oh this is a bit more explicit pic.twitter.com/Ti4ABCFTAD
— auspill (@aus_pill) September 1, 2024
A speaker at the national campaign launch of a Muslim voting bloc described Australia Day as “Invasion Day” in a radical speech declaring that aboriginal people and Palestinians share the same “struggle” and calling Australia “stolen land”.
Political advocacy group Muslim Votes Matter held their launch in front of about 300 people in Broadmeadows, Melbourne, on Sunday where they announced they were planning to campaign in 32 federal seats with large Islamic populations, in order to pressure the government into focusing on issues important to Muslims.
During the event a series of maps were displayed comparing “shrinking Palestine” with “indigenous held land in Australia”, and far-left activist Dr Umber Rind made an anti-Australian speech where she linked “First Nations and Palestinian voices”.
“From Gaza to the Northern Territory we are fighting the same enemy,” the hijab-wearing anti-racism campaigner said.
“The Palestinian cause is integral to all anti-colonial struggles and resonates with all First Nations peoples. And remember, what’s happening there, it’s not a foreign issue, it’s our issue here because it’s all part of the same oppressive system.
“Now the Australia we live in prefers us as caricatures of model migrants, good polite Muslims, draped in the occupiers’ blood-soaked flag. We have barbecues on Australia Day, I mean Invasion Day.”
“First Nations people were the first to work on these stolen lands”.
Dr Rind also urged attendees to see their votes as “a powerful tool to disrupt the status quo”, and said “the era of accepting tokenistic tolerance is over”.
Ghaith Krayem, former president of the Islamic Council of Victoria and chief executive of the Australian Federation of Islamic Council, said Muslims were upset with the way the major parties have handled the conflict in Gaza, feeling ignored by the Coalition and taken for granted by Labor.
He said MVM would also focus on non-religious issues such as gambling, alcohol, drug addiction and domestic violence.
Sky News senior reporter Caroline Marcus said in a panel discussion after the event that she was worried a Muslim voting bloc would influence Labor’s treatment of the Gaza war.
“What concerns me, not just as a member of the Jewish community, but as someone who cares about democracy in Australia, about peace, about maintaining Western values, is the impact it will have on Labor’s policies, how it will cause them to lean even more heavily into this pro-Palestinian anti-Israel position that they currently have,” she said.
“We’re already seeing the first Palestinian-Australian candidate being touted for a Melbourne seat at the moment.
“We’re going to see, more and more, Labor trying to stave off any accusations that they’re not there for their Muslim voters by increasingly looking at not just candidates but policies which will cater for them.”
MVM have said they will not run their own candidates and will instead back those who share its values, but a separate group, The Muslim Vote, does intend to do so, and has been taking applications since June.
A table of federal seats on their website notes the Muslim population percentage, and the record of each sitting Labor MP on Israel and Palestine-related issues.
For Blaxland in western Sydney, which was 31.7% Muslim at the time of the 2021 Census, The Muslim Vote labels Labor MP Jason Clare’s position as “strong solidarity with Israel, mostly silent on Palestine, weak on Palestine, rejected ceasefire motion 16th Oct”.
Other electorates being targeted by the group include Watson, MacMahon, Parramatta and Macarthur, also in western Sydney, which are 25.1%, 13.8%, 10.5% and 9.8% Muslim respectively, and 24 other seats around the country.
