This interview is racing through topics. Next, the treasurer is asked if Australia could recognise a Palestinian state in September when the UN meeting is held. Chalmers says:

I don’t want to put a time frame on it. It’s been a longstanding bipartisan policy that we see a two-state solution in that part of the Middle East. From my point of view, that progress that has been made, that momentum that we are seeing in the international community is welcome but it’s also conditional. T

here are a number of obstacles still in the way to recognition of a Palestinian state. For example, the treatment, the release, of the hostages, making sure that there’s absolutely no role for Hamas. These are the sorts of things that the international community is working through.

But that statement that came out yesterday that we signed as Australians via our Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, is a really important one. It condemns the terrorist act on 7 October. It demands a ceasefire, the release of hostages, and access for humanitarian aid and it encourages countries to work towards recognition as a really important part of that two-state solution. The reason we want to see it a two-state solution is because Israeli families and Palestinian families need and deserve to be able to raise their kids in peace and that’s what this is all about.