Don’t mention the war? Jacinta Allan doesn’t have a choice

If Jacinta Allan was asked to predict her first 100 days in office before becoming leader, it is unlikely she would have forecast that she’d be tasked with navigating the deep social divisions exposed in Victoria by the Gaza war.

Spring Street is a long way from the Gaza Strip – more than 13,000 kilometres in fact – and until October, Allan had never uttered the words Israel or Palestine in the Legislative Assembly where she has sat for more than 20 years.

Premier Jacinta Allan at the launch of Melbourne Holocaust Museum in Elsternwick this week.Credit: Joe Armao

But Hamas’ incursion into Israel within a fortnight of Allan taking top job has forced the premier to wade into the highly contested international issue, however uncomfortable it makes her.

Allan may be a seasoned politician that can fling away questions about Victoria’s ballooning debt with ease, but her inexperience on foreign policy issues was obvious last month when she initially refused to label the October 7 attack as terrorism.

While members of Melbourne’s Jewish community were quick to criticise her response, the overwhelming view was that her comments were not driven by any anti-Israel ideology, but by being unpractised.

The Jewish community was less forgiving this week when thousands of community members signed a letter calling on Allan and her deputy Ben Carroll to toughen their stance on Thursday’s student strike for Palestine. Many are angry that her warning against kids skipping school sat neatly alongside an acknowledgment that demonstrations are a fundamental democratic right.

To many Victorians, these two statements might seem obvious, but in this conflict there is no such thing as a benign intervention.

Allan’s office has been frustrated by the criticism, taking the view that nothing she says – whether she called for the release of hostages or an end to the bombardment of Gaza – would do anything to end the suffering in the Middle East.

Allan sees her responsibility as one of promoting social cohesion, but her response must also carefully navigate Labor’s internal party dynamics and electoral realities.

The premier is a member of the same socialist left faction as former premier Daniel Andrews, a grouping within Labor that has traditionally been staunchly pro-Palestine.

In the final few months of his premiership, Andrews voiced his opposition to his own faction’s motion on Palestinian recognition, describing Israel as the “only true democracy” in the Middle East and vowing to oppose any motion regarding the recognition of Palestine at the ALP national conference.

“My position on Israel has been very, very consistent and clear. It’s not always popular, but it’s my view, and it won’t change,” the former premier said.

Even in her youth, Allan’s contemporaries from the socialist-left faction say the future premier never took a strong position on the conflict in the Middle East. Her interest has always been squarely on domestic politics.

As the war drags on, Allan will also have to find ways to express outrage and horror without making life difficult for the broader caucus that represent the state’s diverse demographics.

Labor is a political powerhouse in Victoria, representing 56 seats. But that can be tricky to navigate. Melbourne is home to Australia’s largest Jewish population, centred on a collection of south-eastern suburbs such as St Kilda and Balaclava which are represented in state parliament by Albert Park MP Nina Taylor, who has strategically avoided – where she can – wading in on the issue.

Heading north to Broadmeadows, where 38.6 per cent of people are Muslim, Kathleen Matthews-Ward has called for a ceasefire. Victoria’s cross-party Parliamentary Friends of Palestine, which is co-chaired by Labor’s Bronwyn Halfpenny, held a vigil at parliament last week.

Allan may have wanted to spend the first 100 days of her premiership talking about roads and trains, but she’s had no choice but to deal with this contentious conflict.

Both sides of the Israel-Hamas conflict are observing every utterance chosen by our political leaders. As a state leader, Allan's words will do little to end the suffering of civilians in the Middle East, but the language she chooses, will have an impact on domestic tensions, and could create electoral and factional woes if she doesn't tread carefully.

Annika Smethurst is state political editor.

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