Australian Politics

Coalition gets back together after week-long split

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-28/coalition-gets-back-together-after-week-long-split/105346446

@australianpolitics

OP article: 17 May 2025

Alternate article- Student general meeting demands USyd drop specious definition of antisemitism, cut ties with Israel - 18 May 2025

USyd response statement - University of Sydney does not condone student resolution: statement: 21 May 2025

Selected paragraphs:

Over 200 students packed a Student General Meeting at the University of Sydney this week, overwhelmingly rejecting the university’s new definition of antisemitism, designed to smear supporters of Palestine, and standing up to a crackdown on the right to protest.

The new Universities Australia definition of antisemitism, adopted by nearly all Australian universities, states that criticism of Israel can be antisemitic “when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel”. It draws heavily on the widely-condemned International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition which has been opposed by organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

In the end, only two students voted against any of the motions. It was an incredibly important moment for the movement on campus in a context where the right to support Palestine is under serious attack.

When two Zionist students spoke against the motions, calling pro-Palestine protesters antisemitic and condemning Hamas, the entire auditorium turned their backs on them. In response to their claims, an anti-Zionist student from a Jewish family spoke in support of the motion to support the one-state solution, telling the crowd: “I’m tired of being represented by Jewish people that think defending the state of Israel is valid, so I decided to come and speak for myself.”

In the lead-up to the meeting, the University had also threatened to cancel the room booking for the SGM unless the meeting was recorded and every student who wanted to attend presented their identification to security. These demands were dropped after opposition from the SRC.

What are the implications of this?

Some snippets:

The Senate has a number of tools available to force transparency and accountability of the Government.

One measure is the ability to initiate an inquiry into an issue. This requires a majority vote of the Senate. The LNP and Greens would have to join forces (38 votes), with at least one independent (39+ votes), to get an inquiry up in the face of Labor opposition. Getting the LNP and Greens to agree might be challenging, but if that occurs, it won’t be hard to get at least one independent onboard.

The reader can easily imagine the difficulties of getting the LNP and Greens to align on an inquiry. There will certainly be no inquiries on “drill baby drill” or “LGBTQI rights in the community” while such an inquiry requires right-and-left support.

Arguably related: https://aussie.zone/post/20645968

At the Prime Minister’s Press Club address, Albanese stated curtly, repeatedly that ‘Australia is not selling weapons to Israel’.

This is unequivocally not true in any way that actually matters.

Not only have US airstrikes been coordinated and launched from Australian bases, not only has Australia’s political and media class endlessly covered for Israel’s war crimes, but Australia’s ‘defence’ industry has profited from the sale of deadly devices to Israel. The list of exports to Israel after October 7, acquired under FOI by Declassified Australia, is 90 fucking pages long. New armaments contracts have even been signed deep into what Amnesty International last week described as a ‘livestreamed genocide’ – again, seemingly without anyone in the Australian press noticing.

Like a lawyer looking for weasel-y loopholes, Albanese is basing the ‘truthiness’ of his claim on the difference between selling weapons and selling weapons components. This is like claiming IKEA doesn’t sell furniture, only furniture components. The hairs he is splitting are on the heads of murdered Palestinians.

SBS because ABC and Guardian want everything to be part of a live blog apparently.

Anonymous survey from the people behind Vote Compass. They're interested in hearing from people about how and why they voted.

Dan Repacholi, the re-elected Hunter MP, has been named to an envoy role responsible for men’s health after starting some national conversations on that issue in his first term

I can’t recall they’re being a minister or special envoy for men’s health before. Is this a first?

In short, independents and minor parties combined got more vote than a major party (the LNP coalition). I think this is actually great news, it shows how well ranked choice and proportional voting work to empower smaller parties and diversify them.

The Greens’ federal election result has been widely condemned as a “disaster”.

The party has been all but wiped out in the House of Representatives. It has lost three of its four members, including leader Adam Bandt, who has just conceded his once safe seat of Melbourne. This leaves the Brisbane electorate of Ryan as the Greens’ only remaining seat in the lower house.

Yet the tired explanations being rolled out – the party is too extreme, too obstructionist, too distant from a mythical single-issue environmentalist past – misidentify the party’s dilemmas.

And they overlook the fact the Greens’ influence will be greater in the new parliament, at least in the Senate.

(The author seems to be in a pretty unique position to comment, given that they literally wrote a PhD thesis on the Greens a few years ago)