ALP draft stained by Hamas omission but conference set to maintain status quo

Labor’s triennial National Conference has long been of interest to Jewish community leaders, but despite the heated media coverage of the past week, the 2026 conference is shaping up to be the least eventful in decades.

While community leaders have raised their concern with Labor’s “Statement in Detail” on the Middle East, in particular its wording around Hamas, the draft platform as it currently stands, looks likely to merely state existing policy positions of Federal Labor.

This would make it the first Federal Labor conference in decades to not urge Labor’s position to go further in condemning Israel, supporting Palestine, or elevating its status.

While further negotiations or amendments may yet throw up a curveball, the significance of a Labor conference that fails to challenge the status quo on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the wake of its most turbulent period of war and terror in decades, should not be underestimated.

Since the last Labor Conference in 2023, we have seen the atrocities of October 7 followed by Israel’s renewed multi-pronged war against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and, together with the United States, against Iran.

Still, the community’s criticism of the motion – and what is missing from it – is understandable. And I agree with much of it.

The Statement in Detail is clearly one-sided and certainly gives a greater weight and depth to Labor’s criticisms of Israel’s actions than it does to the government’s longstanding condemnation of Hamas and other terrorist groups operating in Gaza and across the region.