Australia splits with US to recognise Palestine

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Australia has officially recognised Palestine as a sovereign state.

The Prime Minister hopes it'll send a signal that the cycle of violence in the Middle East has to stop.

Anthony Albanese made the pledge alongside allies like the UK, Canada and France.

But not everyone is on board and it puts Australia at odds with the United States.

So what impact will the move have and what could it mean for a meeting with Donald Trump?

Welcome to Politics Now.

I'm Brett Worthington.

And I'm Jacob Greber.

I think this is the first time we've done a show together, isn't it?

It is, and I'm glad that you're not a member of half the cabinet, which seems to be in New York at the moment, Jacob.

You're here schlepping it with me in Canberra, taking in the sunshine.

Canberra's never looked so glamorous as it does now.

Just you and me, no one else.

Everyone in New York.

I'm ignoring the backdrop that we saw Spearsy and Laura on yesterday on Insiders.

They are obviously in New York for the terribly named UNGA, the UN General Assembly meeting.

And we've seen overnight, Jacob, the Prime Minister has

made official what we've long known coming, recognition of a Palestinian state.

Take us to this moment.

What does it mean?

Very historic moment.

As you say, it's been built up.

It's something that the government really set themselves on a path towards well over a year ago.

Penny Wong gave a speech at the ANU, I think it was May of last year, where she talked about recognition of Palestinian statehood being something that could be put on the table before there is peace, before all the hostages are home, before the war in Gaza is over.

It was always, up until that point, strictly going to be after all of those other things were resolved that it would be put on the table because the concern was that this rewards Hamas for starting this conflict with those attacks.

The government was getting frustrated with the story that it was hearing from the Netanyahu government.

That frustration has really built over the last 12 months.

And the other big difference, Brett, is Australia is doing this in unison with a whole lot of allies and like-minded countries: the UK, notably, France, notably, I think Belgium, I think

there are some others that I'm probably forgetting here.

So we're very much moving in lockstep with what you could call the last big Western bloc that had not taken this step.

There's a lot of countries that that do recognize Palestinian statehood, but

the sort of Western dominant G7, G20 block still hadn't done that, and that's now happened.

So, really, really historic moment.

Yes, we see four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Cabinet are all there.

They're on board.

The big bopper in all of this is the United States, which is clearly not on board, has veto power at all those levels with which it can override any ability for Palestine to be officially recognized and get statehood status at the United Nations.

But it is really telling in the very early, we can't call it Anthony Albanese doctrine just yet, but he wants to make the point this is a sovereign decision that Australia is taking.

But as he has done all throughout this conflict, wanting to step out with like-minded allies and increasingly that closeness with the UK in particular was clearly an important moment.

Now, Kierstama's not there and not unlike Anthony Albanese, has had domestic issues that he was having to tend to.

Like Anthony Albanese, Kierstama, under a lot of pressure from his backbench for this moment of recognition.

so they've finally done it.

Do you think it changes any of the local politics, any of the international politics in this conflict?

It's now put a lot of weight on these countries, and Canada's the other one, of course, to make this work.

In a sense, they've bought into the problem, and that's because of community pressure from their own domestic electorates.

But like you say, now they have to solve the problem of how to make the Palestinian territories into a viable state.

For instance, there is no airport with which to get into this part of the country.

You've got to go via Israel or one of the external borders.

There are a series of institutions that need to be built up.

The Palestinian Authority needs a whole bunch of fiscal reform to be able to stand on its own two feet.

And so that is a very, very difficult and a very long process that will take years, if not decades, to complete.

And Australia, with all these other countries now, is very much part of that project, I guess you could call it.

And at the same time, you have a very, very

defiant, you know, Israeli prime minister who's saying it's not happening on my watch.

In fact, he wants to expand the settlers in some of those disputed territories.

So those two forces are completely at odds.

And of course, there's still a war going on.

There's concerns about how Australia and the other allies keep

Hamas out of whatever the future state is.

That's very, very difficult in the weeds technical stuff.

And I, Brett, I don't know what you think, but the debate sort of doesn't go there very quickly because it's still at the basic sort of

yeah, the bit that sort of surprised me was for as historic as a moment as this is, there's no real paperwork or anything.

