The UK draws a line on Palestine

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The British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has drawn a line in the sand on Gaza.

Unless Israel takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in the region, the UK will recognise Palestine as a state in September.

That's at the UN meeting.

But as the international momentum builds, how will Australia respond and potentially vote?

And it's the data drop the Reserve Bank board members and the Treasurer have been waiting for.

The Bureau of Statistics quarterly consumer price index is out.

Consumer prices rose 0.7% over the June quarter and 2.1% over the past year.

Jim Chalmers says the latest inflation figures are very encouraging news.

Hint, hint, nudge, nudge.

He won't say what he thinks the RBA should do, but it seems pretty clear clear what he thinks.

Welcome to politics now.

Hi, I'm Patricia Carvallis.

And I'm David Spears.

And David, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made a very significant shift in British foreign policy, really momentous.

Today, as part of this process towards peace, I can confirm the UK will recognise the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term sustainable peace reviving the prospect of a two-state solution.

He says the United Kingdom will recognise a Palestinian state in September unless Israel takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza.

Now the reason that matters, well there's lots of reasons, but one key reason is there is no chance that one of the conditions, for instance, is that Israel accept a two-state solution, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has spent his career campaigning against such an idea.

And so the idea that Israel will meet them and answer these requests is close to zero.

So that means, as far as I can see, it the UK will vote yes to statehood.

Comes after the French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to recognise Palestine as a state.

So that happened as well.

Now, the Prime Minister was asked about it this morning and said he'd spoken to Keir Starmer overnight.

Well, there you go.

They're talking, they're coordinating.

And we'll have further discussions in coming days.

Geez, I wonder why they're doing that, David.

He says, my entire political life I've supported two states.

I think, every day we say it, stronger and stronger and stronger rhetoric.

They've also signed another statement.

David, are we inching towards mirroring or at least having our own version of something like this, which means we vote yes?

Look, Australia is certainly increasing the pressure on Israel to do more, to take further steps.

It's certainly indicating, and I think it's right to say, inching towards a point where Australia is going to offer formal recognition of a Palestinian state under the Albanese government.

But we're not there yet.

And I don't think the Prime Minister wanted to look too reactive to Kirstama's move overnight.

But just to go through what we've seen here, it was only days ago, at the end of last week, that the French President Emmanuel Macron announced the French position that he would be recognising a Palestinian state when he addresses the UN General Assembly in September.

There weren't immediate signs that Kirstama was going to move, but clearly what Macron did did add to the pressure on Kierstama Starmer in the UK that was very evident from his own backbench.

The Labour caucus in the UK has been far more outspoken than our Labor caucus here, and we can come to that.

But he had a pressure group of more than 100 MPs putting pressure on Starma to do this.

So we have to view that, what he's done here through that prism of both the external or the international move, but also the internal pressure that he was facing from his own Labor colleagues as well.

I do think it's interesting the position Starmer's adopted here.

I mean, the statement from Downing Street is that they'll recognise a Palestinian state unless the Israeli government, as you mentioned, takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, reaches a ceasefire, makes clear there'll be no annexation in the West Bank and commits to a long-term peace process that delivers a two-state solution.

So

by saying we will recognize unless you do these things, I guess you've got to look at the, what if Israel were to agree to a ceasefire?

What if Israel were to improve the situation in Gaza?

Does that mean that Britain would not recognise a Palestinian state?

I just find it an interesting framing.

And it's not the framing that Anthony Albanese has adopted here.

The Prime Minister who just spoke a short time ago in a press conference here in Canberra that I was at, and I asked him

whether he was influenced by what Starmer has done here.

I still think he's being a little cautious in...

going the whole hog.

He's basically saying it's not a question of timing, it's a question of circumstances.

He wants wants the circumstance to be right that Australia taking this step is going to progress a two-state solution.

Yes, he wants to see those other things, improvement of the situation in Gaza, more humanitarian aid and so on.

But he wants this act, and you can only play this card once, as many have pointed out.

He wants it to actually mean something in terms of getting us to a two-state solution.

Here's the scenario now, though, David.

I think you're right.

The way that it's framed, the UK, the way they framed it, is a little weird, right?

