Heather du Plessis-Allan: Damien O'Connor must apologise

Labour’s going to have to sort itself out over this Middle East situation.  This is about Damien O'Connor's tweet. I was really surprised yesterday when I was listening to Carmel Sepuloni being interviewed on this, as the deputy leader of the Labour Party.  She was asked if he should apologise for his tweet and instead of saying yes, which is the only answer to give, she made excuses for him, saying he feels strongly about the situation as if that makes it OK.  Let me just remind you what he tweeted - "Palestinians have every right to do whatever they did on October 7th".  And I'll remind you what Hamas did that day. They raped and murdered innocent people.  It really doesn’t matter where you stand on this conflict. You can never, especially as a senior politician, say or think it’s okay for terrorists to kill teenagers out at a dance party just because you feel strongly about what the state of Israel is doing.  He should absolutely apologise for that.  I know that this is a conflict that is making people feel very upset and it’s scrambling people’s better judgment.  Just this week in Australia we had the case of a young reporter questioning why Australia doesn’t ban the Israeli flag like it bans the Hezbollah flag.  They’re not the same.  There is no equivalence between a state and a terrorist organisation, no matter how much you don't like what a state is doing.  But that’s exactly why Damien should apologise.  Because right now, when people are as angry and confused about what's going on, what we need is our major and serious political parties and our MPs, especially the senior ones holding senior portfolios like Associate Foreign Affairs spokesperson, to set an example for how to behave with decency.  Not the opposite. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.