later.

Behind closed doors we make pledges of moving another motion to level the playing field that is less contentious.

We say we know they aren't to blame for the atrocities of Hamas—a declared terrorist organisation—but we continue to resist calls to light up the city in Palestinian colours to acknowledge the decimation of their lands, their people and their race.

The phone calls from Canberra—that is what we worry about while innocent children are killed.

Why? We know why, we're just afraid to voice it.

I don't want to be one of those politicians.

I just want to finish by acknowledging that criticism of Israeli human rights violations is not anti-Semitic, just as criticism of Saudi violations is not Islamophobic, criticism of Myanmar violations in not anti-Buddhist, criticism of Indian violations is not anti-Hindu.

The many demonstrations all over the world have made it clear the Jewish people are not represented by Israel.

Jewish protestors have stood alongside their Muslim and Christian brothers and sisters calling for a ceasefire and the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid.

People of all faiths and nationalities are standing up to speak for the Palestinian people in calling for equal rights for all.

The life of a Palestinian child carries equal weight to the life of an Israeli child.

I am here today to assure you I will always use the privileged platform to fight for human rights for all but above all to ensure your voice is heard in that fight.

I have the privilege of saying a few words in the sense that obviously peace is the ultimate outcome. The civilisations of the two living in harmony would be an outcome that has not been seen for probably getting close to 80-odd years. As these atrocities continue to play out and the lands are occupied by one or the other, until there is a collaborative approach, where both the civilisations—the Palestinians and the Israelis—find a way to live in peace, we will be talking about this in years to come.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (19:57): I would like to thank both the member for West Torrens and the member for MacKillop for their words. In conclusion, I would like to reaffirm what the member for West Torrens has said, that this motion is not necessarily about the current conflict. It is very clear: this motion is about what the United Nations said in 1977 and why it said that, why that committee was set up, why the recommendations came there. If you like, in my understanding what the member for Morialta talked about we actually did deal with five or six weeks ago in this chamber. We did that. All of us did that. I was in this chamber and I stood up with every other member and supported that motion.

It was not easy for me to do that, given some of the language of that motion, but I thought, 'I am not going to play politics. I will do the right thing.' That motion was about that particular incident on 7 October, and today I have reaffirmed that that was a horrific time for the Israeli people. I have acknowledged that in my speech today.

What today is about, though, is the greater context, the history of Palestine and the Palestinian people, and what the Palestinian people and the Muslim people and other people in this community are feeling: as if that history has been erased. That history has not been erased for them. They still experience it. There are two things I have read recently in some papers locally that made me think about this.

One was a story about a woman who is now in Gaza going through the horrors of what is happening in Gaza today. She was in Palestine when she was three years old, when Israel was created, and her family were pushed out of Israel. She is reliving the Nakba for the second time in her life. She has been in a refugee camp for 70 something years. She has raised a family in the refugee camp and now she has been displaced again. She and her family have been displaced again, twice in a lifetime. That is what this motion is about: to acknowledge the experience of the Palestinian people for that time.

The other story I heard really did move me. I do not have anybody in Palestine, any family member, so I am not directly involved, but one story that I say almost traumatised me is when I heard that families in Palestine today, in Gaza in particular, were writing their children's names on their limbs in case they were killed, so that they could be identified. My God, what sort of world do we live in when parents are forced to write their children's names on their limbs in case they get bombed and killed, so that they can be identified? I am sorry, that is not a fate which I support.

This is not a war between Islam and a war between Judaism. Palestinians are a multifaith group: there are Christians, there are orthodox, there are a whole range of different people. That is why this motion needs to stand as it is because it provides that context and that understanding. In doing so, I do not in any way diminish the pain and the grief of the Israeli people on 7 October, nor the grief they are still experiencing today because their family members are abducted. That is inhumanity in its worst example.

But, I am sorry, I cannot accept that you can bomb refugee camps, you can bomb schools and you can bomb hospitals where women are giving birth to children and say that is okay. I am sorry, I cannot accept that, and there is no justification. My plea to this chamber is that, in the same way that we stood together, five or six weeks ago—and I was one of them, doing it together for that motion as we do today—and bring some healing to this community by doing that.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): The question before the Chair is that the amendment moved by the member for Morialta be agreed to.

The house divided on the amendment:

Ayes 11

Noes 23

Majority 12

AYES

NOES

PAIRS

Amendment thus negatived.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): The question before the Chair is that the amendment moved by the member for West Torrens be agreed to.

Amendment carried; motion as amended carried.