Although Australia is not currently a member of the UN Security Council, it claims that it would not have voted for the recent anti-Israel resolution if it had been.
In a statement on Thursday, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said that Australia was ineligible to vote on the resolution because it was not a member of the Security Council.
However, "in voting at the UN, the Coalition government has consistently not supported one-sided resolutions targeting Israel,” she said, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
She also called on Israelis and Palestinians to "resume direct negotiations for a two-state solution as soon as possible.”
Bishop’s expressed views come in contrast to the behavior of other countries that took unilateral action against Israel and voted in favor of the resolution, such as Australia’s neighbor, New Zealand.
Shortly before the vote, PM Netanyahu had called New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully, asking that New Zealand not support the resolution.
"If you continue to promote this resolution from our point of view it will be a declaration of war. It will rupture the relations and there will be consequences. We’ll recall our ambassador to Jerusalem," Netanyahu had said.
McCully, however, was unmoved. "This resolution conforms to our policy and we will move it forward," he told Netanyahu. The ambassador was duly recalled, upsetting the Jews living in the country.
It has been reported that the UK may have had an influential role in New Zealand's vote.