Exclusive: Labor Friends of Palestine and Labor Against War ramp up internal pressure on Albanese government over major foreign policy positionsElection 2025 live updates: Australia federal election campaignPolls tracker; election guide; full federal election coverageAnywhere but Canberra; interactive electorates guideListen to the first episode of our new narrative podcast series: GinaGet our afternoon election email, free app or daily news podcastGrassroots Labor members are ramping up internal pressure on the government over its positions on the Middle East and Aukus, urging Anthony Albanese to make two major foreign policy shifts if he wins a second term.Labor Friends of Palestine is making a fresh call for a re-elected Albanese government to impose sanctions on Israel, while the Labor Against War group wants it to “sink” the agreement to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter Continue reading…Exclusive: Labor Friends of Palestine and Labor Against War ramp up internal pressure on Albanese government over major foreign policy positionsElection 2025 live updates: Australia federal election campaignPolls tracker; election guide; full federal election coverageAnywhere but Canberra; interactive electorates guideListen to the first episode of our new narrative podcast series: GinaGet our afternoon election email, free app or daily news podcastGrassroots Labor members are ramping up internal pressure on the government over its positions on the Middle East and Aukus, urging Anthony Albanese to make two major foreign policy shifts if he wins a second term.Labor Friends of Palestine is making a fresh call for a re-elected Albanese government to impose sanctions on Israel, while the Labor Against War group wants it to “sink” the agreement to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter Continue reading…
Grassroots Labor members are ramping up internal pressure on the government over its positions on the Middle East and Aukus, urging Anthony Albanese to make two major foreign policy shifts if he wins a second term.
Labor Friends of Palestine is making a fresh call for a re-elected Albanese government to impose sanctions on Israel, while the Labor Against War group wants it to “sink” the agreement to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
But the government is standing firm on both fronts, exposing a divide between sections of the Labor membership and the federal parliamentary wing.
As the Gaza war has raged, Labor’s pro-Palestine lobby has been pressuring the federal government to take a tougher stance on Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government and to recognise Palestinian statehood – in line with the party’s own national platform.
In a statement to be released on Wednesday, the group acknowledged the steps the government has already taken, including supporting a UN resolution for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza” and backing the aid agency Unrwa.
But it said the actions “fell far short” of what Labor branches and state conferences have called for.
It made three requests of a second-term Albanese government, including that it condemns Israel’s “genocidal war” in Gaza and the occupation in the West Bank; imposes sanctions on Israel until it ends the occupation of the Palestinian territories; and ends military cooperation with Israel.
“The many rank-and-file and branch supporters of Labor Friends of Palestine are working hard to stop [Peter] Dutton and re-elect the Labor government,” the statement read. “We do so with the legitimate expectation that Labor can and must do better.”
The question of Palestinian statehood ignited tensions inside the Albanese government in the last parliament, culminating in Senator Fatima Payman quitting the party.
The prime minister last week reiterated the government’s support for a two-state solution but suggested Hamas’s ongoing presence in Gaza meant it wasn’t the right time to recognise Palestine.
“Who do you recognise at the moment? Quite clearly, we need to acknowledge that Hamas can have no role in a Palestinian state,” he said. “That is my position.”
In a lengthy statement responding to Labor Friends of Palestine’s requests, a spokesperson for the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said Australia had worked with partners to “press Israel to abide by its obligations”.
“We’ve been clear with Israel that Palestinian civilians cannot pay the price of defeating Hamas,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the government had been firm that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories were illegal and a barrier to peace. They said Australia had not supplied weapons to Israel for at least the past five years.
Payman, who is now leading her own party, Australia’s Voice, said Labor would be sending a message to members that “you do not matter” if it didn’t recognise Palestine in a second term.
Aukus has also divided the Labor movement, with party elders including Paul Keating joining grassroots members in railing against a security pact that deepens Australia’s military ties with the US.
Calls for Labor to rethink or abandon Aukus have grown louder since Donald Trump’s US election win in November.
Last month Labor Against War wrote to Labor MPs and candidates with a series of questions about Aukus, including whether they would lobby internally for the government to withdraw from the deal.
In a letter to the group, the defence minister, Richard Marles, noted a position in support of Aukus was agreed at Labor’s 2023 national conference.
“Aukus presents an important opportunity to meet global security challenges and contribute to stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond,” Marles wrote in a letter seen by Guardian Australia.
Responding to some of the other questions raised in the group’s letter, Marles rejected suggestions of any “secret political commitments” in a revised Aukus treaty and confirmed no decision had been made about a future east coast submarine base.
In a statement to Guardian Australia, Labor Against War’s convener, Marcus Strom, said internal resistance to Aukus was mounting “day by day”.
“ALP members – including LAW supporters – are out wearing down shoe leather to ensure Dutton is defeated and Albanese is returned for a second term,” he said.
“But with Aukus falling apart and Trump trashing trade globally, we will insist that a returned ALP government sink Aukus and put it on the pile of bad Scott Morrison ideas, which we should have done in 2022.”
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