Like, so what you're not going to then.

I think we know Israel doesn't want Palestinian statehood to be voted yes at this meeting.

So it is saying, well, okay, we'll do it in a more cooperative way with you, Israel, rather than imposing it on you.

So that's the reason for that.

It's about, you know, flexing muscle and also forcing Israel back to the negotiating table on a two-state solution.

As this last, what, almost three years, this horror that we've lived witnessed around the world, as it's unfolded, the biggest kind of cloud over it all is that the sense of hopelessness everyone has watching it is that there is no pathway.

And that pathway has been absent from both sides, the Hamas side, which is, you know, quite hostile to the existence of Israel.

and the Netanyahu government side, which is hostile to the existence of a Palestinian state and is through the settlement movement, which it clearly continues to support through its extremist ministers, allows to encroach on more and more Palestinian territory.

And so we are now in a very ugly situation where the borders have, they're not existent as they were once thought of in terms of getting to a two-state solution.

The amount of work that would need to be done and the movement of people is extreme and it's such a big piece of work.

Back to our Prime Minister though.

Why has he told us he spoke to Keir Stummer?

Why is he telling us, David, that he's going to speak to him again?

Why did this next statement get signed talking about Palestinian statehood?

Because

we are part of this move towards it.

Clearly, all these nations are kind of having their own flavor, if you want to call it that, about how we define it.

What I thought was really interesting in the Prime Minister's answer, I thought it was his most thoughtful

and expansive talk, other than the interview with you the other day.

But I mean, at a press conference on this Palestinian question, I feel like he's really well advised, he's really comfortable talking about it.

You can feel that comfort.

But was when he talked about the Palestinian Authority and its commitments that it would make.

That's what piqued my interest because he was trying to tell us something.

He was trying to tell us there's movement in the Palestinian Authority for an election in a year, for getting

extremist education

out of the books, that they want

a condemnation of what happened on October the 7th.

All of this, David, is quite significant in all of this, isn't it?

Well, it's significant that the Prime Minister is pointing to this and not just the Australian Prime Minister.

So he referenced in that press conference, and you're right, I agree.

I thought that was

some of the most expansive, just brings us into the PM's thinking on this issue in a more expansive way than perhaps we've heard.

This statement

that Australia signed up to, along with Andorra, Canada, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Slovenia, and Spain, that statement, which is the latest one of these joint statements that Australia signed up to, it has this interesting paragraph in it where it points to what the Palestinian Authority did in June, June the 10th, in which the Palestinian Authority condemns the October 7 attacks.

by Hamas, calls for release of the hostages,

calls for the disarmament of Hamas, commits to terminate the prisoner payment system, commits to schooling reform, commits to call for elections within a year,

and accepts the principle of a demilitarized Palestinian state.

All of this is music to the ears of countries like Australia, right, who want to see some progress from the Palestinians.

What we don't know, though,

really sitting from where we are, PK, is what influence the Palestinian Authority has, particularly in Gaza, where Hamas has been, you know, its political enemy and it's been in control now for many years.

How much weight should we put on what the Palestinian Authority is saying?

Still, it's significant, and the PM pointing to it and these other countries pointing to it shows they're wanting to highlight

at least the Palestinian Authority is moving here.

At least the Palestinian Authority is willing to democratise, demilitarise, see the prisoners released, the hostages released,

and that's not nothing.

It's not nothing.

You mentioned the intense pressure that Keir Starmer has been under under from his backbench.

And I've talked about it.

I think I mentioned it with Jacob.

Like, I think it's a big factor.

I'm glad you mentioned it because it's huge over there.

Now, Ed Husick,

he's been doing a lot of the heavy lifting, but there are others that share his view.

And so he keeps saying that.

He said it again today.

We're recording on a Wednesday about the momentum and the moral clarity, all of these language he's using.

He's not alone.

Now,

he might not be alone, but they're not willing to step out of line.

Well, they're not speaking like Ed Husig is.

No, that's right.

So I understand that there was a meeting of about a dozen Labor MPs with Ed Husig about this, and some of the new MPs were amongst them.

But that's, you know, it's nothing like the sort of pressure Keir Starmer has been under.

