Labor luminary Michael Easson reports on the NSW ALP Conference held on the weekend at Sydney’s Town Hall.
For us, mindful supporters of Israel – and for Australian Jews generally – it was the best Labor conference in at least a decade anywhere in Australia. The NSW Conference leaves every other Labor Conference in the shade, indeed in shame by comparison.
First thing on Sunday morning, the thousand delegates stood for a minute’s respectful silence for the Bondi victims – without protests or stunts. Everyone stood.
Soon thereafter, an Urgency Motion was moved by certain members of the Left to protest the Minns Government’s efforts to introduce legislation to curb protest laws.
After the mover and seconder spoke, they were (verbally) slapped down by Gerard Hayes, the Health Services Union head, and NSW Roads Minister Jenny Aitchison. The irony of noisy demonstrators outside, untrammelled in what they wanted to say, was not lost on delegates. The Urgency Motion was overwhelmingly lost.
There was a heavy police presence outside and inside the Sydney Town Hall conference venue. Of course, it is sad that there was so much heavy security. This is not a healthy sign for democracy or social cohesion. But as they were needed, it was good they were there. Delegates were thankful.
On Saturday morning, as NSW Premier Chris Minns began to walk down the Conference aisle, a couple of ALP observers from the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) unfurled a Palestinian flag with slogans from the upstairs balustrade. Security asked them to withdraw themselves and their flag. They refused. The police took the signage and bundled them out of the building.
As the police did so, the delegates cheered overwhelmingly.
At any other ALP Conference – in Victoria and Queensland, certainly – you would expect grandstanding protests about their removal, the need for democratic rights, etc., but there was not a peep of complaint from anyone.
ALP people are sick of rowdy protests by protesters wanting to rudely defend the right to protest. This is not indicative that delegates now love Israel. They are just sick of the radical Palestinian crowd going too far.
Premier Minns referred to his support for the Jewish people still grieving over Bondi. He also later in his speech to the Conference referred to the need to respect all Australians, including those of Islamic faith.
LIAC Fringe Event
At the Sunday afternoon lunch break, well over a hundred turned up for the Labour Israel Action Committee (LIAC) fringe event on the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. LIAC is an affiliated group within the NSW Labor Party which promotes a two-State solution and a balanced approach to Israel within the labour movement.
The session was organised by Byron Danby, moderated by Dr Marjorie O’Neill, ALP Member for Coogee, with panellists NSW Minister Ron Hoenig; Bondi survivor Simon Sawday, ECAJ official Simone Abel, LIAC spokesperson Dr Mike Kelly, the former Federal Minister, and Savanna Peake, the pro-Zionist former Labor candidate for Wentworth.
One point made is that if you support a two-state solution, you automatically are a Zionist, a supporter of Israel as the indigenous homeland of the Jewish people.
Foreign Policy Report
Just before the end of the Conference, the foreign policy report, now called the Australia and the World Report, was still to be dealt with.
The report’s wording on matters concerning Israel-Palestine was reasonable and sensible. But the issue was whether any problematic amendments might be moved.
Instead, the Conference unanimously resolved without debate to adopt the report.
On Palestinian recognition, the Report noted that Australia’s recognition “remains contingent on commitments from the Palestinian Authority, including reaffirming Israel’s right to exist in peace and security; ensuring Hamas relinquishes its weapons to Palestinian security forces, and never controls Gaza again. And that the Palestinian Authority must demilitarise, hold democratic elections, and undertake comprehensive reforms to governance, finance, and education.”
The Report also had recommendations which condemned Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Conclusion
The NSW ALP Conference is the only one in Australia where we have well-organised friends, including LIAC, Labor Friends of Israel, Jewish ALP members and supporters.
This is also in part due to the common sense of NSW party officers led by NSW ALP General-Secretary Dom Ofner, the Young Labor crowd (who carried last October such a stirring condemnation of antisemitism in the party), and many of the big unions, including the “shoppies” (the SDA) and the health workers (the HSU).
The responsible Left too, played their part.
Thank G-d, a minute’s silence for 15 murdered Australians was not taken as an opportunity to be horrible just because (almost all) the victims were Jewish. It is a very low bar, but NSW Labor easily cleared it. In today’s crazy world, that is not something we can take for granted.
It is more than encouraging that delegates were happy about the restraint on over-reach. Reasonableness is the watchword. It might even be the basis for our social contract that most Australians can get behind. You can be concerned for Gazan suffering but do so in a reasonable way.
This does not mean that the Adelaide National ALP Conference – due in three weeks – will go brilliantly for us. But the constructive reasonableness of NSW Labor last weekend is an example to all.
*Michael Easson has been attending NSW ALP Conferences since 1974. He was the Secretary of the NSW Labor Council (now Unions NSW) and a Vice President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, making him a significant Labor movement figure in the 1980s–90s.