ABC under fire for pushing ‘environmental lunacy' after claiming heated local swimming pools contributing to rise in emissions
In a piece published on Monday, the ABC took aim at a number of inner city Melbourne councils for continuing to heat public pools and aquatic centres with gas-boilers.
The article said that as 'temperatures plummet in winter' heating community pools 'came at an environmental cost' and that the use of gas-fired boilers were making up as much as half of local councils greenhouse gas emissions.
The ABC chose to expose the City of Darebin and emphasised that its Reservoir Leisure Centre formed 60 per cent of the localities remaining gas use, despite Darebin Council legislating for all council owned buildings to switch to an electric based system by 2030.
Sky News host Caleb Bond slammed the public broadcaster for targeting Melbourne local councils that were taking active steps to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and said that peoples' swimming patterns would not alleviate global warming.
'If a heated swimming pool is the worst of our worries in terms of our emissions, I think we are doing bloody well,' Bond said.
'This stuff is in some way dangerous because it lulls people into thinking that if they made some small adjustment in their life then it is somehow going to make a major difference to the world.
The ABC also interviewed Jim Shen; a 42-year-old local who visits the Darebin Reservoir Leisure Centre on a regular basis with Mr Shen calling on the council to transition its indoor heated pools to 'colder outdoor pools.'
'They found one bloke in this story - Jim Shen - who unsuccessfully ran for his local council under an environmental banner,' Bond said, lashing the ABC's choice of commentary.
Bond accused the ABC of fearmongering and for presenting a one-dimensional narrative that ignored the fact that Australia's contribution to global emissions came in at barely one per cent.
'You not going for a swim in a pool that's heated by gas is also going to do bugger all for the world. But you get to absolve yourself of all guilt, and say I've fixed the problem when you actually haven't,' Bond said.
Darebin Council was the first locality in the world to declare the planet was in the throes of a 'climate emergency' and has also passed an emergency action plan to combat the impact of climate change.
Late Debate host Freya Leach also took aim at the ABC's article and said that climate change would continue to intensify even if all inner-city Melbourne councils switched to a renewable based grid.
'Even if all these local councils went fully renewable it would do absolutely nothing to fix global climate change, it's wild,' Leach said.
'It would do nothing, and it would cost ratepayers millions to refurbish these pools with electric heaters instead of gas boilers, it's another example of environmental lunacy that does nothing to solve the actual problems.
Prominent journalist Joe Hildebrand labelled Darebin the 'hipster Mecca of Melbourne' and said the story was a perfect example of 'gentrification' and 'inner city values being forced on normal people.'
'The leisure centre they are talking about is what outsiders would call a reservoir, what once used to be s rough as guts battler working class area that is now starting to be gentrified,' Hildebrand said.
'This great facility the community has got where you can go for a swim is now under attack by ideologues."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Advertiser
2 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Living in Australia is just less fair than it used to be
Labor has never been in a better position to implement its national policy platform. But will the Albanese government spend the next three years using its thumping majority to lead bold reforms or deliver damp squib solutions? Next week's productivity roundtable will reveal which path the Prime Minister intends to tread, and so far, it looks like all it's set to do is weaken environment laws and delay big tax reforms until after the next election. Between the Treasury advice leaked to the ABC and the Prime Minister ruling out any major tax reforms before the next election, the government poured a bucket of cold water on any real excitement building for the productivity roundtable. And the productivity roundtable has a big job ahead of it. Australia doesn't just have a productivity problem, it has a revenue problem. Australia is one of the lowest-taxing countries in the developed world. In fact, if Australia collected the OECD average in tax - not the highest amount, just the average - the Commonwealth would have had an extra $140 billion in revenue in 2023-24. To put that in perspective, it's equivalent to the combined cost of the aged pension, the NDIS, Jobseeker, and the child care subsidy, along with the total government spending on housing, vocational education, and both the ABC and SBS. It's clear that bold tax reforms are necessary. Despite being a low-tax country, Australia is still one of the richest countries on Earth. Yet many people's living standards have been going backwards. Why? Lots of reasons. The Coalition enacted policies that deliberately kept wages low. So, when excessive corporate profits drove inflation after the pandemic, the cost of everyday living rose faster than people's paychecks could keep up. Allowing multinational gas companies to export 80 per cent of Australia's gas tripled domestic gas prices and doubled wholesale electricity prices on the east coast of Australia. Climate change-fuelled extreme weather is driving up insurance costs and premiums. The cost of buying a house is now out of reach for most young people, and the cost of renting has skyrocketed, too. This is how most people experience an increase in inequality - your paycheck doesn't go as far as it used to. But those everyday cost-of-living increases obscure a larger truth about the Australian economy. It's just less fair than it used to be. It used to be that a rising tide lifted all boats. When the economy grew, Australians all shared the benefits. If you imagine Australian economic growth were a cake shared between 10 people, in the decades after World War II, the bottom 90 per cent of Australians used to get 9 pieces of cake, leaving one piece for the top 10 per cent. In the decade after the