Subjects: Israel/Gaza War, The Voice
Matt Doran:
Well, let's bring in our Tuesday political panel now. Assistant Health Minister and Labor MP Ged Kearney is in Melbourne and joining me here in the studio. NSW Liberal Senator Maria Kovacic is with us as well. Thank you to both of you for joining us. Ged Kearney, I want to start with you on this issue about how the debate at home has been playing out with the Israel Gaza conflict. Clearly there's a lot of concern in the community as to how our leaders aren't talking about this issue and whether or not enough attention is being given to innocent civilians on the Palestinian side while also discussing the right of the Israeli Defence Force to defend its country. What would your message be to that community?
Ged Kearney MP:
Well, I think that they can look to the motion that was moved by the Prime Minister in Parliament last week, which I might add had bipartisan support from the opposition, where we wholeheartedly condemned the actions of Hamas and, you know, the awful pain and trauma that was inflicted on the Israeli people. And of course, the taking of hostages and have called for those hostages to be released over and over. And we certainly defended Israel's rights to protect itself, but we balance that of course with calling on concern for indiscriminate attacks on civilians in retaliation in Palestine. And I think the world has joined us in that message because of absolute importance, of course, in any conflict, innocent civilians, whether they be Israeli or Of course, one of you know, the biggest concerns, and I just heard you interviewing people then just before we came on, is a social cohesion and harmony here at home. The last thing we need is politicians or any commentators for that matter, are inflaming unrest here at home by making unmeasured polls for all sorts of things in the Middle East. I have a wonderful community here in Cooper. I have a very large Muslim community, one of the largest mosques in Melbourne. I have a small but really caring and wonderful Jewish community as well. And they have from all sides have come to me and said that really what they want us to be able to live in peace here in Melbourne, in Australia. And I've had Jewish people say that they have in recent times been fearful of expressing their faith of outwardly or showing that they are Jewish. And the same for the Islamic community for women of course where hijabs are and and certain attire that the men wear that single them out as Muslims and that that frightens them and and that worries me that we are entering into that type of of lack of cohesion and fear in in our own country. And so the best thing I think that we can do as leaders is aim for social harmony and cohesion while of course condemning abhorrent acts and asking for protection of civilians.
Matt Doran:
Senator is do you agree with that sentiment? Is there, is there a concern here that maybe the that the community debate here in Australia is also becoming quite, quite heated and that people are fearful for how they're going to be going about their daily lives while watching the horror unfolding overseas?
Senator Kovacic:
Yeah, I think there are a number of things that we need to be really clear about and that's Australia is a very strong and very rich multicultural community. There is no place in Australia for anti-Semitism and there's no place in Australia for Islamophobia. It is very important that all communities across the breadth of our country feel safe to practise their own faith and feel free to be who they are, and that includes peaceful protest, but it doesn't include protest that includes hate speech or aggression towards anybody else. And I think, you know, we can all, you know, attempt to be amateur commentators on the Middle East. My job is to represent the Australian community, to represent NSW and that's for all of the constituents of NSW and to ensure that we provide a safe and harmonious platform, an environment for people to be able to express their views and their concerns. But let's be clear, what occurred in Israel on October the 7th was a terrorist attack by Hamas.
Matt Doran:
I want to pick up on some of the comments that other members of the Coalition made in response to Ed Husic and Anne Aly coming out last week and saying we'll somebody think of the innocent Palestinian civilians that are being caught up here. A lot of the criticism that started coming from the Coalition as a result of that was suggesting that they were breaking ranks with the government, that they were out of step with the broader message coming from the government. But no criticism of the actual central tenet of what they were arguing, which is that innocent lives on both sides are being caught up in this. Does that sort of commentary from some of your colleagues risk exacerbating this situation that you're speaking about trying to avoid?
Senator Kovacic:
Look, I think the things that are really important here to focus on is that there is consensus across the government and the opposition that this was a terrorist attack by Hamas, that Israel has the absolute right to defend itself, but that nobody wants to see civilian loss of life. I think that is abhorrent for everybody. And I think what we also need to be very clear about is that any narrative that chooses to divide and create a distortion of peace and the way we're able to live together in our multicultural communities here isn't helpful to communities here or overseas. We need to focus our efforts and ensuring as very well put by Ged that we maintain a good social cohesion here.
