Elizabeth Watson-Brown asks whether Australia will sanction Israel like it has Russia:

Your government has placed over 14,000 sanctions against Russian individuals and entities. As well as sanctioning trade with Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. Netanyahu’s genocidal assault on Palestine now means that more than two people that 2 million people are at risk of starvation, will you commit to applying equivalent sanctions to Israel as you imposed on Russia?

 

Anthony Albanese takes a breath and then gets up:

I thank the member for her question and of course you do not sanction a state, you sanction individuals and my government has sanctioned individuals, we have sanctioned the Minister for national security and we have sanctioned the Minister for Finance.

We have done so in part to some of the comments that have been made by them as ministers, people who were on the fringes of the Israeli politics but are now a part of the Netanyahu government.

The Minister for national security said this on the 27 July: ‘The only thing that should be sending to Gaza shells to bomb, conquer, immigration and win the war’.

That is what they had to say. The range of comments that have been made including by a soldier who killed a young Palestinian boy are reprehensible, the comments of the Minister for Finance were, he said ‘Gaza will be totally destroyed, the  Palestinian population will leave in great numbers to third countries’.

On the 6 May he said… ‘We need to eliminate the problem of Gaza’. The 5 February he said,’ we have to work to promptly bury the dangerous idea of a Palestinian state’.

We do not take … these issues lightly. And what we do not do also is try to secure some domestic political advantage and damage social cohesion in this country. Through some of the actions which frankly some of the Greens political party actions have done.

What we do is act in principle why in a way is consistent.

We condemn Hamas for their actions and we condemn what is occurring in Gaza in breach of international law. (By who?  Who is breaching international law in Gaza? Is it Israel?!)

That is the way that responsible adult governments act, it is a way that middle powers can have influence. That is the way we can have a constructive role and what I want to see which is an and to killing whether it is of Israelis or Palestinians.

And I want to see the creation of a two state solution where both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and prosperity and security and will continue to work with other leaders around the world of like-minded countries with the objective of that.

I do say that Australians want to see, they want innocent people to stop losing their lives, the second thing they want and I say this directly to the member at her party, is they do not want conflict brought here in order to secure some sort of Potters and political advantage and they also do not want the agency of those people who are responsible for wrongdoing to be dismissed by suggestions which are said simply untrue and to gain a short-term domestic political advantage. (I think he is referring to the outrageous claim by Israel repeated in the Australian press that there is no starvation happening in Gaza)

I’m a friend of Israel and I’m a friend of the Palestinian people. That overwhelmingly has been the position of Australia for a long period of time. With our bipartisan support for a two state solution, I will continue to do what I can as Australia’s prime minister to achieve that.

 

OK, but we have all moved beyond the ‘political gain’ argument here.  There is nothing to gain from calling for action against a genocide.  There is something to gain from seeing your government properly stand up against one though.