How Bob Carr turned ALP from Israel to Palestine

Bob Carr’s influence has led to the rolling of the entire NSW ALP foreign policy committee’s policy.

Former foreign minister Bob Carr. Picture: Hollie Adams

After weeks of agonising, members of the NSW ALP’s foreign affairs committee were mightily relieved on June 22. They had headed off growing pressure ­inside the party to break with 40 years of ideological support for Israel — or so they thought.

In a phone hook-up, the committee agreed on a draft resolution. It was a neat compromise that fell well short of member ­demands flooding in that Labor’s largest state branch should advocate explicit recognition of Palestine at its party conference.

Bill Shorten was represented by Mike Kelly, the NSW Labor member for Eden Monaro.

Kelly could happily relay back that his Labor federal ­leader had a political headache no more.

The soft language of past ALP expressions of Palestinian support — committing Labor in government only to “discussing” recognition with like-minded nations if there was no progress in peace talks — would be largely unchanged.

An updated resolution would urge Labor to “progress” recognition of a Palestinian state. There were five accompanying dot-points, including one ­acknow­ledging the right of Israel to exist with secure borders.

The last thing Shorten needed in the lead-up to the next federal election he was increasingly confident of winning was heated ­debate that would cause party convulsions, shift attention away from disunity on Malcolm Turnbull’s side and wreck good relations with the Australian Jewish community.

Penny Wong, Shorten’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, agreed to the wording. She knew, like others, that the game plan of advocates wanting a radical shift in the NSW party was to force an equivalent on the federal party at its national conference next year.

One of Shorten’s advisers, Steve Michelson, accepted the wording too. At the time, so did Jason Clare, a federal Labor frontbencher and member for Paul Keating’s old NSW seat of Blaxland who was the “eyes and ears” for Kaila Murnain, the NSW head office party boss.

Six days later, on June 28, a ­directive from the top changed everything. Murnain ordered a “final wording” for the Israel-­Palestine resolution that was ­dramatically different.

She also told Bob Carr, the former Gillard foreign minister and NSW Labor premier who had been spearheading the push for change, that this was the best he would get.

Carr, it seems, had won a significant victory. Months of lobbying that insiders say included him phoning Labor MPs and union secretaries, and delivering passionate speeches to party branches had paid off.

Carr’s influence had led to the unilateral rolling of the entire NSW ALP foreign policy committee’s agreement on a benign revision of state Labor policy. Murnain’s directive effectively rolled Shorten and Wong as well.

Sources tell The Weekend Australian that after Carr had talked over the matter with Murnain following the June 22 compromise, she replaced the proposed one with the short alternative that is currently listed as resolution 23 for the NSW conference agenda.

Murnain was in a difficult, even excruciating position. She was relatively new to the job and wanted a successful first party conference that kept the heat on the Coalition. She did not want to risk any embarrassing hijacking of debate by Carr and his supporters in the NSW right, and all of the ALP left who backed him.

Without further discussion, Murnain’s order meant the committee had to accept her revised resolution foisted on it. While noting the softer positions of the 2015 ALP national conference, and 2016 NSW conference, the June 28 final wording said the NSW branch “urges the next Labor government to recognise Palestine”. Point blank. “It was a captain’s pick,” said one insider.

Publicly, Carr has downplayed his influence in this debate.

He has carefully pointed out in speeches that he is doing no more than use the language of prominent Israeli political figures.

Labor colleagues seeking a more restrained debate and Jewish community leaders complaining that Carr is lending undue encouragement to Palestinian demands point out that the man who once started a “Labor Friends of Israel” group is very quick to now agree with alle­gations of Israeli apartheid, war crimes and early massacres of Palestinians.

Carr’s supporters wanted an even stronger resolution, but ­accept the revised Murnain wording. They are confident the federal conference will adopt it as policy next year.

Murnain did not return The Weekend Australian’s call.