Victoria sends 39 members to the House of Representatives and periodically renews half its 12 Senate seats. Federal Labor holds most of the state's lower-house electorates, from safe outer-suburban strongholds in Melbourne's north and west to inner-south seats now facing a serious Greens contest. Two questions sit alongside the usual fights over cost of living and housing: where does each member stand on recognising the State of Palestine and on the war in Gaza, and where do they stand on the migration and humanitarian program a state built substantially on successive waves of migration keeps absorbing.
This briefing goes seat by seat through Victoria's federal Labor MPs and senators with a public record on these questions, sets out what each has said and how they have voted, and asks what is driving the pattern — multilateral alignment, humanitarian conviction, or a seat's electoral arithmetic. Two things are analysed and must not be confused: the public record (statements, votes, committee roles) and the published Census profile of the seat — a fact about a geographic electorate, not about the person who represents it — and the incentive that profile creates for whoever holds it, of any background. Where a member has no public position on record, this briefing says so.
The strongest case for the position
Recognition and a generous humanitarian program are principled policy, not identity politics
International law and decades of UN practice hold that peoples under prolonged occupation retain a right to self-determination, and Australia was the first country to vote for the 1947 UN partition resolution envisaging both a Jewish and an Arab state (Prime Minister of Australia, media release, 11 August 2025). By September 2025, roughly three-quarters of UN member states already recognised Palestinian statehood; Australia's recognition on 21 September 2025 brought it into line with Canada and the United Kingdom and the developed world's diplomatic mainstream, not outside it (Minister for Foreign Affairs, media release, 21 September 2025). The government framed the decision as conditional on commitments Prime Minister Albanese said Australia had received when he announced the move on 11 August 2025 — no role for Hamas, demilitarisation of Gaza, elections — in service of a two-state outcome that has been formal Labor policy since at least 2018 (Prime Minister of Australia, media release, 11 August 2025; ALP National Platform, 2018/2021/2023 restatements). On the humanitarian side, the toll from Gaza since October 2023 — tens of thousands of deaths, roughly half of them children, warnings of starvation raised even by allies of Israel — is, on any fair reading, a catastrophe; Australia's own Deputy Prime Minister has called it exactly that, without qualification (Richard Marles, television interviews, Defence Ministers transcript archive, 2025). A reasonable, humane observer can hold that recognition and a push for ceasefire were a considered application of Australia's stated principles to a documented crisis, not a concession to any single domestic constituency.
On migration, Australia is a country substantially built by migration, including the two waves that shaped Victoria most directly — postwar European settlement, and, since the 1970s, a large humanitarian and skilled intake from Asia, the Middle East, the Pacific and Africa. A generous program meets an obligation to people fleeing war and persecution and has historically delivered strong returns to the country that took them in. The government's 2023 Migration Strategy was launched under the banner of fixing "a broken migration system," not simply running it bigger (Minister for Home Affairs Clare O'Neil, media release, 11 December 2023). On this reading, both positions are principled policy responses to real problems.
What the members have actually said and done
Formal recorded divisions on Palestine are rarer in the House than the Senate — many House motions pass on the voices with no individual vote recorded, so most MPs' positions have to be read from speeches and statements rather than a division list. The Senate record is more granular: two votes, in March and June 2024, produced clear outcomes discussed below.
Richard Marles — Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Corio
Marles has been one of the government's chief public voices on Gaza, repeatedly calling it a "humanitarian catastrophe" while separately calling Israel "a close friend," including after Australia joined 157 other countries on 3 December 2024 in backing a non-binding UN resolution on the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine, reaffirming support for a two-state solution (Richard Marles, television interviews, Defence Ministers transcript archive, 2025; Pedestrian.TV, 6 December 2024). He has said "an enduring peace is only achievable through a two-state solution, which is why Australia has recognised the State of Palestine" (ABC Melbourne interview, 7 October 2025). Marles has held Corio, around Geelong, since 2007, winning a 12.8-point two-candidate-preferred margin in 2022 and again comfortably in 2025 (AEC, Division of Corio results) — one of the safest Labor seats in the state, noted here only because it removes obvious electoral pressure from his position, not because it explains it.
Clare O'Neil — Minister for Housing, Homelessness and Cities, Hotham
O'Neil has no prominent public record on Palestine recognition or Gaza; her profile on these subjects is almost entirely on migration. As Minister for Home Affairs (June 2022–July 2024) she oversaw the period in which net overseas migration hit record levels — around 536,000 in 2022-23, falling to about 446,000 in 2023-24 as settings tightened (ABS media releases, approx.). She launched the Migration Strategy on 11 December 2023, promising "the biggest reforms to migration in a generation" (Minister for Home Affairs, media release, 11 December 2023). Hotham is one of the most diverse electorates in the country — more than half its residents born overseas, over 55 per cent speaking a language other than English at home (localstats.com.au electorate profile, drawing on ABS Census data, approx.) — and O'Neil holds it 66.9 per cent to 33.1 per cent two-party-preferred (AEC, Division of Hotham results, 2025).