There's no, you know, UN declaration or whatever.

It is as simple as a prime minister making a statement saying, we recognize a Palestinian state.

It does then make it a bit easier for a future coalition government if they choose to walk this back, that it seems like it's a matter of just ripping up the statement and saying not that anymore.

But when Anthony Albanese made this commitment that it was going to be happening, and now we've seen it, there were those caveats that aren't talked about as much.

So, you know, the Palestinian Authority needed to get its act together and work out a way to clear up some of the issues that were existing there.

Now, part of this recognition means Australia recognises Mahmoud Abbas as the head of the Palestinian Authority, is the leader of.

And he couldn't get a visa to New York for this meeting.

And that's happening today.

And Anthony Albanese was hoping to meet with him there alongside the sides of these talks.

Part of the theory here that Penny Wong is now opening up is that by recognizing a state of Palestine, you can fast track and bring on peace because you can send assurances to the Palestinian people that you don't need to stick with Hamas in order to give yourself the ability to determine your own future.

It is a theoretical test that we have long been debated for decades.

We're about to see play out right across our television screens and on our radio every day.

Also, it's really a test of the UN system itself,

the multilateral system.

It's going up against a mighty right

counter-narrative and a counter-view, which the Americans and to a large extent the Israelis are pursuing, which is that you must show strength at all times.

And I mean, Israel demonstrably has dismantled its enemies that are close to it in a phenomenal way, if you think about the last two years.

And we're almost up to two years, in fact.

Hezbollah has been largely destroyed in Lebanon.

Iran has been put back on its heels with its nuclear program.

We don't know for how long, but clearly Israel has demonstrated an ability to kill very senior people in Iran from within.

That's quite shocking from an Iranian point of view.

The Houthis as well.

And then of course Hamas.

We're really down to what looks like a rump that's left and they still have that great leverage over everyone, which is the hostages that still haven't been released.

But if you think about where we were two years ago, this is a dramatic redrawing of the power dynamic of the Middle East.

So from their point of view, Might is Right has definitely worked.

And it's now coming head to head against this multilateral, the rest of the world all working in unison to try and create this new project, which is to establish a state.

Extraordinary set of shearing forces.

And too, the role of Donald Trump in this will be fascinating because, yes, of course, Donald Trump is against this.

We've seen Republicans come out and say there should be consequences for nations like Australia taking these steps in recognition.

But as much as Donald Trump is supporting Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel, he's also quite keen on parts of the Arab League as well, and particularly the ties that he's building throughout Saudi Arabia into parts of Qatar as well.

That aeroplane.

Nice plane they've made for him.

How quickly can you renovate this plane so I can get it in the air before I go out of office?

What do you think we can expect to see from the American response here, both in terms of dealing with Australia, but the ways in which Donald Trump will find himself pincered by both Israel potentially on one side and leaders within the Arab community on the other.

Wouldn't be an uncomfortable position for him, but you can see the tension.

He seems to lose patience from time to time with Benjamin Yetanyahu.

He criticises them hitting Qatar as they did, what was it, the week before last with a missile strike.

He gets concerned that

this is running counter to the way he wants to operate.

And he does want a grand accord with

all those Arab states.

The Abrams Accord began during his first term.

His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was running around.

I covered that as a correspondent in Washington at the time, and there was quite a bit of cynicism and scepticism about that.

But it's changing, again, that dynamic in the Middle East, the way power is divided and exercised, moving very, very dramatically with the Saudis being part of this process today

and tomorrow in New York at the UN meeting.

There's this co-hosting a thing and there's a lot of the Arab states are there, if not all the key ones, all trying to find a way through here.

And that tells you there's a weariness with all of this.

There's a weariness with the Hamas-Hezbollar approach.

They want something different.

And there's a number of Arab states that can point to the alternative, which is a place as wealthy seeming as Dubai being this beacon that other parts

of the Arab world can strive for.

Super complicated to get there.

But that's what we're we're essentially talking about.

Yeah, and so you've got then Anthony Albanese wanting to stand there with allies, so he'll take part in all these talks.

He'll sell the decision on why Australia has taken the steps that it's taken.

But back home, the coalition, we saw it, had a statement ready to go the moment Anthony Albanese's statement went up recognising a Palestinian state.

