By Jasper Lindell
Updated July 28 2024 – 6:16pm, first published July 27 2024 – 5:31pm

ACT Labor has called on the federal government to immediately recognise a Palestinian state at an annual party conference which demonstrated the power of the branch’s left wing.

Delegates backed motions calling for the ACT government to divest from any companies linked to manufacturing weapons used by Israel against Palestinians and from companies that “operate and profit from human rights violations and other breaches of international law in Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank”.
The conference admitted 271 accredited delegates to the one-day meeting at the Southern Cross Club on Saturday, 60 per cent belonging to the party’s left faction.
A small group of pro-Palestine protesters gathered out the front of the club in Phillip on Saturday morning.

Delegates from the party’s right wing faction unsuccessfully moved amendments against the left’s motions in favour of Palestinian recognition, and waived their rights to speak in support of the changes.

Pro-Palestine protesters out the front of the ACT Labor conference at the Southern Cross Club on Saturday. Picture by Keegan Carroll

A motion moved by Aggi Court, a Labor candidate for Kurrajong at the October election, called on the federal government to sanction Israel over “human rights abuses and war crimes in Gaza”.

The motion also called on the federal Labor government to take action towards a two-state solution and said: “ACT Labor strongly supports the immediate recognition of the state of Palestine and condemns the operation of an Apartheid system in Israel.”

The right faction had unsuccessfully sought to amend the call for the recognition of a Palestinian state to a time “when such recognition is most likely to advance the cause of peace” rather than immediately.

ACT Labor’s annual party conference met at the Southern Cross Club on Saturday. Picture by Keegan Carroll

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faced internal protests at the NSW state Labor conference in Sydney on Saturday, which was also surrounded by hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters.

ACT Labor delegates backed an amended motion calling on a territory Labor government to develop and implement a scheme so senior union representatives are on selection panels for appointments and re-engagements for senior ACT public servants and independent statutory officer positions.

But a CFMEU motion that sought greater union involvement in the ACT’s procurement system under the territory’s secure local jobs code, including powers to investigate firms vying for contracts, was not debated because it had been sent to an internal party committee for further consideration.