Peter Khalil — Assistant Minister for Defence, Wills
Khalil chaired the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) until standing down as chair in October 2024, citing the workload from his role as Special Envoy for Social Cohesion — a position Prime Minister Albanese had appointed him to on 29 July 2024 — and the developing contest for his own seat of Wills; Senator Raff Ciccone was elected PJCIS chair on 8 October 2024. Khalil became Assistant Minister for Defence some seven months later, when the second Albanese ministry was sworn in on 13 May 2025 (PJCIS membership release, October 2024; PM's office, PJCIS membership release; Defence Ministers biography, 2025). In Parliament, Khalil has acknowledged Palestinians' right to self-determination "including the need to recognise a sovereign and independent State of Palestine," according to a Hansard-based tracking effort by the community campaign group Vote Palestine Wills, which also recorded that he had not, on its reading, called for an end to the Gaza blockade or named specific incidents as war crimes (Vote Palestine Wills, campaign website, 2025 election cycle — a clearly partisan secondary source, cited as an assessment of the record, not as fact in its own right). Khalil holds Wills by 51.4 per cent to 48.6 per cent two-candidate-preferred against the Greens' Samantha Ratnam, after a swing of more than 7.5 points (AEC, Division of Wills results, 2025).
Josh Burns — Chair, Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, Macnamara
Burns has taken the most independent public line of any Victorian Labor MP, in both directions. He has said he holds "sympathy and empathy" for both Israelis and Palestinians and acknowledged the "real suffering of innocent Palestinians" (media statement, 12 February 2024), and in the same statement called Greens MP Jenny Leong's "Zionist lobby" comments "one of the most blatant, racist and bigoted statements by any elected official in Australia." He also broke with his own government over its 10 May 2024 UN vote upgrading Palestine's status, calling it a "miscalculation" and saying Australia should have abstained (statement, 11 May 2024, Australia Israel Labor Dialogue; SBS News, 11 May 2024). Burns chairs the Human Rights Committee and the Foreign Affairs and Aid Subcommittee (Parliament of Australia, committee records, 2025), and holds Macnamara — large Jewish community, strong Greens vote — 61.8 per cent to 38.2 per cent two-party-preferred after running an open preference ticket in 2025 rather than preferencing the Greens (AEC results, 2025; The Conversation, 30 April 2025).
Ged Kearney — Assistant Minister for Social Services, Cooper
In a Federation Chamber speech on 18 October 2023, Kearney said her "heart hurts for the children fleeing their homes ... in both Gaza and Israel," called Hamas's actions "evil" while insisting "the answer to the senseless killings of Hamas cannot be the collective punishment of the Palestinian people" (Hansard, 18 October 2023). She attended a Melbourne rally against Israel's "disproportionate response" and rejected being called antisemitic for it (contemporaneous reporting, 2024), but has declined to sign an international open letter, reportedly signed by more than 200 current and former MPs, calling for a permanent ceasefire and an end to the occupation (Greenleft, 2024). Kearney holds Cooper 59.7 per cent to 40.3 per cent two-party-preferred against the Greens (AEC, Division of Cooper results, 2025).
Basem Abdo — Calwell (elected 2025)
Abdo succeeded Maria Vamvakinou in 2025 and, in his first speech on 28 July 2025, cited his family's history — his parents left the occupied West Bank in 1967 — as part of his own stated case for recognition, telling SBS News, "It's the right to self-determination. I would view it as a right, not as just symbolism." (Hansard, 28 July 2025; SBS News, 2025, approx. date). That history is reported here only because Abdo made it part of his own public case, not as this briefing's explanation for his views. Calwell's 2025 result is a legitimate seat-level fact: Labor's primary vote fell to 30.5 per cent as two independents (11.95 per cent and 10.72 per cent) and the Greens (8.28 per cent) split the rest of the field, before Labor won 55.1 per cent to 44.9 per cent two-candidate-preferred, a swing against Labor of more than seven points (AEC, Division of Calwell results, 2025).
Maria Vamvakinou — former member for Calwell (retired 2025)
Vamvakinou held Calwell for 23 years. She announced her retirement on 9 June 2024 and endorsed her former adviser Abdo as successor, saying she believed he would continue her advocacy for Palestine "and beyond" (Neos Kosmos and Greek Herald, 9 June 2024). The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network's archive records multiple Hansard speeches by Vamvakinou over her career on conditions for Palestinian women in Gaza and the West Bank, undated as to any single speech but consistent with a long, undisputed public record of advocacy. She gave her farewell address on 11 February 2025 (Neos Kosmos, 11 February 2025).
Bill Shorten — former member for Maribyrnong (resigned January 2025)
Shorten, who held Maribyrnong until standing down on 20 January 2025, took a markedly different tone from Kearney or Vamvakinou. On 10 October 2023 he criticised a pro-Palestinian Sydney rally as "un-Australian," describing some of the chanting there as unacceptable and arguing that some of the anti-Israel rhetoric shaded into antisemitism (SBS News, 10 October 2023), while saying he would not contradict Cabinet policy backing ceasefire calls. No distinct public position on migration or humanitarian intake was located for Shorten beyond general support for government policy; his portfolio was the NDIS, not migration.
