Over 200 people attended a pro-Palestinian rally at Morse Park in Bathurst on Sunday 24th August 2025.
The event was part of the Nationwide March for Palestine which was held in over 40 cities and towns across the country.
Speakers at the rally included Kaat DeMaere, one of the event’s organisers, and Stephen Lawrence MLC (NSW Legislative Council), former Mayor of Dubbo and member of the Labor Party.
Kaat DeMaere
In her speech, Kaat DeMaere said that “public support for Palestine is deep, it is broad and it is growing.” But she noted that while Australia’s planned recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations in September was a positive step, “symbolism is not enough”.1
Rather, decisive action by the Australian government was needed. This includes applying sanctions to Israel and ending the two-ways arms trade.
Kaat said:
People are outraged by what they are witnessing – the deliberate starving of families in Gaza. We are sickened by these atrocities, by the destruction, by the bombing of men, women and children in Gaza … starvation is a war crime; bombing civilians is a war crime.
Further, it was pointed out that the United Nations and the International Court of Jus tice had described Israel’s atrocities in Gaza as genocide.2 This was also the view of a wide range of NGOs including Médecins Sans Frontières and Amnesty International. Even humanitarian organisations inside Israel have described Israel’s attacks on Gaza as genocide.
As part of the opposition to colonial repression and injustice around the world, Kaat concluded her speech by stating:
To the people of Gaza, you are not forgotten. We see you, we stand with you, and we say in your name: Free, Free Palestine; Free, Free Gaza.
Stephen Lawrence
In his speech, Stephen Lawrence also condemned Israel’s genocide in Gaza. His speech was particularly valuable because of its historical perspective.3
He said that while serious crimes against humanity had been committed on 7 October 2023 and that all hostages should be released, history did not begin on 7 October.
He recalled that former UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, having visited Gaza in 2010, described the occupied territory as a “concentration camp”.
It was pointed out that many of the inhabitants of Gaza are refugees from earlier ethnic cleansing episodes undertaken by Israel in 1948 and 1967.
Stephen explained that the Zionist movement that emerged in late 19th-century Europe, was fully aware that it had a problem in constructing a Jewish supremacist homeland in Palestine. It knew that the land was inhabited by Palestinians.
Early Zionist thinkers from Theodor Herzl through to David Ben-Gurion, and most recently Benjamin Netanyahu, knew that the only way to construct a Jewish supremacist state in Palestine was to remove the Arab inhabitants.
Indeed, they had determined well before 1948 that for a Jewish supremacist state to be viable, the population ratio had to be 80/20 i.e. 80% Jewish and no more than 20% Palestinian.
After the end of the British Mandate for Palestine, Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948. During the war that ensued, Israel engaged in the mass expulsion of Palestinian people.
When the 1967 war occurred, Israel again engaged in the mass expulsion of Palestinian people.
Stephen noted that Israel seizes the opportunities that it is given to expel Arabs from the occupied Palestinian territories. That’s why, he said, when October 7 happened: “… anyone with a passing understanding of the history, knew that Israel’s response to October 7 would involve an attempt to further ethnically cleanse Palestine.”4
He also noted that it was only weeks after October 7 that elite Israeli Ministry of Intelligence documents set out a plan to drive the Palestinians into Sinai.5 However, few foresaw this time that it would descend into genocide:
We have all seen the footage on our phones and on television, the complete levelling of a society, the complete levelling of a community of 2 million people – the destruction of 90% of the homes, the destruction of the hospitals, the mosques, the schools. This is not a war friend. This is ethnic cleansing and genocide.
It was predicted that the horrors inflicted by Israel on the Palestinian people were almost certainly going to get a lot worse.
In continuing to mobilise communities across Australia in defence of the Palestinian people, the following demands were considered essential:
- Impose trade sanctions on Israel
- Fundamentally re-consider diplomatic relationship with Israel
- End to any arms trade with Israel, and
- End any military cooperation with Israel.
Stephen said that these were not just political demands. Rather they were “the core requirements of a state in the face of a genocide – the ultimate crime.”6
He subsequently thanked everyone for attending the Bathurst rally and said: “You represent the best of our community. You are standing up in an absolutely critical time – standing up for common humanity – standing up for the Palestinian people.”
Following the speeches, participants marched along the main road leading into the town centre and then returned to Morse Park where many kites provided by the rally’s organisers were flown.
Notes
1. Kaat DeMaere’s speech can be accessed here.
2. European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, ‘The ongoing genocide in Gaza: Q&A on the law and recent developments’, July 2025.
3. Stephen Lawrences’s speech can be accessed here.
4. For more on the history of Israel’s colonial project and its ongoing crimes against Palestinians, refer to Diana Buttu, ‘Israel does not have a right to defend its occupation’, Middle East Eye, Oct 25, 2023.
5. Middle East Monitor, ‘Israel: leaked document exposes plan to displace Palestinians to Egypt’, Jul 4, 2024.
6. Australia is a signatory to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide or Genocide Convention. The Genocide Convention obligates State parties to prevent and punish genocide, which includes the duty not to commit the crime, to prevent it, and to punish it. These obligations require States to enact legislation, establish effective penalties, and ensure trials occur in competent national or international courts. In the face of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the Australian government has failed to fulfil its obligations under the Genocide Convention.