Ed Husic took a moral stand at National Conference on the Israeli genocide against Gaza only to have the rug pulled from under him by the Left. Marcus Strom reports.
In a last-minute intervention to an otherwise anodyne ALP National Conference, former Albanese government minister Ed Husic submitted a motion for debate on Palestine that was initially backed by both the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and the Electrical Trades Union (ETU), both Left-aligned unions.
As a safeguard against one or other pulling support, two identical motions were submitted with two different seconders, Allen Hicks from the NSW ETU and Paul Garrett from the MUA Sydney branch. But this wasn’t enough to prevent Husic being ‘ratfucked’ – politically betrayed at the last moment.
Both unions were reported to have come under substantial pressure from ‘factional bosses’. It is shameful that they complied.
As Husic put it during an extended press conference on the Saturday morning, there was more energy put into quashing any debate on Palestine than it would have taken to have the discussions.
Husic has been outspoken on Israel’s murderous campaign against the Palestinian people since he was dumped from Albanese’s frontbench after the 2025 election. He was a prominent participant in the 200,000-strong March for Humanity over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in August 2025.
He has said that the time for words is over and that the government must take action that cannot be ignored by the Netanyahu government.
The motion was to force conference to explicitly debate genocide, apartheid, sanctions, dual national Australians who have fought in the Israeli Defence Forces, withdrawing trade attaches from Tel Aviv and exchange ambassadors with Palestine.
His motion:
- acknowledged that the International Court of Justice recognised that Palestinians in Gaza “have a plausible claim to be protected against acts of genocide”;
- acknowledged that the ICJ views the continued occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem a breach of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, “which prohibits racial segregation and genocide”;
- noted with alarm the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry determining that Israeli authorities have deliberately targeted Palestinian children resulting in genocide and atrocity crimes;
- supports comprehensive trade sanctions on goods connected to illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories;
- calls for the Labor government to track, investigate and prosecute dual nationals who could have breached international humanitarian law serving with the IDF;
- calls for the withdrawal of defence cooperation and trade representatives from the Australian embassy in Tel Aviv; and
- calls for the quick exchange of ambassadors with Palestine.
Husic was publicly backed by another NSW Centre Unity (Right) delegate and member of the NSW upper house, Stephen Lawrence. Lawrence, a staunch voice in solidarity with Palestine and active in the NSW Labor Friends of Palestine, highlighted that while the motion did not go forward, it had educated delegates about the facts on genocide and apartheid being perpetrated by Israel.
“There have been a lot of eyes on the resolution,” he told the media, “and a lot of members of the party have learnt some facts in terms of plausible genocide and apartheid. The International Court of Justice really can’t be ignored.”
Asked at the presser why Husic and Lawrence didn’t move and second the motion, Husic said he wanted the seconder to be from the Left to present a broad cross-party position. While no doubt true, this also reflected the relative last-minute organisation for the motion that other fail-safes were not included.
Either way, though, the Albanese-Marles-Wong machine was determined to prevent any debate on Palestine or AUKUS, as an expression of their unflinching loyalty to US imperialism.
Husic for his part vowed to continue, saying he “didn’t give a shit” if the upper echelons of the party put him in the freezer. For him, the child of Bosnian immigrants who had watched from afar what many regard as a genocide against Bosniaks during the break-up of Yugoslavia, the point was clear and moral: don’t kill kids, stand up against genocide and apartheid.
Bonapartist machine
Criticisms that the conference was ‘stage managed’, dull and predictable will be music to the ears of the ALP leadership. It wants to project calm unity to contrast with ‘three conservative parties’ squabbling. They care not if labour movement democracy dies on this political altar.
On the first day of conference more than 80 resolutions were passed – without a single dissenting voice, without any debate. It wasn’t until the Voluntary Assisted Dying issue on Friday that the first contested vote occurred. A far cry from conferences past.
In the lead up to conference, the Albanese machine acted as effective bonapartists, executive power rising unaccountable above competing interests. It ruthlessly using divide-and-rule tactics to prevent any potential united dissent on issues ranging from Palestine, AUKUS or a modest 25% tax on natural gas exports.
Instead, the Labor leadership provided modest reforms to its trade union base in return for them not challenging the government on foreign policy or pushing hard on taxing capital, gas exports.
Unions were reduced to being individual supplicants for their sectional issues, dropping any support for broader political issues. The ETU got its Sovereign Power, the performers, musicians and journalists’ union MEAA got commitments to safeguards on artificial intelligence. The union bureaucracy overall got a re-established Fair Work Court, another layer in the Fair Work straitjacket against workers’ freedom of association.
The condition for receiving these sectional wins was to be good boys and girls when it came to Palestine and AUKUS in particular.
While such disciplined control-freakery gives an outer perception of strength, it creates the opportunity for high-profile dissident elements to create the headlines.
On the first day of conference, I had a brief and amicable chat with the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Tim Gartrell, who asked me what I was hoping for during conference. When I said, “to cause a bit of trouble”, he quickly retorted “I don’t like your chances at this conference”.
Limits of MPs going it alone
While Husic’s intervention did indeed create the headlines, operating as a lone wolf on such a contentious issue in such a stage-managed conference risked leading to isolation. While Labor Friends of Palestine activists at conference backed his motion, some of their more timid elements felt he had gone over their heads.
Further, given the politics of Husic himself, while his stand was brave, it was inconsistent. It was a moral position against the horrors of genocide. Of course, worthy of support, but it did not draw out the logic of Australia’s radical subservience to US imperialism as a determining factor.
This radical subservience is why the ALP government is so slavish in its support for the AUKUS pact.
This was underlined on the final morning of conference by former Home Affairs departmental secretary Michael Pezzullo, writing in The Australian. He said that for the US, “assisting Australia under AUKUS is a … secondary objective”.