Victoria's Labor senators
Two Senate votes give the clearest record. On 26 March 2024 the Senate passed an urgency motion backing UN Security Council Resolution 2728 and a Ramadan ceasefire, 29-22, Coalition opposed (Journals of the Senate, 26 March 2024). On 25 June 2024 it defeated a Greens motion recognising Palestinian statehood, 42-13; WA senator Fatima Payman was the only government senator to cross the floor, meaning every other Labor senator, including Victoria's, voted against (Journals of the Senate, 25 June 2024; The Conversation, 25 June 2024). Senator Raff Ciccone, representing Victoria since 2019 and now PJCIS chair, has been the most vocal, condemning the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack as terrorism and criticising "the Greens' selective outrage" on the Middle East (senatorciccone.com.au, statements archive). No comparable public statements were located for senators Jana Stewart, Lisa Darmanin or Jess Walsh; on the two recorded divisions, each is recorded, like every Labor senator bar Payman, as voting with the government.
The drivers: multilateral, humanitarian, electoral
Three forces are visible, and they do not point one way. The multilateral driver: recognition on 21 September 2025 was explicitly coordinated with Canada and the UK and pitched as joining, not leading, a consensus that by then already included roughly three-quarters of UN members (Minister for Foreign Affairs, 21 September 2025). Marles's "close friend of Israel" alongside recognition of Palestine reads as a government positioning itself inside a moving international centre of gravity.
The humanitarian and rights-based driver runs through the members with the longest personal record — Vamvakinou across 23 years, Kearney's speech within days of 7 October 2023, Burns's Human Rights Committee chairmanship — reflecting the Labor Left's institutional engagement with the Palestinian cause going back decades.
The electoral driver sits in the seats, not in any member's identity. Wills (Khalil's margin cut to 2.9 points by a Greens surge) and Calwell (Labor's primary vote fractured to 30.5 per cent) are both seats where a serious left-flank challenge gives whoever holds them a clear incentive to be seen taking recognition and Gaza seriously — a reasoned inference from the primary-vote data, not a claim about private motive. Macnamara runs the other way: a large Jewish community and an active Greens challenge give its member a comparable incentive to differentiate from the Greens on antisemitism while still finding language for Palestinian suffering, which fairly describes the balance Burns's own statements show him attempting. None of this explains any member's genuine convictions, which in some cases (Vamvakinou, Kearney) predate the seats' current competitive pressure by years; it explains why the pressure, where it exists, points the way it does. Deeper Census analysis of these seats is in the companion Victoria briefing.
Two Senate votes eleven weeks apart — one carried 29-22, one lost 42-13 — show a caucus willing to demand a ceasefire well before it was willing to recognise a state.
The national-interest question
The record complicates a simple story in both directions. Victorian Labor did not move as a bloc toward the most expansive position: Burns broke with his own government over the May 2024 UN vote, and it took until September 2025 — nearly two years after 7 October 2023, fifteen months after Payman's floor-crossing — for recognition to become policy at all, and only alongside Canada and the UK and with conditions attached (PM's office, 11 August 2025). That sequencing looks more consistent with a government following an accumulating international position cautiously than one led primarily by pressure from its most exposed seats — though Wills's and Calwell's challenges plainly gave their members reason to welcome the shift once it came.
On migration, the same caution applies. Net overseas migration peaked around 536,000 in 2022-23 under O'Neil's watch before the Migration Strategy pulled it back to about 446,000 the following year (ABS, approx.), and the 2025-26 Humanitarian Program was set at 20,000 places — below the 27,000 target in Labor's own 2023 National Platform, with humanitarian and settlement funding actually cut $147.6 million against the prior year even as total sector funding rose modestly (Department of Home Affairs, "Australia's Humanitarian Program 2025-26"; Refugee Council of Australia, 2025-26 Budget Summary). A government purely captured by expansionist pressure from its own multicultural seats sits oddly with a Migration Strategy marketed as reducing numbers, or a Humanitarian Program held below the party's own platform target. The record instead shows genuine tension inside these seats' own MPs — some pushing for more, others pushing back — resolved closer to the multilateral mainstream and a tighter program than either flank's loudest advocates wanted.
The reaction from parts of the Jewish community — Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion said the government had departed from "decades of bipartisan consensus" on Palestinian statehood, that its stated conditions amounted to "a mere promise to be fulfilled at some future time," and that Israel would "feel wronged and abandoned by a longstanding ally" (Daniel Aghion, ECAJ statement, 11 August 2025) — is itself evidence the decision was not an uncontested electoral play for any one Victorian seat; it carried a real cost inside a community these members represent, the clearest sign more than electoral incentive was operating.
What it means going forward
The next real test falls on Wills and Calwell, where the 2025 result showed Labor's left flank genuinely contestable, and on Macnamara, contestable from the opposite direction. If the Greens or community-independent vote keeps growing and Gaza policy stays salient, whoever holds these seats will keep having a clear incentive to be visibly engaged, regardless of who that member is or privately believes. That is not a verdict on whether the positions taken are right; it is a testable, falsifiable claim about electorates — checkable again at the next election — not about any individual now sitting in Parliament.