Global Financial Crisis, the richest person at the table ate nine pieces of cake, and the bottom 90 per cent of people shared less than one piece of cake between them. It's hugely unfair. There's not much point boosting productivity if a majority of working people don't get to share in the benefits. Treasurer Jim Chalmers is keen to have that debate. He described the game of ruling things in or out as "cancerous" and vowed to dial up Labor's ambition for bold reforms. And let's be clear, to reverse that path of Australia's growing inequality will require bold tax reforms. It's clear the Treasurer understands that, as well as several of the roundtable invitees, who want tax reform on the agenda at the productivity roundtable. The ACTU submission included several tax reforms, including to negative gearing and the CGT discount, but also reforming the broken Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) and replacing it with a new 25 per cent export levy on gas. Negative gearing together with the CGT discount has so warped our housing market, many young Australians have given up on every owning their own home. But it looks like the PM has put off reforming those distortionary tax concessions until his next term of government. He keeps hosing down suggestions for progressive tax reforms. To hear the Prime Minister rule out any major tax reforms before the next election is not just disappointing, it's irresponsible. There are also reports that the government is considering introducing road user charges for electric vehicles only. If we're talking road user charges, it would make sense to include heavy vehicles, which do so much damage to our roads - a vehicle that's twice the weight of a regular vehicle does 16 times the damage to the road. But heavy vehicles don't pay anything extra for that damage. But will heavy vehicles be included in any new road user charges? Doesn't look like it. READ MORE EBONY BENNETT: The fact that Labor is considering slugging electric vehicle drivers with a new tax, while doing nothing to stop half of Australia's gas being exported royalty-free, tells you everything you need to know. Big tax reforms are on the table for electric vehicles, but off the table for the gas industry. Yet, according to the Treasury advice leaked to the ABC, the government will consider other major reforms. For example, it will weaken - sorry, "streamline" - our national environment laws to make development easier. And it will consider cutting "red tape" by freezing changes to the National Construction Code. Labor has a thumping majority in the lower house and it can pass progressive reforms through the Senate with the support of the Greens any time it wants. Instead, the government's productivity agenda seems to be to weaken environment laws, tax clean vehicles, cut red tape for property developers and leave the difficult tax reforms until after the next election. It's a far cry from Albanese's promise in Labor's election platform, to be a government "as courageous and hardworking and caring as the Australian people are themselves." Labor has never been in a better position to implement its national policy platform. But will the Albanese government spend the next three years using its thumping majority to lead bold reforms or deliver damp squib solutions? Next week's productivity roundtable will reveal which path the Prime Minister intends to tread, and so far, it looks like all it's set to do is weaken environment laws and delay big tax reforms until after the next election. Between the Treasury advice leaked to the ABC and the Prime Minister ruling out any major tax reforms before the next election, the government poured a bucket of cold water on any real excitement building for the productivity roundtable. And the productivity roundtable has a big job ahead of it. Australia doesn't just have a productivity problem, it has a revenue problem. Australia is one of the lowest-taxing countries in the developed world. In fact, if Australia collected the OECD average in tax - not the highest amount, just the average - the Commonwealth would have had an extra $140 billion in revenue in 2023-24. To put that in perspective, it's equivalent to the combined cost of the aged pension, the NDIS, Jobseeker, and the child care subsidy, along with the total government spending on housing, vocational education, and both the ABC and SBS. It's clear that bold tax reforms are necessary. Despite being a low-tax country, Australia is still one of the richest countries on Earth. Yet many people's living standards have been going backwards. Why? Lots of reasons. The Coalition enacted policies that deliberately kept wages low. So, when excessive corporate profits drove inflation after the pandemic, the cost of everyday living rose faster than people's paychecks could keep up. Allowing multinational gas companies to export 80 per cent of Australia's gas tripled domestic gas prices and doubled wholesale electricity prices on the east coast of Australia. Climate change-fuelled extreme weather is driving up insurance costs and premiums. The cost of buying a house is now out of reach for most young people, and the cost of renting has skyrocketed, too. This is how most people experience an increase in inequality - your paycheck doesn't go as far as it used to. But those everyday cost-of-living increases obscure a larger truth about the Australian economy. It's just less fair than it used to be. It used to be that a rising tide lifted all boats. When the economy grew, Australians all shared the benefits. If you imagine Australian economic growth were a cake shared between 10 people, in the decades after World War II, the bottom 90 per cent of Australians used to get 9 pieces of cake, leaving one piece for the top 10 per cent. In the decade after the Global Financial Crisis, the richest person at the table ate nine pieces of cake, and the bottom 90 per cent of people shared less than one piece of cake between them. It's hugely unfair. There's not much point boosting productivity if a majority of working people don't get to share in the benefits. Treasurer Jim Chalmers is keen to have that debate. He described the game of ruling things in or out as "cancerous" and vowed to dial up Labor's ambition for bold reforms. And let's be clear, to reverse that path of Australia's growing