“One day when the official history of the AUKUS agreement is written, it will become apparent that the US agreed to the establishment of Submarine Rotational Force-West at HMAS Stirling, and possibly to AUKUS more generally, primarily because it made sense in terms of giving the US a potentially decisive geostrategic advantage in the unlikely, but not inconceivable, event of a war with China.”
Michael Pezzullo, The Australian, 25 July 2026
This is something Labor Against War has been saying from the beginning. AUKUS is about establishing Australia as a forward-operating base for US war planning against China, not about security for the Australian people.
While the mover of the anti-AUKUS motion, Labor Against War Victoria convenor Hamish McPherson, did not have the high profile of Ed Husic, he was nonetheless also betrayed by the Left faction, being told that the motion would not make it past the Agenda Committee onto conference floor.
Instead, he was granted a three-minute speaking slot at Left caucus to argue his case before the motion was buried. Safely kept off conference floor, nonetheless, Foreign Minister Penny Wong (also a member of Left caucus), was compelled to respond to McPherson, warning of dire threats from China.
Limits of the patient committee work
While some LFOP members might have thought Husic ‘going it alone’ undermined their work, there are severe limits to the ‘patient committee work’ over months leading up to conference that seeks to win small, incremental gains that are acceptable to ministers’ offices.
A rule of thumb on these matters: if ministers’ offices find your proposals on Palestine and AUKUS or similar acceptable, then your proposals aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
The statement in detail on Palestine arrived at includes:
- opposition to the annexation of Palestinian territory and calls on Israel to bring its illegal settlement activity and the occupation to an end;
- Labor urges the government to prevent any support being given to illegal settlement activity … and to implement further action and sanctions as necessary;
- support for the decisions of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, (however, it did not mention its findings of Palestinians needing protection from ‘plausible genocide’);
- Israel must comply with obligations as an occupying power, including in respect of food and medical supplies for Palestinian civilians; and
- Israel’s recent introduction of the death penalty ‘and other discriminatory laws that target Palestinians’ are condemned.
On defence trade, conference took a position that was big on international legal obligations and transparency, but it failed to mention Israel or Australia’s contribution to the global F35 fighter program.
While no doubt good to have these written down, they are either already stated government positions or so broad as to be meaningless. A senior ABC journalist described them to me as milquetoast statements. In other words, useless.
Labor Friends of Palestine tensions
Further undermining united work on Palestine is an apparent communication breakdown between the NSW LFOP on one hand and Victoria and Queensland LFOPs on the other.
It was put to this correspondent that the NSW section is more concerned with its factional battles against the Albanese Left in NSW. And it seems that relations between the ‘soft left’ delegate from NSW to the National Policy Forum and the subfaction that helped organise his election have broken down.
While I have not been privy to all that has taken place, I would observe that to be fighting for Palestinian solidarity in NSW Labor means you are immediately up against the majority NSW Left faction that sees itself as Albanese’s praetorian guard. These factional spear-carriers will back in their Dear Leader whether or not they support the politics. Principles are irrelevant, the tribe is what matters, often because they rely on their faction for their jobs.
NSW LFOP is of course not just the ‘soft-left’ subfaction around NSW upper house MP Anthony D’Adam. It is a broad group that includes many western Sydney ALP activists from Arab and Muslim communities and critically includes NSW Right faction members Stephen Lawrence and Sarah Kaine.
Unity around principled politics needed
We should have no illusions in the processes laid out by the ALP machine that are designed to corral dissent into ‘acceptable forms’ that can be rubber stamped at conference. And while Husic was clearly the hero of the moment, his unsuccessful push reveals the weakness of MPs being the focus of change.
In the ALP, democracy is inverted: members are expected to represent the views of their MPs, who are in turn meant to represent the views of the leadership.
When MPs are part of the machine, this creates the illusion they have the power. But if you decide to go against the machine, if you don’t have deep and long-standing support across the movement, you can be easily isolated.
LFOP also needs to stop pursuing ‘milquetoast’ reforms that are acceptable to ministers. We need a principled anti-imperialist position on Gaza and Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.
LFOP activists should work towards a democratic re-establishment of the organisation on a national basis to redouble the fight for Palestinian solidarity. It should seek branch and union delegates alongside the important work that a few principled MPs have carried out.
But further than that, we need to completely invert the established basis of ALP conferences. We must fight for conferences to be re-established as a parliament of the workers’ movement. At present, we are at the diametrically opposed end of that.
ABC journalist Jacob Greber put it well when he said that if you want to see an example of monoculturalism on display in Australian politics, go to the ALP National Conference. He said:
“The party’s supreme policy-making machine has been busy honing a platform that’s as tight and shiny as a button.
Jacob Greber, ABC, 25 July 2026
“Spiky bits like the base’s angst over AUKUS, Palestine and greater taxation of resources mostly buffed away and potential troublemakers seemingly co-opted into acquiescence by the logic of power.
“The mining industry has taken the whole thing as a big win. As have those who fret about Labor’s commitment to the alliance.
“On both scores, the party membership’s official message has been to prioritise stability and incrementalism.”
Such an outcome is in the interests of the Australian capitalist class, not the millions of working-class Australians who still vote Labor hoping for a better life.
Albanese claims that he wants to represent people who have nothing to sell but their time and nothing to give but their hard work. But by crushing dissent he is in danger of signalling to millions of disaffected Australians that he is not willing or able to hear alternative viewpoints.
Such sterility might seem appealing in the short term, but could drive people to the danger of the far-right and One Nation.
The suppression of democratic debate is not merely an internal organisational question. It leaves working-class discontent without political expression inside Labor, creating precisely the vacuum that right-wing populists seek to exploit.