Able to speak more freely now that he is on the backbench, Mr Husic was blunt in his assessment of the Netanyahu government.

"We've seen just in the past week or so, the Israeli parliament say it wants to annex Gaza and effectively that is a form of ethnic cleansing. We've seen the starvation of its people through the failure to provide humanitarian assistance," he said.

"It should be held to account. Starvation is a war crime."

I'd have more respect for Husic if he had gone harder on this when he had more to lose. I'll take whatever we can get, though.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 5 points 4 days ago

Indeed. That's why I have such enormous respect for Fatima Payman, and why I lost a lot of respect for Penny Wong during the previous electoral term over her comparisons to her own stance against marriage equality.