MELBOURNE, Australia: Australia’s Parliament resumed Tuesday for the first time since the center-left Labour Party won one of the nation’s largest-ever majorities in the May elections. The day was largely ceremonial, with reminders of conflict in the Middle East.
Hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside Parliament House on Tuesday, calling for the government to impose sanctions on Israel after Australia joined another 27 countries in issuing a joint statement, saying the war in Gaza “must end now.”
Security guards prevented 15 demonstrators from entering the public gallery of the Senate while Attorney-General Sam Mostyn, who represents Australia’s head of state King Charles III, was giving a speech to lawmakers on Tuesday afternoon, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
But Sen. Mehreen Faruqi, deputy leader of the minor party Australian Greens, made a silent protest by holding up a sign in the chamber during Mostyn’s speech that said: “Gaza is starving, words won’t feed them, sanction Israel.”
Australia has imposed financial and travel sanctions on individual Israelis, including government ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. But the Australian government has not imposed wider sanctions on the state.
Joint statement sparks debate
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke described the joint statement as the strongest words his government had used on the conflict in Gaza.
“When you can make a statement together with so many other significant powers, then we’re all hoping that there’ll be something that will break this,” Burke told ABC.
“What we are watching on the other side of the world is indefensible. The hostages still need to be released, but the war needs to end,” Burke added.
But senior opposition lawmaker Jonathon Duniam described Australia joining 27 other nations in signing the statement as “alarming.”
“There is more to this issue than this letter betrays and I think it is a sad turn of events for our government to have joined with other countries in signing this letter,” Duniam said.
Australia’s 48th Parliament was opened with Indigenous ceremonies in Parliament House on a day that was otherwise steeped in centuries of British Westminster political tradition.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese thanked the traditional owners of the national capital, Canberra, at a Welcome to Country ceremony. He noted that such ceremonies performed by Indigenous people to welcome visitors to their traditional land at the start of a new parliament had been introduced by a Labor government in 2007.
“In the 48th Parliament, we write the next chapter. Let us do it with the same sense of grace and courage that First Nations people show us with their leadership,” Albanese said.
Biggest Australian government majority since 1996
Labor won 94 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, where governments are formed. Labor’s majority is the largest since Prime Minister John Howard’s conservative coalition won 94 seats in 1996, when the lower chamber had only 148 seats.
Howard stayed in power for almost 12 years, and Albanese is the first prime minister since then to lead a party to consecutive election victories, following an extraordinary era of political instability.
The main opposition Liberal Party has elected its first woman leader, Sussan Ley, after one of the party’s worst election results on record.
Her conservative coalition holds 43 seats in the House, while independent lawmakers and minor parties that are not aligned with either the government or opposition hold 13.
No party holds a majority in the 76-seat Senate. Labor holds 29 seats and the conservatives 27 seats. The Australian Greens hold 10 seats, which is the next largest bloc.
The government will likely prefer to negotiate with the conservatives or Greens to get legislation through the Senate, rather than deal with multiple minor parties and independents.
