Former Labor MP Michael Danby has lashed out at pro-Palestine references to be inserted into the party’s policy platform, saying it is “a step to making Labor unelectable”.
Mr Danby, a staunch supporter of Israel who spent more than 20 years in parliament, said Labor figures “were in cuckoo land” for prioritising the issue in the platform over China’s persecution of Tibetans and Uighurs. The Australian revealed on Friday that, at Labor’s online national conference this month, the final party platform will be changed from the draft version released last weekend to include a “statement in detail” that will call on “the next Labor government to recognise Palestine as a state”.
The policy platform will also be amended to call on the next Labor government to treat the issue of Palestine as an “important priority”, bringing it in line with Labor’s policies ahead of the 2019 federal election. The amendment was backed by the ALP national executive after former foreign minister Bob Carr complained to Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong about a lack of support for Palestine in the draft policy platform.
Speaking to The Weekend Australian, Mr Danby said the public would mark Labor down if they believed foreign policy was being driven by “pro-Beijing figure Bob Carr and his new Socialist Left allies”. “There is no such priority for the persecuted Tibetans, Uighurs, Hongkongers or concern for the 24 million in democratic Taiwan who face war from Beijing,” Mr Danby said.
Read the article by Greg Brown in The Australian.