Talking Point: Labor must find some gumption and stand up for Palestinian justice
The ALP membership, including MPs, must condemn their current leader for his failure to support justice for Palestinians who have been oppressed for too long, says Greg Barns.
Opinion
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WHAT is it about the Israel lobby that it is so effective in its influence of politicians in Australia, that even someone like ALP leader Anthony Albanese feels the need to slam a very sensible idea of former foreign minister Bob Carr for a boycott of this apartheid state?
Mr Carr, and here he lines up with many in the European Union and human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch, is supporting a boycott of the illegal Israeli settlements that are stripping Palestinian people of their land. Mr Carr is rightly observing what any rational person knows to be the case, that is, Israel now fits the definition of an apartheid state.
Mr Albanese’s response is truly pathetic, spineless and shows that far from being a progressive and interested in justice, he is prepared to side with the defenders of the war crimes and human rights abuses committed by Israel.
Speaking at a meeting recently of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, a key Israel support group, the man who wants to be the next prime minister proudly proclaimed he did not support the worldwide group known as the BDS movement, which urges a boycott of investment and purchase of products and services from Israeli settlements.
And then there was this plain wrong statement from Albanese. Using the word “apartheid”, he told his no-doubt delighted audience, is “not appropriate for describing the Israeli political system and structure”. It “cheapens, to be frank, the struggle against apartheid that occurred in South Africa”, Mr Albanese said.
Mr Albanese is wrong of course. In March this year Human Rights Watch, in a report that could only be described as thorough and which detailed an impeccably correct legal analysis, said that when one examines the policies and practices of Israel towards Palestinians in the occupied territories with the treatment of Jewish Israelis in those illegal settlements, only one conclusion can be drawn.
There is a “present-day reality of a single authority, the Israeli government ... methodologically privileging Jewish Israelis while repressing Palestinians, most severely in the occupied territory.”
This is the essence of apartheid. In South Africa it was exactly this policy that Nelson Mandela and his supporters successfully overthrew in a sustained attack that ended in the 1990s.
Here is another example of apartheid that Human Rights Watch identified. In Jerusalem “the government’s plan for the municipality ... sets the goal of ‘maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the city’ and even specifies the demographic ratios it hopes to maintain.”
So this is why we should support the boycott of goods and services from the illegal settlements or occupied territories. It is why any company that invests there, such as sporting goods manufacturer Puma, should be boycotted.
We didn’t think twice, thanks to the leadership of former prime ministers Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke, about refusing to engage with apartheid South Africa, what is stopping us now? Gutless politicians like Mr Albanese and the majority of the ALP that’s what.
Mr Albanese’s intellectual dishonesty about Israel is inconsistent with a more powerful voice, of former UN secretary-general Ban ki Moon.
In the Financial Times on June 29 he argued: “What has become increasingly clear in recent years is Israel’s intent to maintain its structural domination and oppression of the Palestinian people through indefinite occupation. This gives the dual legal regimes imposed in Palestinian territories by Israel — together with the inhumane and abusive acts that are carried out against Palestinians — new significance, resulting in a situation that arguably constitutes apartheid.”
And perhaps Mr Albanese might like to note a poll published last week in the US showing that a quarter of Jews in that country think Israel is an apartheid state. The Times of Israel reported last week the poll showed 34 per cent agreed that “Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States”, 25 per cent agreed that “Israel is an apartheid state”, and 22 per cent agreed that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians”.
These results would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
Mr Carr’s stance on Israel is well articulated, based on fact, and comes despite the constant barrage of criticism he gets from the Israel lobby and its supporters in this country that practice cancel culture better than anyone.
He is also on the right side of history. If the ALP membership, including MPs, had any moral gumption they would wholeheartedly support Mr Carr and condemn their current leader for his abject failure to support justice for a people who have been oppressed by a racist regime for too long.
No doubt there will be the usual critics who will condemn this columnist for daring to criticise Israel. There will be some who say it is “anti-Semitic”. You make up your own mind. Do you think Israel is a rogue state or a nation committed to the ideal of racial equality? The evidence overwhelmingly supports the former label.