Look, it's in the Labor Party platform, of course, that a Palestinian state should be recognised.

It's not binding on the government to do that.

But the pressure is there from the party grassroots membership, membership, from a section of the caucus.

Just worth noting that Anthony Albanese is in a far more dominant position politically within his government and his Labor Party caucus than Keir Starmer, who's under all sorts of political pressure on a lot of fronts.

And so I think would be feeling that weight of pressure from his caucus in a way that, you know, Anthony Albanese is in a more dominant position.

That's true.

Yeah, that's true.

But then there's, okay, so then there's the pressure internally, and of course that matters to a Prime Minister.

And you were dead right about the ascendancy of Albanese versus Starmer who's had lots of other issues.

He's had a backbench revolt on things like welfare reform too.

Like he's really been struggling on those issues.

Okay.

So there's that.

But then there's the public pressure and the public pressure has ratcheted up on that.

And I think Albanese is more focused on that.

Yes, frankly.

Because the images which you cannot unsee.

You cannot unsee the hunger of those children.

You cannot,

it's kind of embedded in my mind now.

And I don't think I'm that different to a lot of Australians who've seen the images.

And so, yes, most Australians who aren't on a team, as the Prime Minister says, they don't know, you know, they're not on the

Greens bus or the whatever, but they are on the humanity bus.

And they look at this and they're like, this is just not okay.

And that does have an impact.

So will Australia be prepared to go into that September meeting and vote differently to the UK and France?

I'm not sure.

I think that's also going to be difficult for them.

Yeah, well, for starters, I don't know if there's a vote at the UN General Assembly.

I think these are speeches that Macron and Starmer are talking about giving.

But clearly, there'll be a big focus then.

If those two leaders are doing it and we're not, there'll be a lot of questions about why not.

I would note that on Sunday in our Insiders interview, the PM, because I pressed him on the timing in the UN meeting in September, he said it was unlikely that he would be doing it at that point, was his word.

You know, he kept saying it's not imminent, that he still wants to see these circumstances that we touched on

met before Australia goes down that path.

But yeah, look, his position, you know, clearly it's moving.

It is interesting, though, that he still has this frustration.

with the Greens and others who want him to go a lot further on this.

He brought up, and I hadn't heard about it, I don't know about UPK, but he referenced another incident at his electorate office that happened Friday when balloons with fish oil were chucked at the office, or maybe it was inside the office.

Anyway, the staff had to go home and shut down the office by by the sounds of it.

I wasn't aware of that, but we know there's been that targeting for some time.

And you could just see this frustration coming out from the PM.

We've seen it before a few times, but it was there again today.

So even in this moment where there's this

clearly

movement in the Albanese government

to harden its position against Israel, to talk about recognition and when we'll do it, but he's still pretty angry.

at those who are pushing him, pushing him to go a lot further, a lot faster.

Yeah, he's frustrated.

He gets cranky, doesn't he?

About that.

They would argue, yes, but we've pushed you to get you to this position.

He would contest that, right?

What's the truth?

Well, I do think public pressure has had an impact, but he's also been making the point, you know, that he's been committed to this issue of Palestinian rights for a very long time.

He mentioned his trip to Jerusalem, told a personal anecdote about, you know, how he felt about that extreme militarization and how people live.

So you got that sense of also, I have an investment in this.

I'm not new to this.

I haven't discovered this issue.

Before my time in this parliament, I've been focused on this two-state solution.

And look, at the end of the day, we've got to acknowledge that what Macron and Starna have done has given Anthony Albanese farmer cover to take this step.

I mean, if the concern is, well, Israel is going to be angry, well, sure, I don't think.

Anthony Albanese is showing any concern about that anymore.

He's getting, you know,

plenty of criticism from Israeli government officials, you know, for what he said over the weekend about the breach of international law.

If he's worried about Donald Trump, I don't think that's going to be, you know, look at how Trump reacted to Starmer.

I was just watching his comments on Air Force One as he was heading home and the journals were asking him about

what Keir Starmer has done.

He said, I'm in a different camp.

He thinks it could be rewarding Hamas.

But on the scale of Trump,

you know, anger and vitriol,

it was

pretty calm.