inequality will require bold tax reforms. It's clear the Treasurer understands that, as well as several of the roundtable invitees, who want tax reform on the agenda at the productivity roundtable. The ACTU submission included several tax reforms, including to negative gearing and the CGT discount, but also reforming the broken Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) and replacing it with a new 25 per cent export levy on gas. Negative gearing together with the CGT discount has so warped our housing market, many young Australians have given up on every owning their own home. But it looks like the PM has put off reforming those distortionary tax concessions until his next term of government. He keeps hosing down suggestions for progressive tax reforms. To hear the Prime Minister rule out any major tax reforms before the next election is not just disappointing, it's irresponsible. There are also reports that the government is considering introducing road user charges for electric vehicles only. If we're talking road user charges, it would make sense to include heavy vehicles, which do so much damage to our roads - a vehicle that's twice the weight of a regular vehicle does 16 times the damage to the road. But heavy vehicles don't pay anything extra for that damage. But will heavy vehicles be included in any new road user charges? Doesn't look like it. READ MORE EBONY BENNETT: The fact that Labor is considering slugging electric vehicle drivers with a new tax, while doing nothing to stop half of Australia's gas being exported royalty-free, tells you everything you need to know. Big tax reforms are on the table for electric vehicles, but off the table for the gas industry. Yet, according to the Treasury advice leaked to the ABC, the government will consider other major reforms. For example, it will weaken - sorry, "streamline" - our national environment laws to make development easier. And it will consider cutting "red tape" by freezing changes to the National Construction Code. Labor has a thumping majority in the lower house and it can pass progressive reforms through the Senate with the support of the Greens any time it wants. Instead, the government's productivity agenda seems to be to weaken environment laws, tax clean vehicles, cut red tape for property developers and leave the difficult tax reforms until after the next election. It's a far cry from Albanese's promise in Labor's election platform, to be a government "as courageous and hardworking and caring as the Australian people are themselves." Labor has never been in a better position to implement its national policy platform. But will the Albanese government spend the next three years using its thumping majority to lead bold reforms or deliver damp squib solutions? Next week's productivity roundtable will reveal which path the Prime Minister intends to tread, and so far, it looks like all it's set to do is weaken environment laws and delay big tax reforms until after the next election. Between the Treasury advice leaked to the ABC and the Prime Minister ruling out any major tax reforms before the next election, the government poured a bucket of cold water on any real excitement building for the productivity roundtable. And the productivity roundtable has a big job ahead of it. Australia doesn't just have a productivity problem, it has a revenue problem. Australia is one of the lowest-taxing countries in the developed world. In fact, if Australia collected the OECD average in tax - not the highest amount, just the average - the Commonwealth would have had an extra $140 billion in revenue in 2023-24. To put that in perspective, it's equivalent to the combined cost of the aged pension, the NDIS, Jobseeker, and the child care subsidy, along with the total government spending on housing, vocational education, and both the ABC and SBS. It's clear that bold tax reforms are necessary. Despite being a low-tax country, Australia is still one of the richest countries on Earth. Yet many people's living standards have been going backwards. Why? Lots of reasons. The Coalition enacted policies that deliberately kept wages low. So, when excessive corporate profits drove inflation after the pandemic, the cost of everyday living rose faster than people's paychecks could keep up. Allowing multinational gas companies to export 80 per cent of Australia's gas tripled domestic gas prices and doubled wholesale electricity prices on the east coast of Australia. Climate change-fuelled extreme weather is driving up insurance costs and premiums. The cost of buying a house is now out of reach for most young people, and the cost of renting has skyrocketed, too. This is how most people experience an increase in inequality - your paycheck doesn't go as far as it used to. But those everyday cost-of-living increases obscure a larger truth about the Australian economy. It's just less fair than it used to be. It used to be that a rising tide lifted all boats. When the economy grew, Australians all shared the benefits. If you imagine Australian economic growth were a cake shared between 10 people, in the decades after World War II, the bottom 90 per cent of Australians used to get 9 pieces of cake, leaving one piece for the top 10 per cent. In the decade after the Global Financial Crisis, the richest person at the table ate nine pieces of cake, and the bottom 90 per cent of people shared less than one piece of cake between them. It's hugely unfair. There's not much point boosting productivity if a majority of working people don't get to share in the benefits. Treasurer Jim Chalmers is keen to have that debate. He described the game of ruling things in or out as "cancerous" and vowed to dial up Labor's ambition for bold reforms. And let's be clear, to reverse that path of Australia's growing inequality will require bold tax reforms. It's clear the Treasurer understands that, as well as several of the roundtable invitees, who want tax reform on the agenda at the productivity roundtable. The ACTU submission included several tax reforms, including to negative gearing and the CGT discount, but also reforming the broken Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) and replacing it with a new 25 per cent export levy on gas. Negative gearing together with the CGT discount has so warped our housing market, many young