Penny Wong has confirmed Australia will reverse the previous government's decision to recognise West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.


At a media conference on Tuesday the foreign affairs minister said the final status of the capital should not be determined until peace negotiations with the Palestinian people were finalised.


"Today the government has reaffirmed Australia's previous and long-standing position that Jerusalem is a final status issue that should be resolved as part of any peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian people," Wong said.


"This reverses the Morrison government's recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Australia's position has always been and remains in Tel Aviv."


She said the previous government's move in 2018 was a "cynical play, unsuccessful, to win the seat of Wentworth in a byelection".


"What people thought was the prime minister of the day was trying to play foreign policy in order to win votes in the seat. For that reason, I made clear at the time, we reaffirmed our view that Jerusalem is a final status issue. What do those words mean? It means that has to be resolved through negotiation between the parties."


Earlier the government denied it had made any formal policy change after a government department deleted a public statement recognising West Jerusalem as the capital.


The change in language, first revealed by Guardian Australia on Monday, prompted the former prime minister Scott Morrison to argue that the "disappointing" move suggested the new government was watering down Australia's support for Israel.


In the past few days, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has deleted from its website a passage that said "in December 2018, Australia recognised West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, being the seat of the Knesset and many of the institutions of the Israeli government".


A second deleted sentence read: "Australia looks forward to moving its embassy to West Jerusalem when practical, in support of, and after the final status determination of, a two-state solution."


Wong's office insisted on Monday the decision had no bearing on Australia's relationship with Israel.


"Australia remains a longstanding friend and strong supporter of Israel," Wong's spokesperson said.


The statement was issued after the Coalition accused the Albanese Government of failing to be transparent about its Middle East policy.


The Coalition's foreign affairs spokesperson, Simon Birmingham, questioned why the language "was silently altered on the Dfat website".


He said it followed a decision in June not to join an U.S.-led statement at the UN human rights council, something he claimed had "abandoned allies like Canada, the UK and the US".


Birmingham said: "Why does Labor keep changing policy on Israel without any announcement or ministerial explanation?"


Morrison said through a spokesperson: "Labor's decision in relation to the capital of Israel is disappointing and represents a further diminution in Australia's support for the State of Israel by the Labor government from the high-water mark established by the Morrison government."


But the head of the general delegation of Palestine to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, Izzat Abdulhadi, said the change in language was "welcomed and an important step in the right direction towards meaningful implementation of the two state solution".


He urged the Labor party to explicitly recognise "the right of the Palestinian people to self determination, as a right by internationally Law, in a vibrant independent and sovereign Palestinian State on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital".


"The General Delegation of Palestine to Australia will continue its effective and constructive engagement and dialogue with the ALP government and ALP members to achieve this objective," he said.


The executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, Rawan Arraf, called on the Australian government to "do more", including by rescinding its objection to an international criminal court investigation into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.


"We see very clearly how double standards have been at play since the Russian aggression on Ukraine," she said.


"Hollow statements about two-state solutions and negotiations have failed for decades while Israel's crimes under international law become more entrenched."


Morrison altered Australia's policy after the then US President Donald Trump directed the state department to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In 2017 Trump "determined that it is time to officially recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel".


The following year, in the final week of the Wentworth byelection campaign, Morrison declared that he was "open-minded" about following the US move and promised an Australian government review.


At the time, Labor accused Morrison of playing "games with longstanding foreign policy positions five days out from a byelection".


Later the Morrison government settled on a fallback policy to recognise West Jerusalem as Israel's capital but not to move the Australian embassy there until after a peace agreement.


On 15 December 2018, Wong promised that a Labor government would reverse Morrison's decision, saying the policy was "all risk and no gain".


Despite the recent deletion of language about West Jerusalem and the Australian embassy, Dfat's Israel country brief still retains much of its original content.


The old and new versions both say Australia is "strongly opposed to unfair targeting of Israel in the United Nations and other multilateral institutions".


"However, we make clear our concerns about Israeli actions that undermine the prospects of a two-state solution and continue to urge Israel and other actors to respect international law," both versions say.