Labor preferences anti-Israel Greens despite PM’s refusal to negotiate

Labor candidates across the country have struck vote-swapping deals with anti-Israel Greens some of who claim ‘Zionism is on the side of Nazis’ and that Hamas attacks must be viewed in context.

Greens candidate Omar Sakr with Greens deputy leader and NSW senator Mehreen Faruqi in the background. Picture: Instagram

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Labor has struck vote-swapping deals with anti-Israel Greens candidates who claim “Zionism is on the side of Nazis” and that the Hamas attacks must be viewed in context, despite Anthony Albanese’s claims that he wouldn’t negotiate with the far-left party in the event of a hung parliament.

A majority of Labor MPs, including Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, have formed preference pacts with Greens candidates in an effort to maintain majority government.

Education Minister Jason Clare has instructed his supporters to put controversial Greens candidate Omar Sakr second on their ballot sheet in an effort to stave off a potent Muslim Vote-backed challenge in his western Sydney seat of Blaxland.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has preferenced controversial Greens candidate Omar Sakr. Picture: NewsWire / Nikki Short

Mr Sakr has made headlines for his inflammatory social media posts that he claims “are (his) personal opinions and they are correct”. Earlier this year he said “Zionism is on the side of Nazis so long as Nazis support their pet colonial apartheid project”.

“Both desire the intense isolation and exceptionalisation of Jewish people; both rely on anti-Semitism to justify the unjustifiable. Both are racist ethnonational ideologies,” Mr Sakr said at the time.

In a 2024 post, the Muslim poet and novelist claimed the “overwhelming majority of ­Israelis are genocidal racist scum”. He also claimed “Zionists are being demonised … by their sick actions” and “their shameless manipulation of historic atrocities to mask and permit their own”.

“It’s a Zionist tradition to misuse and abuse such memories to justify their every atrocity and gross state of perpetual victimhood,” he said in October last year.

In the marginal Victorian seat of Bruce, Labor assistant minister Julian Hill directed his voters to preference Monash University academic and former local councillor Rhonda Garad who previously stated that Hamas’ terrorist attacks needed to be viewed with “the broader context”.

Ms Garad, who was also endorsed by the Muslim Votes matter movement earlier this month, described “the complicity of both Labor and the LNP with the criminal Israeli government” as “deeply shocking”.

Greens candidate Samantha Ratnam will contest the seat of Wills currently held by Labor backbencher Peter Khalil. Picture: NewsWire / Tamati Smith

She also claimed to stand with “many Jewish organisations”, commending the left-wing Jewish Council of Australia for “condemning Israel and demanding an end to the slaughter of Palestinians”.

Labor’s move to direct its preferences towards anti-Israel Greens candidates was slammed by Liberal senator James Patterson, who described it as “bizarre”.

“If Labor really believes what they say about the extremism and anti-Semitism which has overtaken the Greens, they wouldn’t be preferencing them,” he said.

There are exceptions, including in Josh Burns’ seat of McNamara in Melbourne’s southeast, where the party has opted to run an open ticket, as well as in Peter Khalil’s seat of Wills.

The Labor backbencher – under siege by former Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam – has chosen to direct his supporters to a Legalise Cannabis candidate ahead of the Greens representative.

Peter Khalil’s electoral office in Coburg was the subject of activist attacks late last year. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Mr Khalil holds the seat of Wills on a 4.6 per cent margin, which was cut in half by a seat redistribution, and will need to see off the high-profile Greens candidate in order to retain it.

Ms Ratnam, who last month gained the official endorsement of the Muslim Votes matter advocacy group as a result of her “firm stance on Palestinian rights”, has been a vocal critic of both Mr Khalil and the Albanese government.

In October 2023, the Greens candidate addressed a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters outside Mr Khalil’s electoral office in Coburg, calling for “an end to the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories”, vowing to use “every opportunity we can till we achieve that peace”.

Despite the Prime Minister’s claims that his government would not negotiate with the Greens to form a minority government, the party’s leader Adam Bandt, believes negotiations are inevitable.