Matt Doran:
Ged Kearney on that issue, do you think the coalition or some members of the coalition, I think the senator here has, has sort of distanced herself from some of the commentary that was made last week. But do you think some members of the coalition have been trying to highlight division where division doesn't exceed indeed exist.
Ged Kearney MP:
I think the last thing we need here is political point scoring around what is a crisis appearing in the Middle East and a potential concerns for people who are living here. And I I I saw that as political point scoring and I don't think there's a place for it.
Matt Doran:
Let's move on to the issues around the voice. We saw a pretty strongly worded statement issued yesterday, Ged Kearney, from some Indigenous leaders voicing their ongoing anger at the result of the referendum being rejected by the Australian or the referendum proposal being rejected by the Australian people a week and a half ago. Now, given that sentiment does exist, and we're not saying it's every indigenous member of Australian society, but within a very influential part of that community, given that sentiment exists, how difficult is it going to be for the government to try to come up with some sort of new approach to dealing with things like closing the gap and more broadly, reconciliation?
Ged Kearney MP:
Yes, I I think it's important to recognise, of course, that there is great disappointment right across the First Nations community. There's a lot of people in that community who have been working well all their lives, certainly all their adult lives, towards a moment of constitutional recognition and the ask of the Uluru statement from the heart. So yes, it's understandable that people are disappointed and even angry, but I think you're right and that what we have to focus on now is the way forward. And the best way to do that is to continue to engage with First Nations communities, with their leaders, with grassroots, with grassroots communities as well. Because people might have voted and we accept the referendum result and yes, people may not have voted positively in that referendum. But I don't think anybody would agree that more needs to be, would disagree that more needs to be done to close the gap. And that's a positive. And that is something that we as a government that absolutely 100% determined to continue working on. I'm sure the senator would agree, even though that is important. It's disappointing. Referendums are hard to win, as we know, particularly if you don't have bipartisan support. And I think that was for me, that was one of the most disappointing things. Despite acknowledging that constitutional recognition is a good thing, the opposition couldn't bring themselves to support the referendum. But nevertheless, we are going to move forward and we're going to continue to consult. I think that that is a very important thing, consult with First Nations communities to see what that way forward looks like.
Matt Doran:
Well, Senator Kovacic, just on that right of reply, look, there is absolutely a need for reconciliation to continue post the referendum. And I agree that you know, I don't think there is anybody that disagrees that there is a gap that needs to be closed. I think what we need to focus on and I'll be really blunt here in my view the failure of the voice referendum was a failure of the prime minister's leadership. There was no consultation. There was you know no draught exposure bill. There was no constitutional convention. You know these are referendum 101 how to get a referendum across the line. You know, we had a great Press Club speech from Julian Leeser. We had discussions around dividing it into two questions, around voice and executive powers. None of that was given any consideration. It's my view that if we had two questions, we would have had a yes vote to one of those questions. And that's something that the Prime Minister has to accept as having been his decision. He chose to take it down that path. And the Australian public had a democratic process where they chose to reject, not to close the gap, but to reject the prime minister's voice proposal.
Matt Doran:
Picking you up there, you say there's been no consultation. I mean, yes, there were no constitutional conventions concede that point. But on the issue of consultation, wasn't that exactly what the Prime Minister and the government were doing in taking the Uluru statement from the heart, the, the request that had been made by many Indigenous Australians and signing up to that and taking that to the Australian people? Wasn't that the consultation?
Senator Kovacic:
If you want a referendum to succeed in this country, it's very clear historically it's been shown that you need to have bipartisan support. This was a very important referendum and the Prime Minister decided to proceed without bipartisan support.
Matt Doran:
Just sticking with you. One, one last question before we let both of you go. Senator Kovacic on this. Some of the criticism from Indigenous leaders has been squarely focused at the No campaign for misinformation and saying that No voters committed a shameless act on indigenous people. How do you try to repair that community, noting what you've said there about, you know, wanting to close the gap? Are people that were no voters now going to be tarred with that brush going forward in every interaction that they have with certain members of the Indigenous community?
Senator Kovacic:
Look, I have some concerns with that narrative and I'm not the only person that has concerns with that. I think Kos Samaras from Redbridge, you know, an ALP figure came out during the week to say that this wasn't about misinformation, this was about no information. And to suggest that, you know, some 60% of, you know, the Australian voting public has been tricked, I think is perhaps having a very narrow lens on what has transpired here.
Much more we could discuss where we are out of time. Maria Kovacic, Ged Kearney, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.
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