It It was pretty tepid.

I mean, he said, oh, I'm not in that camp, so he disagrees with him, but he didn't criticise Keir Starmer.

So if Anthony Albanese is worried at all about that, I don't think he needs to be

because others have gone there and the reaction from Trump seems to be pretty mild.

Yeah, I think that's a good observation.

Look, the other big thing that's happened this Wednesday is we finally have the

Bureau of Statistics quarterly consumer price index data out.

Yes, a lot of of words there.

This is a significant moment.

Jim Chalmers is hoping, praying that it means that there'll be a rate cut, I think.

But of course, trying not to openly jawbone the Reserve Bank of Australia into that decision.

The results, the consumer prices rose 0.7%

over the June quarter and 2.1% over the past year.

We know that unemployment at the same time, David, is going up.

I mean, hey, I'm not on the RBA board, but it's looking like,

you know, you'd think some rate cuts might be coming our way, but what are the caveats around it?

Well, I think, yeah, this adds to the

bit of embarrassment for the Reserve Bank for not cutting, right?

Because, and we know Jim Chalmers expressed his disappointment when they didn't.

You're right, he's not going to be as explicit as saying, I think they should do this or I think they should have done that.

But, you know, when he expressed

that households would be disappointed, I think we could read what he was saying there.

And since then, we've seen unemployment go up and we've seen inflation come down.

This quarterly inflation figure matters a lot more than those monthly figures that do bounce around.

This is the one the Reserve Bank was waiting for.

What's it tell us?

Headline inflation now down to 2.1%.

The Reserve Bank's target zone is 2% to 3%.

It's now 2.1%.

The all-important underlying figure is at 2.7%.

So it's well within that zone.

No surprise, all the economists are now saying, yeah, there'll definitely be a rate cut.

And the Treasurer is, I think, on his feet, always due to be on his feet right now.

But I'm sure in the nuanced way that Jim Chalmers does, he'll be making it clear that

that's going to be his expectation as well.

He's called them stunning numbers.

There you go.

When you consider when we came to office, inflation had a six in front of it.

Now it's around a third of that.

Very, very encouraging development.

And the politics of this, PK, I mean, gosh, it was only 12 months ago, right?

During the last term of parliament, when cost of living, we know it was absolutely painful for the government.

This was the only political issue that we talked about, right,

for such a long time.

It hasn't

gone away as a pressure point for so many households who really are still feeling it and need those rate cuts and some relief.

And it's why the government has started this parliamentary term with moves on cost of living, whether it's cheaper medicines this week, whether it was hex debt relief last week.

It wants to show very clearly that this is its main focus still.

But the politics have just shifted so much, haven't they, from 12 months ago?

It's a different world, isn't it?

And you've seen actually the politics shifting in terms of the kind of scrutiny from the opposition too.

They zeroed in this week on the unemployment going up, right?

Like they're, oh, it's not the cost of living thing.

It's, oh, now unemployment is going up.

Now, their argument is that the Albanese government has long said, look, isn't it amazing that our soft landing has been so good that we've managed to keep unemployment low and now unemployment is going up.

What was Jim Chalmers' answer on that, though?

I thought, you know, he was like,

you know, it's still the lowest it's been in, I forgot the timeframe, but the government feels like it's got still a good story to tell on that.

It's still pretty remarkable, and we're not the only country that's pulled this off, but to get inflation down without a big spike in unemployment

has not been the historic trend.

But, you know, this appears to be the landing point that, you know, remember when then Reserve Bank Governor Phil Lowe used to talk about that narrow path, that goat track to try and keep unemployment from spiking while bringing down inflation slowly.

And he copped all sorts of grief for the slow pace of,

he didn't ratchet up rates and arguably not quickly enough, early enough, but wanted to manage this situation that we now appear to have finally arrived at where inflation has come back down within the target band.

Unemployment, yes, it's ticked up.

Let's hope it doesn't spike because, yeah, this is not a bad landing point.

And it's interesting.

The big story for the government today, which we've barely even touched on, I think we've mentioned, but it is a big deal, is that they will ban YouTube.

And yet, so that's the big thing.

