Pro-Palestine protesters disrupt opening of parliament

Pro-Palestine protesters were detained in Parliament House during a rally on Tuesday, while hundreds more massed on the lawns outside in a gathering that briefly grew so rowdy that one attendee stood on a police car.

Seventeen protesters were held in an antechamber off parliament’s Marble Hall for around an hour by police and building security as they shouted protest chants of “free, free Palestine” while Governor-General Sam Mostyn addressed the Senate.

Senator Mehreen Faruqi holds a sign up as Governor-General Samantha Mostyn addresses both houses.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Mehreen Faruqi held a sign in solidarity with the protesters during the entirety of Mostyn’s speech – “Gaza is starving. Words won’t feed them. Sanction Israel” – before the deputy Greens leader shouted at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to “sanction Israel” as he left the chamber.

Albanese did not respond, but the member for Kennedy, Bob Katter, was heard calling out “they started it” – seemingly referring to the October 7 attacks from Hamas where the terror group killed more than 1200 people in Israel – as the chamber emptied.

An Australian Federal Police spokesman confirmed that officers detained a group of 17 people to confirm their identities and then removed them from Parliament House after they caused a disturbance on Tuesday afternoon.

“They will be issued formal banning notices at a later date,” the spokesman said. “At about 3pm, one woman was arrested outside Parliament House by protective service officers and she has been transported to the ACT watch house. She is expected to be charged with failing to obey the direction of a protective service officer.”

Pro-Palestine protesters outside Parliament House in Canberra on the first day of the new parliament.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Before being detained, protesters inside the building were heard yelling at police to use gender-neutral language after being referred to as “ladies and gentlemen”, and shouted that “history will remember” those opposed to their cause before they were escorted out.

Outside, the AFP formed a border at the front of Parliament House, behind which protesters held up images of children killed in Israel’s Gaza offensive.

A man climbed onto the top of an AFP car, yelling, before officers ordered him down, while the public were barred from entering parliament.

Federal officers confront a masked man atop a police car outside Parliament House.Credit: Brittany Busch

Demonstrators had earlier lined the roads, holding bundles wrapped in funeral cloth to resemble dead children.

It was the second day of protests after activists were arrested on Monday for scaling a business in the industrial Canberra suburb of Hume, accusing the firm of contributing to weapons used in Israel.

Israel’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that Hamas was to blame for the conflict. “Hamas is the sole party responsible for the continuation of the war and the suffering on both sides,” the ministry posted on X.

It argued the terror group was harming civilians who came to receive aid from the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

The protest in Canberra came after the government made its strongest condemnation yet of the Israeli government’s conduct in Gaza, signing a letter alongside 27 other countries on Tuesday morning. The joint statement condemned the “drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children”.

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