Speaking after federal cabinet met to approve the decision, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the international community “has the chance to forge hope from despair” by recognising Palestine.
“We also know this is not the end, just the beginning,” she said. “There is much work to do in building a Palestinian state.”
Australia’s allies, including the United Kingdom, Canada and France, have accelerated moves to recognise a Palestinian state by September. The governments of those nations view it as a diplomatic tool to avert the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and a way to encourage peace.
Both the UK and Canada have attached conditions to the move, and Albanese said Australia’s terms were “consistent” with those conditions.
Wong spoke to her Israeli counterpart, Gideon Sa’ar, on Sunday to brief him that an announcement was expected within days.
She also spoke to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has opposed the push to recognise Palestine, ahead of the announcement.
Moments before Albanese’s announcement, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said that his nation was also considering recognising Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly.
“Ultimately, New Zealand has an independent foreign policy, and on this issue, we intend to weigh up the issue carefully and then act according to New Zealand’s principles, values and national interest,” he said. “New Zealand has been clear for some time that our recognition of a Palestinian state is a matter of when, not if.”
Bestowing statehood on Palestine had previously been regarded as one of the final steps in a peace process to be conferred at a time when a legitimate governing force was present in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
But last year, Wong made a decisive move to say the government was open to earlier recognition as a way to help spur a peace process by incentivising Palestinian leadership to modernise and pushing Israel to focus on peace.
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Albanese said on Saturday it was a matter of “when, not if” Australia recognises a Palestinian state, fuelling expectation that an announcement was imminent.
Netanyahu blasted the growing move to recognise Palestine at a press conference in Jerusalem on Sunday, saying such a move would bring war rather than peace.
“It defies imagination or understanding how intelligent people around the world, including seasoned diplomats, government leaders and respected journalists, fall for this absurdity,” he said.
“To have European countries and Australia march into that rabbit hole, just like that … is disappointing, and I think it’s actually shameful.
“It’s not going to change our position. We will not commit national suicide to get a good op-ed for two minutes. We won’t do that.”
The Coalition and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert have criticised the notion that recognition should be used as a mechanism to change Israel’s behaviour.
Hamas, a listed terror group in Australia, remains in control of Gaza. There is essentially no momentum towards a two-state solution within Israel’s government, and support for the concept has plummeted since the October 7 attacks of 2023.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said on the weekend that there was “precedent” for Australia to recognise a country where parts of it were controlled by a terror group.
“Both Syria and Iraq had a long period where parts of those countries were being occupied and realistically controlled by ISIS,” Burke told Sky News. “It didn’t stop us from recognising and having diplomatic relations with those countries themselves.”
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This masthead reported last week that the government could make clear its position on recognition well in advance of a key United Nations General Assembly meeting in September at which Gaza will be a major focus.
The vast majority of countries already recognise Palestinian statehood, but most Western democracies have held back from doing so until recently because they believed recognition should help encourage a final peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians.
Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, responded to this masthead’s report by saying he was deeply concerned about the timing and substance of the government’s move.
“[It] will embolden Hamas, further jeopardise the lives of Israeli hostages, prolong the war and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and place more strain on the longstanding alliance between Australia and Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East,” Leibler said.
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