Australians have given up on every owning their own home. But it looks like the PM has put off reforming those distortionary tax concessions until his next term of government. He keeps hosing down suggestions for progressive tax reforms. To hear the Prime Minister rule out any major tax reforms before the next election is not just disappointing, it's irresponsible. There are also reports that the government is considering introducing road user charges for electric vehicles only. If we're talking road user charges, it would make sense to include heavy vehicles, which do so much damage to our roads - a vehicle that's twice the weight of a regular vehicle does 16 times the damage to the road. But heavy vehicles don't pay anything extra for that damage. But will heavy vehicles be included in any new road user charges? Doesn't look like it. READ MORE EBONY BENNETT: The fact that Labor is considering slugging electric vehicle drivers with a new tax, while doing nothing to stop half of Australia's gas being exported royalty-free, tells you everything you need to know. Big tax reforms are on the table for electric vehicles, but off the table for the gas industry. Yet, according to the Treasury advice leaked to the ABC, the government will consider other major reforms. For example, it will weaken - sorry, "streamline" - our national environment laws to make development easier. And it will consider cutting "red tape" by freezing changes to the National Construction Code. Labor has a thumping majority in the lower house and it can pass progressive reforms through the Senate with the support of the Greens any time it wants. Instead, the government's productivity agenda seems to be to weaken environment laws, tax clean vehicles, cut red tape for property developers and leave the difficult tax reforms until after the next election. It's a far cry from Albanese's promise in Labor's election platform, to be a government "as courageous and hardworking and caring as the Australian people are themselves." Labor has never been in a better position to implement its national policy platform. But will the Albanese government spend the next three years using its thumping majority to lead bold reforms or deliver damp squib solutions? Next week's productivity roundtable will reveal which path the Prime Minister intends to tread, and so far, it looks like all it's set to do is weaken environment laws and delay big tax reforms until after the next election. Between the Treasury advice leaked to the ABC and the Prime Minister ruling out any major tax reforms before the next election, the government poured a bucket of cold water on any real excitement building for the productivity roundtable. And the productivity roundtable has a big job ahead of it. Australia doesn't just have a productivity problem, it has a revenue problem. Australia is one of the lowest-taxing countries in the developed world. In fact, if Australia collected the OECD average in tax - not the highest amount, just the average - the Commonwealth would have had an extra $140 billion in revenue in 2023-24. To put that in perspective, it's equivalent to the combined cost of the aged pension, the NDIS, Jobseeker, and the child care subsidy, along with the total government spending on housing, vocational education, and both the ABC and SBS. It's clear that bold tax reforms are necessary. Despite being a low-tax country, Australia is still one of the richest countries on Earth. Yet many people's living standards have been going backwards. Why? Lots of reasons. The Coalition enacted policies that deliberately kept wages low. So, when excessive corporate profits drove inflation after the pandemic, the cost of everyday living rose faster than people's paychecks could keep up. Allowing multinational gas companies to export 80 per cent of Australia's gas tripled domestic gas prices and doubled wholesale electricity prices on the east coast of Australia. Climate change-fuelled extreme weather is driving up insurance costs and premiums. The cost of buying a house is now out of reach for most young people, and the cost of renting has skyrocketed, too. This is how most people experience an increase in inequality - your paycheck doesn't go as far as it used to. But those everyday cost-of-living increases obscure a larger truth about the Australian economy. It's just less fair than it used to be. It used to be that a rising tide lifted all boats. When the economy grew, Australians all shared the benefits. If you imagine Australian economic growth were a cake shared between 10 people, in the decades after World War II, the bottom 90 per cent of Australians used to get 9 pieces of cake, leaving one piece for the top 10 per cent. In the decade after the Global Financial Crisis, the richest person at the table ate nine pieces of cake, and the bottom 90 per cent of people shared less than one piece of cake between them. It's hugely unfair. There's not much point boosting productivity if a majority of working people don't get to share in the benefits. Treasurer Jim Chalmers is keen to have that debate. He described the game of ruling things in or out as "cancerous" and vowed to dial up Labor's ambition for bold reforms. And let's be clear, to reverse that path of Australia's growing inequality will require bold tax reforms. It's clear the Treasurer understands that, as well as several of the roundtable invitees, who want tax reform on the agenda at the productivity roundtable. The ACTU submission included several tax reforms, including to negative gearing and the CGT discount, but also reforming the broken Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) and replacing it with a new 25 per cent export levy on gas. Negative gearing together with the CGT discount has so warped our housing market, many young Australians have given up on every owning their own home. But it looks like the PM has put off reforming those distortionary tax concessions until his next term of government. He keeps hosing down suggestions for progressive tax reforms. To hear the Prime Minister rule out any major tax reforms before the next election is not just disappointing, it's irresponsible. There are also reports that the government is considering introducing road user charges for electric vehicles only. If we're talking road user charges, it would make sense