Despite receiving majority support for Merri-bek Socialist Alliance Councillor Sue Bolton’s motion to keep the Palestinian flag flying on the council building, council decided the motion was lost on February 12.
Bolton called on council to uphold its unanimous decision from March last year to fly the Palestinian flag until there is a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Two councillors, Mayor Helen Davidson (Independent) and Deputy Mayor Helen Politis (Labor) voted against the resolution, and five voted for it.
Three councillors — Katerine Theodosis (Labor) and Chris Miles (Labor) and Natalie Abboud (independent) — abstained.
Davidson used her casting vote to declare the motion was “defeated”.
Merri-bek City Council was among the first across the country to pass resolutions on November 8, 2023 and on March 13 last year, which declared that, responding to residents’ concerns about a genocide underway in Gaza, it would fly the Palestinian flag at Coburg Civic Hall until a permanent ceasefire is declared.
But unelected council officers took down the flag on January 20 and then tried to justify their decision on the basis that the ceasefire is supposed to be permanent.
Bolton's motion reaffirmed council’s unanimous decision until there is a permanent ceasefire in place and she requested council immediately re-raise the Palestinian flag.
Bolton said in her motivation that Israel had breached the ceasefire agreement by bombing Gaza and the West Bank and that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, among others, had said the ceasefire was not going to be permanent.
Politis put a counterposed motion calling on council to raise a white flag “for peace” instead of the Palestinian flag. She argued that it was not counterposed, but it was eventually ruled to be so. It lost.
Politis argued that by flying the peace flag, Merri-bek would be seen to stand for peace and unity. She also argued that it represents “a shared hope for an end to violence and a commitment to dialogue instead of destruction”.
Politis had signed the We Vote for Palestine pledge in the lead-up to the council election last year.
Bolton argued against Politis’ motion, saying that “erecting a peace flag as the genocide in Gaza continues would signal that council believes the genocide has ended”.
Mick Bull from Merri-bek and Northern Suburbs for Palestine told Green Left that replacing the Palestinian flag with a generic white flag with a dove was “nothing more than whitewashing genocide”.
He said it is meaningless to talk about “peace and unity” without calling for action to stop Israel's genocide, such as banning weapons sales.
Bolton told GL that the outcome was very undemocratic. “Because the Local Government Act states that councillors who abstain are deemed as having voted against, it meant that three councillors — Theodosis, Miles and Abboud — were recorded as having voted against.”
Bolton criticised the mayor for using her casting vote to vote the motion down.
“It is fundamentally undemocratic to use a casting vote to defeat a motion, when only two out of 10 councillors present voted against it.”