A Mandate for Cowardice: Live Genocide. Public Performance. No Action.
In the 2025 federal election, the Australian Labor Party emerged more dominant than at any point in recent history. With over 90 seats secured and the Coalition fractured, Labor now governs without a serious opposition, internal instability, or electoral risk. It is politically untouchable.
And yet, in the face of a live-streamed genocide in Gaza, Labor has refused to take real, concrete action, to hold Israel accountable or to alleviate Palestinian suffering in any meaningful way.
Over 14,000 Palestinian babies are on the brink of death. Gaza’s health system has collapsed. Famine is present, not looming. Entire families are being erased from the civil registry. This is not unfolding in the shadows; it is happening in full view of the world.
The Albanese government knows this. It has access to the same UN reports, ICJ proceedings, and human rights documentation as everyone else. It knows that the International Court of Justice has found a plausible case of genocide. It knows the scale of destruction. And still, it has not acted; neither by imposing sanctions, nor by halting the arms trade, nor by calling for international accountability. Instead, it continues with performative concern while upholding the status quo.
This moment should be a reckoning, especially for those who exploited the community’s fears that Dutton would gain power, even when it was clear that he had no chance. This was the mantra. This was the excuse for suppressing dissent, discrediting grassroots campaigns, and discouraging independent candidates. We were told this was the price of strategic patience. But that threat never materialised. There is no Dutton government. There is no Coalition. Labour triumphed resoundingly. And still, it has done nothing that could be described as a courageous or substantive intervention to stop the suffering in Gaza or hold Israel accountable.
Position of Strength
This is not a fragile minority government. This is not a coalition bound by compromise. Labor is in a position of strength, at the height of its power. It could call for sanctions, support the finding of the ICJ, or disrupt the military-industrial complicity within our own borders. It chooses not to. There is no structural constraint, only political cowardice.
To Every Apologist
To every apologist who urged restraint, who insisted that “this isn’t the time,” who said “Labor is better than the Liberals”, this is your answer. Gaza is being reduced to dust. The death toll mounts. And your so-called allies have refused to respond with anything beyond symbolism. In Watson and Blaxland, thousands of voters turned away from Labor. Not out of protest, but out of principle. They supported independents not backed by corporations or political machinery, but by conviction and conscience. And still, they were told they were naive. That this wasn’t “strategic.”
Do Not Despair
The objective here is not to enhance despair; it is to achieve clarity. Labor is not the lesser evil. It is the more efficient one. It absorbs dissent, manages optics, and preserves power, while upholding the same colonial frameworks that dehumanise Palestinians, criminalise resistance, and normalise apartheid. This is a moment to reorient. No more loyalty without principle. No more political calculus that costs lives. No more moral outsourcing to a party that has shown, clearly, what it will do when given a mandate: nothing.
A Mandate for Cowardice
What makes this betrayal so jarring is that it comes at a moment when Labor has every opportunity to act boldly. If justice were truly a value of this government, this would be its moment to prove it. Instead, Labor has used its mandate not to act, but to stall, to dilute, to preserve.
Breaking the Illusion
We owe it to the 14,000 babies facing starvation, to the families buried under rubble, to the dignity of our own communities, to name this betrayal for what it is. Labor had the chance to act. It chose appeasement over accountability. Comfort over courage. Performance over principle. Let no one ever again say we must vote Labor to protect our people. That illusion has been shattered, under the weight of genocide and the weightlessness of Labor’s response.