to include heavy vehicles, which do so much damage to our roads - a vehicle that's twice the weight of a regular vehicle does 16 times the damage to the road. But heavy vehicles don't pay anything extra for that damage. But will heavy vehicles be included in any new road user charges? Doesn't look like it. READ MORE EBONY BENNETT: The fact that Labor is considering slugging electric vehicle drivers with a new tax, while doing nothing to stop half of Australia's gas being exported royalty-free, tells you everything you need to know. Big tax reforms are on the table for electric vehicles, but off the table for the gas industry. Yet, according to the Treasury advice leaked to the ABC, the government will consider other major reforms. For example, it will weaken - sorry, "streamline" - our national environment laws to make development easier. And it will consider cutting "red tape" by freezing changes to the National Construction Code. Labor has a thumping majority in the lower house and it can pass progressive reforms through the Senate with the support of the Greens any time it wants. Instead, the government's productivity agenda seems to be to weaken environment laws, tax clean vehicles, cut red tape for property developers and leave the difficult tax reforms until after the next election. It's a far cry from Albanese's promise in Labor's election platform, to be a government "as courageous and hardworking and caring as the Australian people are themselves."
Sydney Morning Herald
3 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Albanese's Palestinian recognition shows the world is now waiting on Trump
The United States' ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, wasn't about to repeat his private conversations with Donald Trump live on television. But he was happy to characterise what the US president and his administration thought about Australia's decision to recognise a Palestinian state this week. 'There's an enormous level of disappointment, and some disgust... This is a gift to them [Hamas], and it's unfortunate,' Huckabee told the ABC's 7.30 on Thursday night. 'The emotional sentiment [was] a sense of: You've got to be kidding. Why would they be doing this? And why would they be doing this now?' Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who had been dealing with a challenging domestic response to his government's decision since Monday, had answers on Friday morning, starting with a similar feeling. 'Australians have been disgusted by what they see on their TV every night. They were disgusted by the terrorist actions of Hamas on October 7, the slaughter of innocent Israelis,' he said on ABC radio. 'But Australians have also seen the death of tens of thousands of people. When you have children starving, when you have children losing their lives, with families queuing for food and water, then that provokes, not surprisingly, a human reaction.' Albanese's decision to follow France, the United Kingdom and Canada in declaring that Australia would recognise Palestine at the United Nations next month was, in part, a human reaction to suffering as striking images of hunger came out of Gaza. Pressure was bubbling inside the Labor caucus and, just the weekend before, more than 100,000 Australians marched in protest over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and on the streets of Melbourne. The prime minister's foreign policy shift was also pragmatic: once like-minded countries made the move, there was expectation that Albanese would add to global momentum. Loading But if Albanese expected warm feedback, it was not forthcoming. Before Huckabee took aim at Australia's decision, Israel had expressed its fury, Jewish Australian groups said they had been betrayed, and even prominent pro-Palestine advocates were lukewarm. The praise, when it burst onto newspaper front pages, was not from desired sources. Instead, senior officials from Hamas, the listed terrorist organisation that conducted the October 7 attacks, praised the prime minister's move, exposing Albanese to fierce criticism and accusations of naivety. Aaron David Miller, a Middle East analyst who worked on US negotiations to end the conflict for decades, doubts next month's meeting at the United Nations will lead to the outcome Western leaders are hoping for. He says a two-state solution remains the 'least-worst option' but the time is not right, given Hamas remains in power in Gaza and the far-right Netanyahu government leads Israel. 'The Australians have had no experience in this region. The British and the French have, and they should know that the Middle East is literally littered with the remains of great powers, their schemes, their dreams, their ambitions, their peace plans,' Miller says. 'I don't see any relationship between what's being done and the impact that it will have on the current situation, let alone on bringing anybody closer to a meaningful two-state solution... Why is it the right time? There's no logical, compelling explanation. This is being done for domestic political reasons or out of moral and ethical motivations.' But the Western nations, including Australia, say a deteriorating situation has added urgency to the two-state push. 'There is a risk there will be no Palestine left to recognise,' Wong said last week. On Friday, Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich raised the stakes: he announced that work will start on a long-delayed settlement to divide the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, a move his office said would 'bury' the idea of a Palestinian state. Loading 'Whoever in the world is trying to recognise a Palestinian state today will receive our answer on the ground. Not with documents nor with decisions or statements, but with facts. Facts of houses, facts of neighbourhoods,' he said. Smotrich, a settler himself, claimed Netanyahu and Trump had agreed to the development, although there was no immediate confirmation from either. The Albanese government started laying the groundwork for this week's announcement long before that threat. Foreign Minister Penny Wong started making the case for recognising Palestine as part of a two-state process – rather than at the end of one – back in April last year. Wong said recognition had always been a matter of 'when, not if'. As accusations of mass starvation were levelled at Israel in recent weeks, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signalled a takeover of Gaza City, other nations made historic moves towards recognition. Then it became Australia's turn. 