Comment

Paul Bongiorno
Calls for justice in Gaza and progress on Closing the Gap

Neither Anthony Albanese nor any of his ministers joined last Sunday’s “March for Humanity” across Sydney Harbour Bridge, which garnered international attention. Instead, the prime minister and a group of his senior cabinet colleagues attended Australia’s largest Indigenous cultural gathering in north-east Arnhem Land.

Both events, however, pose almost intractable challenges for the prime minister: the protesters’ demand to bring peace to the starving population in Gaza and Garma’s call for a closing of the persistent gap of disadvantage suffered by Australia’s First Peoples, particularly in remote areas.

Whether it was 90,000, as the police initially estimated, or closer to 300,000, as organisers claimed, last weekend’s march in pouring rain was one of the biggest anti-war protests seen since the Vietnam War five decades ago.

It left no doubt that the Gaza conflict is a real issue for Australians, who are demanding their government involve itself even more than it has.

Many called for increased sanctions on Israel, a call rejected by the prime minister, who says we already have imposed sanctions on militant settlers who have attacked Palestinians on the West Bank, as well as on two of the Netanyahu government’s “most extreme” ministers.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong announced on Monday that the government was committing a further $20 million from the emergency fund set aside in the budget to contribute to aid in Gaza. This brings Australia’s contribution to about $130 million for humanitarian relief to be delivered by agencies on the ground.

Wong says Australia has consistently been part of the international call for Israel “to allow a full and immediate resumption of aid to Gaza, in line with the binding orders of the International Court of Justice”.

The peace movement of the early 1970s was provoked in no small way by contemporaneous pictures of the conflict beamed nightly onto Australian television screens.

The scenes in Gaza, 50 years later, are having even more impact, with images flashed around the world in real time and in colour. The transmission of this horror began with Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, broadcasting their killing of Israelis, the destruction of their homes and the abduction of entire families.

The impact has only deepened in the intervening 22 months, with the mounting toll of death and the reporting of destruction and starvation. In light of this, Wong says she was not surprised by the size of the weekend protests.

On ABC Radio she said the marches in Sydney and Melbourne “do reflect the broad Australian community’s horror at what is going on in the Middle East and the desire for peace and a ceasefire, which is what the government is seeking”.

The news midweek that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was planning to extend military operations for a complete takeover of the Gaza Strip was, in Wong’s view, even more reason for Australia and the international community to use recognition of Palestinian statehood to create “a pathway to a two-state solution”.

“There is a risk there will be no Palestine left to recognise,” she says.

Wong says this pathway should be part of the peace process and there is no chance of freeing the remaining hostages unless the war ends. This is an increasing imperative in light of Hamas releasing a video of two of them clearly starving to death.

The foreign affairs minister says this call for an immediate, permanent ceasefire is the view of 600 former Israeli security officials who have written publicly to Netanyahu, and also to United States President Donald Trump, urging him to intervene.

These former officials include previous chiefs of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and the military, who believe Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel.

The Coalition has parted company with Wong and the dissenting Israeli assessment, insisting Hamas must surrender and the hostages be freed before discussions of Palestinian recognition can progress.

There is concern among Liberals that the leadership is getting the tone of its response wrong and that uncritical support of the Netanyahu government is unwarranted and out of sync with public opinion.

On Monday Opposition Leader Sussan Ley finally admitted “there is hunger and starvation in Gaza”.

Ley’s reluctance to appear too sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, according to a close ally, is a response to a “dirt sheet” put out by Angus Taylor’s camp in the lead-up to the leadership contest, accusing her of being “anti-Israel and pro-Palestine”.

Privately, ministers are pessimistic that Netanyahu is susceptible to any outside pressure, except for whatever President Trump can be persuaded to exert. They are hoping the building momentum for a significant vote at the United Nations in September will at the very least draw a line on Israel’s expansionist ambitions.