Now, that was recommended by the Safety Commissioner, but it just the fact that we haven't really gone into it very much speaks volumes.

Yeah, we talk about issues that cut through.

I think this is one, to be fair, that a lot of families will be focused on.

Certainly, the social media ban that was legislated at the end of last year, and now YouTube is added to the social media sites.

It matters a lot to a lot of families out there struggling with this.

And the PM and Annika Wells had with them three parents today who lost 14 and 15 year old kids

after they went through a lot of social media difficulty and abuse and so on.

And it really packed a pretty powerful point, I think, seeing the three of them stand there,

one of them holding an urn

and each of them struggling at times with their emotions.

That was a pretty powerful moment, I think, to make the point that the government's trying to make, that social media, it's not all bad, but it can do a lot of damage to kids.

And I think the government knows it's on a popular position when it talks about this social media ban.

And, you know, I mentioned that the Prime Minister's got his eyes a lot on global issues at the moment.

He's going to take this to the global stage at that UN General Assembly in September in New York.

Australia is going to host an event that he'll be at to talk about this.

He said a lot of other countries, a lot of other leaders are are interested in what Australia is doing here.

World first social media ban.

So he's pitching this now internationally.

And that's the one thing those social media tech companies most fear.

A middle power like Australia putting in place this ban and other countries, much bigger countries, following suit.

Yeah, the influencing those countries.

Yes, you're right.

They hate this ban.

And

look, I think you're right about packing packing a punch devastating what's happened for those families and anyone who who's you know dealt with young people online knows that it's not a safe place always

it can be there can be great benefits but there is can be a darkness to it too and so there is a power to that and also australia looking perhaps like it's a leader if it can um pull it off i suppose because there's a lot of devil in the detail i know that's a very big cliche but it's true like the execution is going to be difficult yeah yeah there's still questions about you know, how will the age verification work?

Is it really going to stop kids?

You know, sure kids will get around it.

All of that the government accepts.

But, you know, like alcohol, cigarettes and so on, these bans also send powerful signals.

And it's, you know, again, it's about helping parents be able to say to their kids, look, you shouldn't be on there.

It's actually against the law now.

And that kind of strengthens the hand of the parents trying to have that conversation.

Personal question.

Have you used it with your kids?

Yeah, look, my kids so far aren't that much into social media, but yeah, YouTube, yes, but not with an account.

And just to explain the detail here,

kids can still use YouTube.

They can definitely still use YouTube Kids, and they can still use YouTube, but without logging on, without having an account.

What they're trying to stop here is uploading content and interacting through that platform.

So you can still go crazy on YouTube Kids and without an account on YouTube, but it's just the uploading and the interacting, I suppose, they're wanting to stamp out.

Yeah.

I do think, you know, with all of its flaws, there are some sort of moral benefits, if you like.

And I've certainly, you know, my eldest daughter's turned 16.

She's already, as she says to me, even I'm legal.

And she is for even the benchmark for it.

But my youngest.

will not get on and knows that the law is looming and cares about laws.

And so it has actually been helpful.

And so, you know, in terms of setting up an Instagram account or a TikTok account or just the idea of how that like that world, because it sounds very general.

I know there's a lot of detail that you've said, but you know, there is kind of, and they talk about it at school.

We talk about the parents a lot, but do you know they're talking about it at school all the time, the kids?

Like...

They're having dialogue about the laws.

Yeah, and they're pretty familiar with YouTube in particular, particularly in the classroom where it is used quite regularly.

That's what my kids have told me, and I know from other families as well.

And as I say, at home, you know, you might want to explain how to do a certain type of maths problem.

no david you and i we would never exactly turn to some american video but often

and it's not always american but you go on there and it's a great little video explainer of how to do something or why something is i forgot how to do long division just like you're right and then i and then it reminded me in lockdown so thank you for that um long division i know how to do it again David, always great to have you on a Wednesday.

Thank you.

We covered everything, including long division.

Thanks, Pico.

Well, yeah, I might watch another refresher video.

Tomorrow, Fran and I are together talking about the weeks, politics, global affairs, the whole kit and caboodle.

Phil Coorie is our guest.

You can send a question to the party room at abc.net.au.

See you, David.

See you later.