The veteran Labor MP Maria Vamvakinou has announced she will end her political career at the next federal election and has backed a prominent member of the Palestinian-Australian community to replace her.
Vamvakinou, the member for Calwell in Melbourne’s outer north-west, has told the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, she will step down at the upcoming poll due by the middle of 2025.
“I just want to stop and smell roses,” she said on Sunday when anointing her former adviser Basem Abdo as her preferred successor.
“I am very committed to giving opportunities to a new generation of people who will be able to go forward and reconnect with Labor in what has now become a very diverse and volatile political constituency.”
Vamvakinou, one of her party’s most vocal supporters of Palestine, was first elected in 2001. She said recognising Palestinian statehood was “unfinished business” for the Labor party.
“There has to be an outcome that gives the Palestinian people self-determination and it’s the only way forward for peace for both Palestinians and Israelis. There is no other way,” the outgoing MP said.
“I am hopeful that a Labor government will … recognise Palestine as a way of encouraging and promoting a pathway to peace. There’s no alternative.”
Vamvakinou said she hoped Abdo would be preselected to contest Calwell at the next federal poll.
“He is the kind of generation now that we need to reconnect with and become relevant to,” she said. “He is very bright and [I believe he will] make a great contribution.”
Born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents – his father left a village in the occupied West Bank after the Six Day War in 1967 – Abdo’s family sought refuge in Jordan during the Gulf War before migrating to Australia in 1991.
He said his father was trained as an electrical engineer but couldn’t find a job in that field in Australia.
“I have always had that instilled in me – a deep appreciation for the dignity of work and the impact that social and economic displacement has on people. I think it can be tackled by governments,” Abdo said.
“That’s a strong part of what has driven me within the movement.”
While preselections will not be held until later this year, Guardian Australia understands Abdo has significant support within Labor’s socialist left..
One senior member of the faction said while it was likely other candidates would put their hand up for the safe Labor seat, Abdo’s preselection was a “done deal”.
“It is something Maria has been trying to line up for months,” they said.
Another source said it “should be non-negotiable” that the Victorian faction preselect a culturally diverse MP given it hadn’t done so at the federal level since Vamvakinou entered parliament.
About a quarter of voters in Calwell are Muslim, according to the 2021 census. While Vamvakinou holds the seat on a safe margin of 12.4% the party saw a 10% primary vote drop at the 2022 election.
Among Labor figures, there are concerns the party could face further backlash among Muslim voters and other diverse groups over its response to the Hamas-Israel war.
Abdo said if he was elected to parliament he could offer a “perspective that actually is impacted by [the conflict in Palestine] generationally”.
“We are hurting dramatically … it is deep, and it cuts through, and it is personal and we are affected directly by it,” he said.
While the Australian government has said it no longer sees recognition of Palestinian statehood as a step that can only be taken at the very end of a peace process, it has signalled it is unlikely to follow European countries – such as Ireland, Spain and Norway – in recognising statehood in the short term.