'We didn't want to be leading the pack, but we didn't want to be too slow either,' a government source told this masthead this week. Albanese said he was also reassured by recent commitments from the Palestinian Authority and Arab League. Still,backlash was swift. Israel's ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, said Albanese had abandoned his own conditions for recognition and would reward Hamas in the process. Netanyahu called it shameful. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry – who had been assured by the prime minister a fortnight earlier that recognition was not imminent – described it as a betrayal. Peter Moss, the co-convenor of Labor Friends of Palestine, said the move would be applauded by the party's rank-and-file as a 'historic milestone'. But a co-founder of the Labor Friends of Israel group, Nick Dyrenfurth, said some lifetime Jewish Labor members were considering quitting the party with a sense of despair. Even Nasser Mashni, the president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, called the decision a 'cynical political smokescreen'. Many Palestinians and pro-Palestine advocates labelled recognition a distraction and instead urged the government to pursue sanctions, an arms embargo, and an end to trade with Israel. As the week continued, interjections from Hamas, a listed terrorist organisation, compounded the controversy. This masthead reported that the office of a Hamas co-founder, Hassan Yousef, applauded Australia's decision. Albanese warned media outlets not to report propaganda, and a statement issued in a Hamas telegram channel disavowed the comments attributed to Yousef, saying he was detained and cut off from the outside world. But two other senior Hamas officials soon made similar comments, calling Australia's move towards recognition a 'positive step towards the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people'. John Coyne, the national security director at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, says the complicated structure of Hamas and its leadership – now dispersed across the world, with diminished numbers in Palestine itself – made it difficult to interpret messages from the group. 'When you've got a global terrorist organisation, it's not like an elected government or public service bureaucracy. The term leadership is used very loosely,' he says. 'There are a number of senior figures and so of course, they'll all have their perspectives and at a time of chaos and change, people aspire to challenge the status quo and become the spokesperson.' But having warned Albanese over recent weeks that he was playing into Hamas' hands, the federal opposition jumped. 'Hamas is more than supporting the decision [Albanese] made, they are in full throated praise of it, they are cheering on, they are calling our Prime Minister a man of courage,' said opposition leader Sussan Ley. 'On a day when a terrorist organisation calls our Prime Minister a hero, surely he has to think about reversing the decision that led to that.' If Labor had envisioned a political win at the beginning of the week, Albanese did not show it. 'This decision is criticised by people on all sides of the debate. I expected that to be the case,' he said on the Today show on Tuesday. 'The people who are saying this is not the way forward... Ok, what's your plan? The plan of Prime Minister Netanyahu is just to continue: continue to push into Gaza, occupy Gaza City. How will that provide a resolution going forward to ongoing conflict that has been there for 77 years?' Most countries in the United Nations – 147 of 193 – already recognise Palestine. But commitments from Australia, France, the UK and Canada to recognise Palestine at a UN General Assembly meeting in New York next month add heft. Several European nations, including G20 members Italy and Germany, have not yet pledged to do so, nor have Japan and South Korea. New Zealand could be the next to add its voice, after conservative prime minister Chris Luxon this week said Netanyahu had 'lost the plot'. But analysts emphasise it is the United States that will ultimately determine whether a Palestinian state inches closer to reality or remains fantasy. 'At the end of the day, the international community can jump up and down as much as they want, but until the US agrees to accept the Palestinian admission into the UN general assembly … this concept of statehood is going to remain an idea,' says Shahram Akbarzadeh, a professor in Middle East politics at Deakin University. 'I don't see how a Trump administration could vote yes to Palestinian statehood ... I think we will see the continuation of Palestinian lives in limbo in terms of international law and international standing.' Amin Saikal, another expert, shares his scepticism. But he thinks Trump could be the wildcard that changes the trajectory of the Middle East. 'There are some elements within the MAGA movement that have called for a revision of American support for Israel,' he says, pointing to congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, and commentators Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. 'Trump does look at his base, and he does really take what comes out of MAGA quite seriously. At the same time, he is an unpredictable transactional leader.' Loading Trump threatened Canada's trade deal in response to its recognition of Palestine, only to walk the threat back. Before Huckabee gave his full-throttled criticism of Australia, the White House declined to weigh in, saying Trump was 'not married to any one solution'. The US president is a staunch ally of Netanyahu, but even he has lashed out at the Israeli prime minister, most recently by disputing Israel's claims of there being no starvation in Gaza. 'It may come to the point that you could see the widening of the rift between the United States and its allies is not really going to benefit the United States,' Saikal says. 'Therefore [Trump] may decide to soften his position, or put more pressure on the Israeli leadership to accept the reality of a two-state solution as inevitable and as the only one.'
