Clover Moore steps back from motion to reject contacts with Israel-linked companies
The controversial proposal by City of Sydney councillors has been scrapped prior to a meeting, with the Lord Mayor’s team gutting the Greens-led motion.
NSW
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A controversial proposal by City of Sydney councillors to reject contracts with Israel-linked companies was scrapped prior to a meeting on Monday evening.
Amendments drafted by Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s team on Monday afternoon gutted a Greens-led motion that would force the council to compare any new contracts or investments with a United Nations database of companies allegedly involved in business in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Jewish groups accused the original motion of being akin to the “disgraced” Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, which promotes sanctions against companies associated with the state of Israel.
Instead, new amendments only detailed that “council note that the city’s review found no investments or contractual relationships with companies” on the UN register.
They also asked the chief executive to “investigate ways” in which the council could “support community-based efforts to promote social cohesion and unity”.
The amendments instead asked the council to condemn “the alarming rise of anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian attacks”.
Cr Moore backed the original motion back in June last year, despite drafting the amendments to effectively kill the motion.
A spokesperson for the lord mayor said that upon review of the companies the City of Sydney council had existing contracts with, there were “no links with the companies listed by the UN agency”.
“In addition, under its investment policy, the City of Sydney does not invest in products associated with environmentally and socially harmful activities. This includes the abuse of human and labour rights,” the spokesperson said.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said the fact the council had even considered a policy “expressly associated with the disgraced ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign’” was problematic.
“This follows the mayor’s recent refusal to join with other councils in a multi-faith initiative to restore and strengthen social cohesion after a spate of violent incidents directed against the Australian Jewish community,” he said.
“These are all signs of tired leadership at the council with outdated preoccupations. There is an urgent need for new leadership and basic cultural change.”
Liberal councillor Lyndon Gannon, who opposed the original divestment motion, said the council should be focusing on local issues rather than global ones.
“We shouldn’t be debating the anguishing dilemmas of the world, which we have no influence over,” he said.
“Netanyahu is not listening. Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah are not listening. Nor is Putin listening.
“We are a local government. We should be focusing our attentions on serving the people of Sydney.”
At the meeting on Monday evening, all councillors except Cr Gannon voted in favour of the amended motion.
“As I said last week, I won’t be supporting this motion,” Cr Gannon said.
When Cr Moore told him the motion was “different”, Cr Gannon still objected.
“No matter how diluted it is from the original, it still has the origin … and I can’t support it,” he told the meeting.
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