Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the outset, I seek leave to table a petitioning document which is not in the correct form.

Leave granted.

The petitioning document was handed to me at a rally in Brisbane some time back with the request that I table it in the Senate, so I have done so. It does not necessarily mean that I agree with the precise wording within the petitioning document, but I think it is important that people’s views are represented. Nonetheless, I would say that I have a lot of sympathy for some of the concerns expressed in that petition. It specifically goes to the situation facing many people in Palestine, and particularly in the Gaza Strip, at the moment. The rally in question at which I received that petition was focused mainly on the conflict in Lebanon, which was getting a lot of media and public attention at the time, but which of course had actually been preceded by a significant escalation in conflict in the Gaza Strip.

The situation in Lebanon has thankfully settled down somewhat. Although there is an enormous amount of reconstruction and repair to be done to fix up the damage, there is at least movement forward. But there has been little progress in Gaza and, unfortunately, there is not much public attention on and media coverage of what is happening there. No doubt that is not unrelated to the fact that there is very little by way of independent media or media in general in Gaza compared to that in Lebanon. It is probably quite appropriate to make that observation, as we have been debating media legislation for the last few days. It reinforces how influential media coverage can be. The very fact of being able to have a steady stream of pictures, television footage, live coverage and interviews with people being directly affected clearly played a great role in the situation in Lebanon being one of major concern to many people. It is much harder to have concern shown about what is happening in Gaza, because the pictures are not there and it is not immediately on people’s TV screens each night. But the fact that it is not on the TV screens does not in any way mean that the suffering is not real. In many ways, I think the situation in Gaza is more dire than what was occurring in Lebanon, because the people of the Gaza region were already in a much more dire situation.

I really want to take the opportunity to call on the Australian government to do more to try to resolve this situation. Many of us in the political arena are sometimes reticent to get too heavily engaged in public commentary about issues surrounding Israel and Palestine, because it is such a sensitive area, such a complex area. When any concern is raised, almost immediately there is a counter-concern or an allegation that this other action was done previously and people are not taking that into account. Of course, the history stems back many decades now. The complexity and sensitivity of the issue should not blind us to the fact that there is very real and very serious suffering occurring right now and that it is occurring as a direct consequence of the actions of the Israeli government.

I am one of those people who think it is quite feasible to be supportive of people in Israel and people in Palestine at the same time, but certainly in this case, whilst I am supportive of the people in Israel, I do have grave concerns about the actions of the Israeli government with regard to the Gaza Strip. The action of deliberately disabling power stations is something that I do not think can be justified. I think it is a clear violation of international humanitarian law. I do not think it is an adequate response to simply say that Hamas violates international law in other respects. That may well be the case, but there is no doubt who has the much greater power here, and that is the Israeli government. There is no doubt that the number of civilian people who are suffering directly as a consequence of these actions of the Israeli government is much larger than any counterclaim that may be made.

We do need to move towards a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as this petition says, and I believe that we do need to have a much clearer recognition of the fact that some of the actions of the Israeli government are in clear violation of international standards. I might say on top of that that it is simply a reality that the actions that are occurring are not moving things towards peace. They are clearly moving things in the other direction. For me, that is perhaps the most important benchmark of all. I am not sure whether it is helpful in this context to speculate what actually is the intent of the actions that are occurring, but the consequence of those actions is entrenching the conflict even further and making further conflict and further violence almost inevitable. That is obviously not in the interests of the people of the region in particular.

In the modern era it is also an unfortunate fact that the ripple effects of these sorts of things reach out much more widely and there is much more prospect of creating a situation where we are much more at risk of being subjected to ‘blowback’—to use an American term—as a result of the situation there. I think that makes it much more a matter of direct interest to the Australian people and to the Australian government. So, whilst I do not suggest that I in any way have the solution for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict—I am not sure anyone has that solution—I do think that the escalation of the suffering in the Gaza region has got to a stage where we need to make stronger statements than would have occurred in the past. We do need to urge more immediate action to start reducing the pressure and the suffering that is being inflicted on the entire Palestinian population in the Gaza area. If that is not done, it will further entrench the probability of ongoing conflict not only in the immediate Israel-Palestine area but much more widely in that region. That is a counterproductive situation and it is one that we need to speak out more strongly against.