Political pressure on the Albanese Government is growing as more politicians have demanded a permanent ceasefire and Australian diplomatic recognition of the state of Palestine.
317 Australian political leaders, including a large number of serving Labor federal, state and territory MPs, have now joined former Foreign Ministers Bob Carr and Gareth Evans in the movement.
This includes seven members of the ACT Legislative Assembly, two of whom are ministers in the ACT Government. The MLAs are Michael Petterson, Jo Clay, Laura Nuttall, Emma Davidson, Minister Shane Rattenbury, Andrew Braddock and Minister Vanessa Vassarotti.
This represents more than a quarter of the ACT Parliament.
The political leaders calls are made in a statement for current and former elected representatives, instigated by NSW MPs Jenny Leong and Anthony D’Adam, that was first released in late December 2023 with the signatures of 200 political leaders.
It calls out Israeli “domination” of the Palestinian people and the long history of ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses that have marked the establishment and maintenance of the Israeli state.
It further calls for a permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages and for the Albanese government to join 139 nation-states across the globe in recognising the state of Palestine.
Such recognition is enshrined in the Federal Labor platform and these calls from within and without the Labor Party will increase pressure on the Prime Minister to act on his own party’s platform.
In total 37 currently serving state and federal Labor MPs from across Australia have now signed.
These new signatories mean five federal Labor MPs in total have broken ranks and called on their own government to fundamentally change its policy position on Palestine (Maria Vanvakinou, Graham Perrett, Mary Doyle, Louise Pratt and Fatima Payman) and that 22 current members of the Federal Parliament in total have made the same demands.
Further, a total of 86 current state and territory MPs have now joined the call.
