Pyne regrets Israel and Palestine inertia
Defence Minister Christopher Pyne has expressed regret over Australia's reluctance to take leadership on delivering a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.
Mr Pyne told a Sky News defence summit in Adelaide on Friday that Australia had shown leadership on "niche" areas such as capital punishment, land mine clearance and gas exports.
"Why haven't we been the country, for example, that's said let us lead a peace process in Israel and Palestine?"
"We've left it to the Norwegians and the Swedes and other countries."
Mr Pyne, who is retiring at the next election, said Australia was widely viewed as an honest broker.
"That's an area where I regret that in my 26 years in politics that I've never been able to get a government to sort of say, 'Well why don't we make a proposal to the Palestinians and the Israelis and try to make a breakthrough'?"
"We've never seen that as our role, and I think we should."
