Bill Shorten responds pro-Palestine protestors' Labor chants 

Published Oct 6, 2024, 9:43 PM

Sunrise is joined by NDIS Minister Bill Shorten and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce to discuss pro-Palestine activists and permits to protest.

Well, Today marks one year since Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than one thousand people and beginning what's become a major conflict in the Middle East region. Back home, pro Palestine protesters rallied on streets across this country in what were largely peaceful demonstrations with few arrests made by police. Action is however, set to continue today on the anniversary of the initial attack, with vigils planned in Sydney and in Melbourne for their take. Let's bring in NDIS Minister Bill Shorton and National MP Barnaby Joyce. Good morning to both of you. Bill will start with you protesters in Sydney. Let a chant of Labour Party blood on your hands? What is your response to those comments.

The people blood on the hounds as hummus. It's a year's anniversary since terrorists invaded Israel, killed over twelve hundred people, committed unspeakable crime, stole two hundred and fifty hostages. I can see people feel very strongly, be they have Palestinian heritage, Jewish heritage, Lebanese or just generally feel very strongly against civilian deaths. But today is a year since Humas across the borders, so they're the people of blood on their hands.

They say that we're under a terrorist regime. I think I heard someone shout, and their case is that there are tens of thousands more people who've died in Gaza since then, and your government is not speaking out enough for them.

What do you say, We'd say they're wrong. Our government has spoken out on behalf of all the civilians caught up in this conflict. But what I can't do is ignore the facts behind the violence. The reality is that Iran has been manipulating terrorist groups right through an arc in the Middle East. Israel does have the right to live behind safe borders. We do support a two state solution. We have provided aid and civilian supports. It's a dreadful conflict. But the argument that some of the radical protest has put that somehow it's the fault of the Australian government, or that somehow we live in a terrorist regime in Australia doesn't wash. It's just rubbish.

Baby.

Critics have said the Albanese government stands accused of abandoning Israel at its darkest hour of what do you think, I.

Think that I don't want to inflame the situation I think that it's really important that as best we can, we clearly understand exactly what Bill said. You just showed up a clip there and it had a lady being abducted and a smiley emoji from Hamas. I think that encapsulates, you know, the tenor of how this came about. Israel was invaded, okay, And when you invade a country, when a terrorist organization invades a country, you.

Start a war.

They started a war. Now they want to stop the war. If Hamas or Hesblah want to stop the war, remember HESBLA is also a terrorist organization. There's a way to do it. You surrender. That's how you stop wars. You surrender and you release the hostages and the war stops. You can't this idea, well if we protest here, we protest there and scream at people that somehow people will relent and give into a terrorists organization is obviously completely unfounded. If someone invaded Australia, if a terrorists organization invaded Australia, what would you expect the Australian Defense Force to do? Would you say, I will just will negotiate with this terrorist group? Now you say I'd go out there and win and then defeat them, then we're safe. And that's what's happening here. I would say the contemptible terrorist organization by reason of their actions, absolutely contemptible. They're raping people, they're killing they're killing people, they're killing babies, raping people. They've got people locked up and starving to death in oles. And you're saying, I want to negotiate with them. Where are you going to start in negotiation with these people?

Bill? Let's talk about the protests that have been going on for many, many months now. In New South Wales. There's a permit system that allows police to oppose a protest. Victoria's Premier, Jacinda Allen, is resistant calls for a similar system. Should Victoria have a permit system?

Permit systems are the preserve to have them all not of the preserve of the states. But I think it is working well in New South Wales and perhaps it is time for Victoria to consider a permit system. How the permit system works is it doesn't stop people protesting, but the purpose of it's looked at. The circumstances. How it's done is taken before a Supreme court, an independent body. The police in New South Wales use this power sparingly. I don't necessarily think it should apply to our industrial relations, but for some of these protests we've seen week in week out, I do think that having a permit system would at least straighten it up. The great cities of the world have it. American cities, London, they still have protests there. Perhaps it is time to reconsider. And I've been read what the secretary of the Police Association, Wayne Gatt said in Victoria, and he thought that there's probably some merit in considering this idea, and I think there probably is.

Bill.

Is it appropriate for the Palestinian protesters to be doing this on the eve and in fact the day of October seven?

Yeah, I think it's tasteless, to be honest, I don't agree. But listen, it's not as if they have an had a fair run at protesting. I mean, you can't go to parts of melm without tripping over a protest. I mean, you know that's Melbourne for you. People turn up at the opening of an envelope. But the point about it is, seriously, a year ago on the seventh of October, a whole lot of unprovoked violence just was large across southern Israel. I don't understand people who think that somehow that their pain is morally superior to someone else's. And that's really what some of the protesters are saying. And how on earth do you persuade people of your core by exacerbating the pain of others. It's it's a way of thinking. I don't comprehend.

It was unprovoked violence. It was one of the worst the world has ever seen. Barnaby, should they be doing it on this day? Yeah?

One of the guys leading this protest, I mean reading in the in the paper, Josh Lee's now neither Josh nor Lee sounds like a Palestinian name, And I had to look at him. It doesn't look very Palestinian to me. So I think what we are getting in amongst this, there's a lot of adjunct provocateurs. Well maybe it's not, maybe unfull, but I think joining this is a lot of people who just want to protest for protests sake. They it is ridiculous, like you know, people saying, you know that in the gay community support you know, supporting issues in Palestine or supporting her mask. Do they understand exactly what happens to people in the gay community under her mask. They do, they comprehend exactly what they're doing, and therefore you pose the question, what is what is really behind this and unders standing of the Palestinian situation, A real empathy. I'm absolutely certain there are people with that, not without doubt. I not for one second condoned them doing it on a day of this carnage that was inflicted by a terrorist group of masks. But there are a lot of other people in there who are hangers on, okay, and for them that's completely contemptible.

Okay, well, thank you both. We'll see you next week.

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