The Age
3 hours ago
- The Age
Albanese's Palestinian recognition shows the world is now waiting on Trump
The United States' ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, wasn't about to repeat his private conversations with Donald Trump live on television. But he was happy to characterise what the US president and his administration thought about Australia's decision to recognise a Palestinian state this week. 'There's an enormous level of disappointment, and some disgust... This is a gift to them [Hamas], and it's unfortunate,' Huckabee told the ABC's 7.30 on Thursday night. 'The emotional sentiment [was] a sense of: You've got to be kidding. Why would they be doing this? And why would they be doing this now?' Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who had been dealing with a challenging domestic response to his government's decision since Monday, had answers on Friday morning, starting with a similar feeling. 'Australians have been disgusted by what they see on their TV every night. They were disgusted by the terrorist actions of Hamas on October 7, the slaughter of innocent Israelis,' he said on ABC radio. 'But Australians have also seen the death of tens of thousands of people. When you have children starving, when you have children losing their lives, with families queuing for food and water, then that provokes, not surprisingly, a human reaction.' Albanese's decision to follow France, the United Kingdom and Canada in declaring that Australia would recognise Palestine at the United Nations next month was, in part, a human reaction to suffering as striking images of hunger came out of Gaza. Pressure was bubbling inside the Labor caucus and, just the weekend before, more than 100,000 Australians marched in protest over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and on the streets of Melbourne. The prime minister's foreign policy shift was also pragmatic: once like-minded countries made the move, there was expectation that Albanese would add to global momentum. Loading But if Albanese expected warm feedback, it was not forthcoming. Before Huckabee took aim at Australia's decision, Israel had expressed its fury, Jewish Australian groups said they had been betrayed, and even prominent pro-Palestine advocates were lukewarm. The praise, when it burst onto newspaper front pages, was not from desired sources. Instead, senior officials from Hamas, the listed terrorist organisation that conducted the October 7 attacks, praised the prime minister's move, exposing Albanese to fierce criticism and accusations of naivety. Aaron David Miller, a Middle East analyst who worked on US negotiations to end the conflict for decades, doubts next month's meeting at the United Nations will lead to the outcome Western leaders are hoping for. He says a two-state solution remains the 'least-worst option' but the time is not right, given Hamas remains in power in Gaza and the far-right Netanyahu government leads Israel. 'The Australians have had no experience in this region. The British and the French have, and they should know that the Middle East is literally littered with the remains of great powers, their schemes, their dreams, their ambitions, their peace plans,' Miller says. 'I don't see any relationship between what's being done and the impact that it will have on the current situation, let alone on bringing anybody closer to a meaningful two-state solution... Why is it the right time? There's no logical, compelling explanation. This is being done for domestic political reasons or out of moral and ethical motivations.' But the Western nations, including Australia, say a deteriorating situation has added urgency to the two-state push. 'There is a risk there will be no Palestine left to recognise,' Wong said last week. On Friday, Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich raised the stakes: he announced that work will start on a long-delayed settlement to divide the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, a move his office said would 'bury' the idea of a Palestinian state. Loading 'Whoever in the world is trying to recognise a Palestinian state today will receive our answer on the ground. Not with documents nor with decisions or statements, but with facts. Facts of houses, facts of neighbourhoods,' he said. Smotrich, a settler himself, claimed Netanyahu and Trump had agreed to the development, although there was no immediate confirmation from either. The Albanese government started laying the groundwork for this week's announcement long before that threat. Foreign Minister Penny Wong started making the case for recognising Palestine as part of a two-state process – rather than at the end of one – back in April last year. Wong said recognition had always been a matter of 'when, not if'. As accusations of mass starvation were levelled at Israel in recent weeks, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signalled a takeover of Gaza City, other nations made historic moves towards recognition. Then it became Australia's turn. 'We didn't want to be leading the pack, but we didn't want to be too slow either,' a government source told this masthead this week. Albanese said he was also reassured by recent commitments from the Palestinian Authority and Arab League. Still,backlash was swift. Israel's ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, said Albanese had abandoned his own conditions for recognition and would reward Hamas in the process. Netanyahu called it shameful. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry – who had been assured by the prime minister a fortnight earlier that recognition was not imminent – described it as a betrayal. Peter Moss, the co-convenor of Labor Friends of Palestine, said the move would be applauded by the party's rank-and-file as a 'historic milestone'. But a co-founder of the Labor Friends of Israel group, Nick Dyrenfurth, said some lifetime Jewish Labor members were considering quitting the party with a sense of despair. Even Nasser Mashni, the president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, called the decision a 'cynical political smokescreen'. Many Palestinians and pro-Palestine advocates labelled recognition a distraction and instead urged the government to pursue sanctions, an arms embargo, and an end to trade with Israel. As the week continued, interjections from Hamas, a listed terrorist organisation, compounded the controversy. This masthead reported that the office of a Hamas co-founder, Hassan Yousef, applauded Australia's decision. Albanese warned media outlets not to report propaganda, and a statement issued in a Hamas telegram channel disavowed the comments attributed to Yousef, saying he was detained and cut off from the outside world. But two other senior Hamas officials soon made similar comments, calling Australia's move towards recognition a 'positive step towards the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people'. John Coyne, the national security director at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, says the complicated structure of Hamas and its leadership – now dispersed across the world, with diminished numbers in Palestine itself – made it difficult to interpret messages from the group. 'When you've got a global terrorist organisation, it's not like an elected government or public service bureaucracy. The term leadership is used very loosely,' he says. 'There are a number of senior figures and so of course, they'll all have their perspectives and at a time of chaos and change, people aspire to challenge the status quo and become the spokesperson.' But having warned Albanese over recent weeks that he was playing into Hamas' hands, the federal opposition jumped. 'Hamas is more than supporting the decision [Albanese] made, they are in full throated praise of it, they are cheering on, they are calling our Prime Minister a man of courage,' said opposition leader Sussan Ley. 'On a day when a terrorist organisation calls our Prime Minister a hero, surely he has to think about reversing the decision that led to that.' If Labor had envisioned a political win at the beginning of the week, Albanese did not show it. 'This decision is criticised by people on all sides of the debate. I expected that to be the case,' he said on the Today show on Tuesday. 'The people who are saying this is not the way forward... Ok, what's your plan? The plan of Prime Minister Netanyahu is just to continue: continue to push into Gaza, occupy Gaza City. How will that provide a resolution going forward to ongoing conflict that has been there for 77 years?' Most countries in the United Nations – 147 of 193 – already recognise Palestine. But commitments from Australia, France, the UK and Canada to recognise Palestine at a UN General Assembly meeting in New York next month add heft. Several European nations, including G20 members Italy and Germany, have not yet pledged to do so, nor have Japan and South Korea. New Zealand could be the next to add its voice, after conservative prime minister Chris Luxon this week said Netanyahu had 'lost the plot'. But analysts emphasise it is the United States that will ultimately determine whether a Palestinian state inches closer to reality or remains fantasy. 'At the end of the day, the international community can jump up and down as much as they want, but until the US agrees to accept the Palestinian admission into the UN general assembly … this concept of statehood is going to remain an idea,' says Shahram Akbarzadeh, a professor in Middle East politics at Deakin University. 'I don't see how a Trump administration could vote yes to Palestinian statehood ... I think we will see the continuation of Palestinian lives in limbo in terms of international law and international standing.' Amin Saikal, another expert, shares his scepticism. But he thinks Trump could be the wildcard that changes the trajectory of the Middle East. 'There are some elements within the MAGA movement that have called for a revision of American support for Israel,' he says, pointing to congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, and commentators Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. 'Trump does look at his base, and he does really take what comes out of MAGA quite seriously. At the same time, he is an unpredictable transactional leader.' Loading Trump threatened Canada's trade deal in response to its recognition of Palestine, only to walk the threat back. Before Huckabee gave his full-throttled criticism of Australia, the White House declined to weigh in, saying Trump was 'not married to any one solution'. The US president is a staunch ally of Netanyahu, but even he has lashed out at the Israeli prime minister, most recently by disputing Israel's claims of there being no starvation in Gaza. 'It may come to the point that you could see the widening of the rift between the United States and its allies is not really going to benefit the United States,' Saikal says. 'Therefore [Trump] may decide to soften his position, or put more pressure on the Israeli leadership to accept the reality of a two-state solution as inevitable and as the only one.'
