City of Sydney Council decided on December 11, at its last meeting for the year, to urge the federal Labor government “to support international efforts for an immediate, sustainable and humanitarian ceasefire, to enable peace negotiations and a pathway to achieving lasting peace” in Gaza, Palestine.
This was a day before Australia broke from the United States to vote, along with 153 other countries, for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The motion was an initiative of local residents, who wrote to Independent Councillor Yvonne Weldon, Team Clover Independent Emelda Davis and Greens Councillor Sylvie Ellsmore urging them to join with the tens of thousands of people in the streets every week to urge Australia to support an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
Residents and Palestinian rights activists rallied outside Sydney Town Hall just before the council met.
Ellsmore told the gathering: “I know that the ceasefire motion that we put tonight may not go as far as many people want, but it will mean something and the Australian government will hear us.”
Vivienne Porzsolt, a City of Sydney resident and activist with Jews Against the Occupation said: “We must call on the Labor government to get out from under the US government”.
After final negotiations, Ellsmore and Labor Councillor Linda Scott moved the ceasefire motion.
Liberal councillor Lyndon Gannon had sought significant amendments, including removing the ceasefire call and blaming Hamas without any reference to the tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza inflicted by Israel. These were voted down.
Mayor Clover Moore and her councillor team supported the final ceasefire motion.
Rachel Evans, one of the organisers of the initiative, said it was a victory for the movement for peace and justice in Palestine and demonstrated that grassroots residents’ action is very important.