Susan Lee, Michaelia Cash, both saying this is a reckless decision that they want, like you said, Jacob, for recognition to be at the end of a peace process.

They both support two states.

It's how you get there where there's a clear difference.

And I think Michaelia Cash in particular has gone the furthest that what you've seen of Michaelia Cash and Susan Lee in this area and showing few signs that the coalition is having a change in direction anytime soon.

They will stay loyal to Israel for a long, long time, I suspect.

It's a pretty unique moment.

Notwithstanding Donald Trump, a Republican in the White House, the other big key states are not what you might call centre.

I mean, Macron is centre-right-ish,

but France is a different polity.

It's a much more left-wing, pro-Palestinian society.

You've got Keir Starmer, a Labour Prime Minister.

You've got Mark Carney, a Liberal, as in a small L liberal prime minister in Canada.

So this unique moment where you've got centre-left governments having to make this call

has left the coalition sort of

not out of the picture, but in essence they're against that tide.

And unwilling to be critical in the way which Donald Trump at times has been critical of Israel.

Yeah there's never you never hear criticism.

I think you occasionally hear

a little tone of concern but it's very rare and they stick to those lines get the hostages out first get you know get Hamas to dismantle in its entirety before they'll countenance anything else.

Interesting to see how that plays out politically.

I keep thinking with this topic.

I don't know how many Australians wake up thinking about it and caring about it.

But the ones that do, it it doesn't matter which side they're on, care about it very deeply.

And I think the bit that we'll be keeping a close eye here is that what does this mean in terms of a meeting?

Is it going to happen?

A meeting.

We need a sound effect, don't we?

Is a handshake a meeting?

Is that a meeting?

Is there a little wink across the room?

Is that a meeting?

Hi, I saw him.

So the problem here is the UN week is Speed Day.

You know, it's Global Leader Speed Day Dating Week.

They pack them in, they pack these sort of pull-asides pull-asides or, you know, little sideline meetings that they have, and they'll do dozens of them.

And you kind of wonder what those meetings are like, you know, like how deep do you go?

Someone whispering, this is the Australian Prime Minister in Trump's ears.

Yeah.

Trump is hosting

an American welcome to America.

function as part of the UN General Assembly week in New York.

The government sort of being at pains to indicate that this is going to be, there's going to be a lot of people at this gathering.

So you wouldn't call that a meeting between the Prime Minister and the President, but no doubt words will be exchanged and they'll have some sort of interaction.

But that's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about a sit-down where they go through some of the issues that matter on both sides.

And it doesn't look like it's happening this week.

There are some other meetings later in the year, but it will continue to be this,

it's just sort of hanging over everyone, this ongoing unresolved boiler means lancing yeah i wasn't going to get gross with sort of medical terms but exactly you know some sort of you know the government feels it's not really substantially affecting their kind of positioning with america more generally they've had meetings on on you know by telephone those those have been warm by all accounts the president doesn't have any particular reason to pick a fight with australia i think that that much is clear so maybe not having a meeting is a good thing because everyone he's had a meeting with they've come out going oh it was a great meeting only to get slapped with massive tariffs.

You know, in the case of India and Japan, the Japanese Prime Minister's gone, you know, not probably not unrelated.

So it's a dangerous thing to have a meeting with.

Kierstama had a letter from the king, Benjamin Netanyahu.

I heard a letter to the Nobel Peace Prize.

I wonder what letter you're taking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Can you give him the opera house, man?

Does this sort of Rabido's themed letterhead cut it, I wonder?

Hawk's on one side, Rabado's on the other.

Here's your love.

Look, but I wrote a piece for our website a weekend before last where I said, actually, Albanese, the Prime Minister and the President have more common ground than most people will immediately give credit for.

You know, we have immigration policies that Trump loves.

He loves the Nauru solution.

He loves

the harshness of it and the message it sends to potential migrants.

That's

pure Trump.

He loves our industry policy that the Albanese government has adopted, this build it here in Australia.

I mean, mean, that stuff could fit on a MAGA cap.

Future made in Australia.

We get red caps with future made in Australia.

Gimpa Price had an idea along those lines in the campaign.