Albanese has been working tirelessly behind the scenes, his office revealing this week that the prime minister discussed the Gaza situation with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres late last week.

On Tuesday the prime minister spoke with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, which had joined significant Arab states in calling for the disarming of Hamas and the release of the hostages.

This was followed by a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, who is leading the charge for unconditional Palestinian recognition. They discussed getting aid to civilians in Gaza and, according to the briefing note, “their longstanding support for a two-state solution”.

At time of writing, Albanese was still waiting for Netanyahu to take a call. Former minister for foreign affairs Bob Carr, who joined the Sydney Harbour Bridge march, said if Albanese wanted to tell his Israeli counterpart that Australia supports a two-state solution, “he is wasting his breath” because Netanyahu opposes it.

There is only so much Australia can do in responding to the Middle East conflict. There are greater expectations for the government to improve the lot of Indigenous citizens, a task that gains a greater focus at the annual Garma Festival in the Northern Territory.

On Saturday, a croaky Albanese announced what he called a new economic partnership with Indigenous communities and agencies across the country. This First Nations Economic Empowerment Alliance would play a crucial role in administering programs, advising governments and assisting native title-holders to advocate for their rights.

An innovative education initiative would take technical and further education classes to remote communities, training tradespeople in the skills needed for construction and maintenance of homes and business premises. There was $31 million for mobile TAFE and $70 million to “get First Nations clean energy projects up and running”.

Albanese noted more Indigenous health workers and educators were coming through, but he said the latest Productivity Commission report on Closing the Gap showed only four of the 19 targets were on track to be met.

Without naming Peter Dutton or Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Albanese attacked those “who choose the cheap politics of division over the patient work of lasting change and who seek to turn the grace and generosity of a Welcome to Country ... into a political weapon”.

Albanese said, “Culture wars are a dry gully – they offer us nothing, they lead us nowhere.”

Ley declined an invitation to the festival. The Coalition, she says, was represented by a senior member in shadow attorney-general Julian Leeser. Leeser showed moral courage in quitting Dutton’s front bench to support the “Yes” vote in the referendum.

Instead, Ley spent four days in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, visiting Indigenous communities with her shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Kerrynne Liddle. Liddle took the role after Ley moved Price to the defence industry portfolio after the election.

The government is bemused by the “coincidental” timing of Ley’s trip, but it was also clearly designed to send a message that the Coalition is under new management. Ley distanced herself from the Western Australian Liberal division, which was pursuing the culture wars at their state conference, and said she was interested in practical outcomes.

After her WA visit, Ley said the Albanese government “is mismanaging Indigenous policy”. Aboriginal leaders at Garma had a different view, echoing the criticism of Senator Lidia Thorpe in blaming the NT’s Country Liberal Party government.

Thorpe wants the government to review its 80 per cent funding of the Territory budget, especially in light of its new tough-on-crime laws targeting Indigenous youth.

These punitive laws have led to a significant increase in the incarceration rates of Aboriginal people. Nearly 90 per cent of adult prisoners and almost 100 per cent of youth detainees in the Northern Territory identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

Darwin-based Aboriginal leader Thomas Mayo says Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro is “worse than Trump”, ignoring expert advice and implementing policies that exacerbate problems for Indigenous communities.

Finocchiaro says she has a mandate to deliver Territorians safe streets and that frontline workers deserve the protection of hitherto banned spit hoods.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy say she is listening to the complaints and has concerns about the direction of the NT government, which could undo years of youth justice reform efforts.

The minister is seeking a meeting with Finocchiaro. While the federal government has the power to override Territory legislation and could cut funding, this is a perilous political path. The history of federal intervention in the Territory is far from a happy or productive one.

It’s a precedent that cuts both ways. Canberra should respect the democratic will of the self-governing territory and the chief minister should take note of the Howard government’s failed, punitive intervention.

The calls everywhere this week were ones for justice.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on August 8, 2025 as "The march on the bridge".

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