Broken system strips Tasmanians of their dignity
July 12
A FEW Saturdays ago an advertisement in this newspaper caught the eye of many.
It was different. “In some parts of the world, if you experience a setback you are sent for treatment”, was the opening paragraph of this full page ad.
“In some parts of the world, that treatment can mean losing your home, having your possessions sold without your permission, having your finances taken charge of, with no access to them. You are rendered powerless, you have no say. And neither do the people who care about you,” the advertisement continued.
This powerful message was the work of Futago, a local branding and design agency, working for its client Advocacy Tasmania, a non-government organisation for the vulnerable in our community. The point of the advertisement, which continued down the page along the same lines, was to make us aware of the gross paternalism and unfairness that is the guardianship system in Tasmania.
The Guardianship and Administration Board, which administers the law in Tasmania, and the Public Trustee, which is meant to administer the resources of those who need assistance in making decisions for themselves, run this system that sees far too many people stripped of their dignity, their capacity as human beings to control their destiny, and leaves their families and loved ones, as the advertisement noted, ignored.
An example of this appalling state of affairs was illustrated in a powerful story by Sue Bailey in the Sunday Tasmanian.
When he was in hospital, one man had his belongings sold without his consent by the Public Trustee. They cancelled a funeral plan he had been paying for, for 11 years.
Leanne Groombridge, the energetic and courageous CEO of the Advocacy Tasmania has taken up the case and, as the story reported, in her letter to the Ombudsman has said the man “does not recall the Public Trustee having any discussion with him about his belongings or his finances, nor does he have any written advice to confirm any attempt to communicate with him, or to inform him of the decisions being made on his behalf”.
This is not the only case of complaint about the Public Trustee, a government entity. Nor is it an isolated instance of the Guardianship and Administration Board and the legislation it works under being found wanting.
PUSH TO OVERHAUL ‘DRACONIAN’ GUARDIANSHIP LAWS
While the Attorney-General has now announced an inquiry into the Public Trustee because of the Sunday Tasmanian story and Ms Groombridge’s tenacity, it is missing the big picture. There needs to be a review of the legislation and the Guardianship and Administration Board. The system of guardianship is inhumane, and too often the inalienable right we have to make our own decisions is simply paid lip service.
A letter sent by Advocacy Tasmania, which these days is called Your Say, to the Deputy Premier Jeremy Rockliff on May 31, noted the “Guardianship and Administration system continues to violate fundamental human rights across its various agencies by exploiting the outdated and ineffective legislation in force”.
The legislation dates back to 1995. The letter cites some horrific examples of how a dreadful state of affairs is tolerated by legislators, lawyers, health professionals and institutions such as the Public Trustee.
Under the law, “Emergency Guardianship or Administration orders can be made without a formal hearing and over the telephone in exceptional circumstances. Applications are frequently made by social workers employed by the hospital, who are not required to provide an evidentiary basis for the application beyond their ‘professional opinion’. Whilst designed to be in place for only 28 days, the order can be extended for a further 28 days with minimal justification from the applicant. Often, the person affected is not notified of the order and is not supported to respond to the application for full and formal guardianship or administration which frequently follows an emergency order,” the letter observes.
This is the stuff of Kafka.
And the case referred to here is simply illustrative of a culture that results in cases where individuals “have had no contact for months on end or been banned from contacting their administrator/guardian and have had the administrator/guardian make decisions, including selling property and treasured items without consultation,” the letter observes.
The system is broken. It is not driven by a human rights culture because in Tasmania the legal system and the bureaucracy rarely allow that phrase to fall from their lips, let alone ensure it is front and centre of rules and practices in theory designed to protect the vulnerable.
The Gutwein government should heed the powerful Advocacy Tasmania advertisement, it should listen to the numerous stories of abuses of power by a system that allows and perpetuates a culture of paternalistic and arrogant decision making.
To inquire into one of the problems, the Public Trustee, misses the point. We need guardianship laws which are focused on nothing other than promoting decency through enforceable human rights.
Hobart barrister Greg Barns SC is a human rights lawyer and former adviser to state and federal Liberal governments.
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