So

they're not that far apart on this sort of economic stuff.

They're obviously not on the same page as far as Palestine.

They're not on the same page in terms of climate.

But the two leaders also know both of them are going to be around for quite some time.

Like they will both, more or less, you can safely say, be in office until 2028.

So they they both know they've got to have a relationship.

Trump also likes a winner, let's face it.

And winning 94 seats means you're a winner.

Even in Trump's world he understands Albanese comes with

the imprimatur of the Australian people.

So for whatever reasons, whatever ideological differences they might have in worldview and style,

they're both leaders at a dominant point in their political cycle.

You see that with Kier Summer.

Right.

Trump's criticism of him.

He's a liberal.

But hey, we get along.

I like the guy.

Now, that might change.

Yeah, there's a very different, and we will get a sense, and I'm sure next week when we chat, we'll have a better sense of where the Albanese-Starma relationship is going and what that all is meaning.

But I'm keen to bring your attention also to a local matter that the Prime Minister got asked about while he was over there in New York.

He's never so keen to talk about domestic issues when he's on the world stage, but it is this outage that we saw from Optus.

As the days have gone on we're understanding that the extent of this outage was much bigger than maybe was initially thought so it's now gone to WA, South Australia, the far west of New South Wales and the Northern Territory, hundreds of calls that were unable to be connected to emergency services, at least three deaths that are being linked as part of this.

Further investigations are continuing.

But from the South Australian Premier right up to the Federal Communications Minister, it has been scathing heading in Optus' direction, especially because, what, two years ago, ago, there was a similar outage.

How do you reckon this Optus story is going to play out in a domestic sense?

Yeah, I wouldn't want to be that CEO.

I mean, he looked stricken and you sort of feel obviously for the people who,

it seems, fell victim to this technological failing.

They didn't get the help they needed.

We don't know.

We'll have to wait and see what those stories are about, in essence, but such a reminder of the vital importance of this technology.

Once upon a time, it would have been landlines that would have been the dominant source of triple-O calls, in fact, the only source of AAA calls.

Telstra essentially had a monopoly on that, in a sense, you know, the infrastructure.

Now we're in a world where we have private operators running this super critical infrastructure for profit.

And one of the things that we say gives them the ability to make a business out of this is they have to provide this kind of service.

And it's fallen apart and something's gone awfully wrong.

I don't know, was that IT upgrade or something that happened?

Yeah, system and ended up cutting, what was it, something like 600

calls.

But I think one of the issues was people were calling the call center for Optus and saying, I think there's a problem with the triple zero and there were still then lengths of time that it took to get it resolved.

And I think from the latest count that I've got, there's going to be about four investigations.

So the Federal Communications Minister, Annika Wells, who was meant to be heading to the UN.

She was meant to be on the Prime Minister's plane on Saturday.

Yeah.

Because they're doing a social media ban showcase, as Australia is really one of the only countries doing this.

So she was going there to make a big deal out of that.

Bags packed, but had to stay back.

And I think the plan is Annie Collis will still try and get to the UN for that.

But this morning she was standing alongside with the boss of ACMA.

And that investigation is going to look at how it is that the fallbacks didn't fall into place.

That how do these calls not get moved on to, say, Telstra or to Vodafone?

And how is it that

since the 2023 incident, there were an inquiry taking place, Optus has implemented, I think it's 12 of the 18 recommendations, but still six are yet to be fully implemented.

So ACMA's threatening that they're going to be carrying the fine stick and giving Optus a touch-up along the way.

Optus itself is launching an independent investigation.

You've got police investigations because they'll obviously have to do reports for the coroner.

But the South Australian Premier, Peter Malinowskis, is like

how am I finding out from a press conference that people in my state have died as a result of of this breakdown?

So the story there with Malinowskis was he was sort of informed, I believe.

He says, I think his line was no advice was passed on until they were learning information during the press conference.

So we saw that hastily arranged press conference from Optus on Friday afternoon.

But then as we've seen a bit of Peter Malanowskis at the weekend and then this morning on News Breakfast and on RN breakfast, he's talking about how is it that we're finding out about deaths in the middle of this press conference?

That essentially South Australian ambulance noticed that there seemed to be a drop-off in the number of alerts they were getting.

