After 50,000 people marched for Palestine on 24 August 2025, Brisbane City Council became concerned, so much so that it imposed fines on people speaking in the city mall. Here is one speech of three that cost $5,005 in total. It was given in Queens Street Mall in Brisbane Magan-djin after the Sumud flotilla was boarded by Israeli pirates in October 2025 and over 400 people taken prisoner, including several Australians.
Complicity
In the Queensland trades hall after the massacre on that ship (Mavi Marmara) we heard about, I think it was 10, Turkish activists were murdered by the apartheid state.
I’ve just been shown a what’s app message from Adela, (from) the legal team that is assisting those people that have been detained (from the Sumud flotilla), and the information in that message lets us know that all those people have now been taken to a prison.
I don’t have the exact message with me, a prison in the Negev desert in occupied Palestine, but the story I want to tell to get an understanding of the complicity of this country, the complicity that is so deep that we shouldn’t be surprised by the actions of our government.
In that meeting (in 2010), there were two activists from the Gold Coast, Ahmed and Jerry, and they were on that boat when it was attacked, and those people were murdered.
Jerry, probably in his 20s at the time, was shot in the leg by the Israeli army on that boat. And one of the stories he told on that night about his experience of being, of watching them shoot people, detain that vessel and arrest them on that boat, was that he heard an Australian accent from one of the IDF soldiers. So as he was sitting there, he heard people speaking Australian English as they were shooting people who were trying to break the guard the siege of Gaza.
So living amongst us are people, and this is a layer of complicity that’s very difficult to understand. Living amongst us are people who join an army and then go and arrest other Australians and, in some instances, shoot other Australians, all in defence of a genocidal apartheid state.
Yeah, many, many crimes of complicity. But we need to understand this to understand the reality of what we face and the challenges that we face. So it’s so important that we stop here tonight and we think about how we build this movement. Someone did account of our activities on justice for Palestine, and we are rapidly approaching our 100 protests and march in this city.
You might have seen some of the research done by a foundation overseas, and very proudly, there was the top country for the number of protests. Was Yemen probably one of the only countries in this world that are truly enforcing international law, the second country for the most protest was actually Australia. So put yourself (up there in) mobilization and our resistance. Free, free, free. Palestine.
It’s also very important to understand that one of the people, one of the Australians, that have been detained and is now being held in an Israeli prison, is a union activist from Australia, its beholden on us as workers to make sure our our unions know that this union activist from Australia has been detained for trying to deliver humanitarian aid baby for the fact that we have to carry baby formula into a place on yachts.
Just makes you question what this world is when there are 10s of 1000s of tons of food waiting less than a kilometer away from the people who need it. But he is a trade union activist from the Maritime Union of Australia, so you need to follow the work that the Maritime Union is doing to support him. But it’s also important that we let our unions know that it’s well past time for them to join this struggle. It’s well past time for the word solidarity to actually become a verb. We now have a union activist in an Israeli prison, an Australian union activist in an Australian Israeli prison.
It’s time for the trade unions in this country to take a bit of leadership from the workers in Italy and Spain and Greece,
… but we’re a long way from that, but it’s a goal that we must set ourselves, because one day, how good would it be to shut down not just this little part of the Queen Street Mall, but to shut down this city and to shut down this country?
Because the reality is that no one is coming to save us. There is no cease fire that will save us. There is no 20-point plan that will save us. The only thing that we have is the power of ordinary people and the power of ordinary workers, and we need to exercise that, so our next steps in this is you need to be on the phone. You need to be emailing your members and your local representatives. You need to be emailing the Department of Foreign Affairs, the minister Penny Wong, and saying you want something done about this.
You need to be spreading the word in your workplaces, and the word that you need to spread in the short term is that we need to see many, many 1000s of people on the streets of Brisbane again on October 12, (2025).
This speech was delivered at 6.45 on 3 October 2025.
Fundraiser to defend free speech @ Elements Collective 17 McLachlan St, Fortitude Valley QLD 4006
6:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Fri, 19 Dec 2025