They contact police and they're saying they're getting the same thing as well.

So communication is happening, but Peter Malanowskis and also Roger Cook, the West Australian Premier, are talking about how is it that there isn't a broader fallback operation in place and then there needs to be a national policy here to work out when you've got one telco going down, people should have the assurances that when they pick up that phone and call triple zero, they're going to be able to get through to an emergency call.

You can imagine the sort of fear and terror and just being in a position of trying to get an emergency call through and being unable to.

It'd be a horrible feeling.

And I think the bit that really irked Peter Malinowskis was, hang on, how is it you're preparing for crisis communications and preparing for a press conference before you are alerting other state authorities?

Now, I think Optus will push back to some extent on some of those parts there, but there's clear anger that is being levelled at the head of Optus.

Now, Lara giving us, the lovely Lara is giving us a wind-up, but can we talk about Andrew Hastie before we close today's podcast?

Yes, talk to me.

Andrew Hastie, you've had your eyes out on social media at the weekend.

You've been scrolling, Jacob.

What have you seen?

It popped up in my feed really early on Saturday morning, and it was a video that he put up of him with

some kind of 1970s supercar.

I'm not a car expert, but muscle car.

And then him giving this little very scripted, very slick riff about essentially both sides of politics have let manufacturing down in this country.

We don't do complicated things.

You seem to be yearning back to an older,

more sunlit upland sort of place that we all apparently used to live in when we made things.

What's going on here, Brett?

Well, this is just the shadow Home Affairs Minister shaping home affairs policies.

I think slightly different foray than necessarily what the Home Affairs Brief typically is, but I think it is shocking people within not just the government about where things are placing, but within the coalition at the fast pace with which we are racing towards open questions being put around Susan Lee and leadership.

And is it a pre-Christmas challenge or a post-Christmas challenge?

I don't know.

You have a look at that news poll, Russell.

Yeah, who would want the job for a start?

It's a poison chalice, potentially.

But the polls

have got worse for the coalition since the election.

So if Peter Dutton was the problem at the election, what's the problem now?

Like, it must be worse.

And in a sense, yes, it's way too soon.

It's not like people are doing numbers, but...

I think we're four months from there.

But

people are definitely burnishing their own image, and that's what the Hastie thing looked like.

Here's me, you know, having deep thoughts about, I'm not driving an EV.

See, this is a real car, not an EV.

There's a lot of subtle stuff there.

We get told that Susan Lee has a problem connecting with young men.

Dutton had a woman problem.

Susan Lee's got a man problem.

Hasty's sort of putting himself up there saying, look at me, look at me.

Maybe I'm the solution.

One of the things that sits behind all of this, I think, is they've changed the funding donation rules.

One of the deals that they did at the end of the last parliament, Don Farrell and the Liberal Party agreed to bring in a new system to try and stitch up the teals.

Basically to nobble the teals, right?

But

there's a very large loophole that exists until July 1 of next year.

You can get as much money into your foundations and your funding bodies between now and then as you can.

Interesting.

Then the door closes.

The race is now on to get that capital into that system where it then can be used for future endowments to run campaigns for years and if not decades.

Labor's not going to have any problem raising the money.

The union movement will be there for it.

The coalition is really starting to get nervous now that with a 27% primary, the donors are not interested.

So this is a problem for the Liberal Party for a long time into the future if they don't resolve it.

And I think some of that's sitting there underneath this,

like you said, premature storyline that we're starting to have.

So Jacob, for our listeners there, what should they be keeping an eye on in terms of what, if they're trying to read the tea leaves about what this means for the Liberal Party, for Susan Lee and for Andrew Hasty, what are they keeping their eye on?

Facebook.

Facebook, Instagram, probably Twitter.

No, and what's the new one that we're not allowed to look at?

Hey, I don't know any of them.

I'm so

a 90-year-old man in a 38-year-old's body.

Jacob, it's been a real treat.

It has.

It's been great chatting.

And tomorrow I'll be joined by Raph Epstein on Politics Now.

If you have a question, you can always send us a short voice note to the partyroom at abc.net.au and Mel Clark and I will answer it for you on Thursday when we bring you the party room.

See you, Jacob.

See ya.