A senior Australian government minister has accused the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, of trying to gain “political advantage” over the “terrible, terrible conflict” in the Middle East.
Dutton said on Sunday that the government had “squibbed” a key vote at the United Nations, after Australia abstained from casting a vote in a UN resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza. He also said it was “very significant” that the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, had failed to secure a phone call with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, since the crisis began three weeks ago.
Dutton said Albanese should give the workplace relations minister, Tony Burke, a “dressing down” for comments on Friday, in which the Labor MP expressed strong concerns about the humanitarian impact of Israel’s siege and bombardment of Gaza.
But the trade minister, Don Farrell, who is a strong supporter of Israel, said the government had been “unequivocal in its condemnation of those terrorist attacks by Hamas” on 7 October.
“I don’t think Mr Dutton’s comments are helpful at this time,” Farrell told Sky News on Sunday.
“He’s seeking to get political advantage out of this terrible, terrible conflict and I don’t think that’s the direction we should be heading in.”
Dutton said earlier on Sunday that Albanese “should have picked the phone up immediately to Tony Burke and really given him a dressing down because to not condemn Hamas and to use the soft form of words sends a terrible message”.
Burke has repeatedly condemned the Hamas attack and did so again in a ABC Radio National interview on Friday.
Burke said the attack “was horrific and was rightly condemned by the parliament and condemned by me – the condemnation of Hamas”.
But Burke also said such condemnation was not “somehow weakened if you do something to acknowledge the Palestinian loss of life” in the resulting conflict.
He implored people to “distinguish in the debate in Australia between Hamas and Palestinians”. Burke said he was proud that a Sydney council in his electorate had decided to raise the Palestinian flag as it “gives people the chance to know that there is recognition and not selective grief”.
Burke’s comments were the strongest from an Albanese minister on the conflict since Ed Husic said he believed Palestinians were being “collectively punished for Hamas’s barbarism”.
Dutton told Sky News: “The government should be speaking with one voice of condemnation against Hamas at the moment and instead you’ve got people running off doing their own thing.
“And Tony Burke to his great shame [is] playing to his constituency within his own electorate when he should be acting in the national interest.”
The Hamas-run health ministry has said about 7,700 people have been killed inside Gaza since 7 October, while the UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, raised “alarm about the possibly catastrophic consequences of large-scale ground operations in Gaza and the potential for thousands more civilians to die”.
About 2.3 million Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip were bracing themselves for escalating Israeli military operations as Netanyahu announced his country was entering “the second stage” of what was likely to be a long and difficult war against Hamas.
Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, last week urged the world not to “look away” from the atrocities committed by Hamas inside Israel on 7 October, in which more than 1,400 people were killed and about 220 others were taken hostage.
Maimon said Israel was determined “to eradicate the threat of annihilation hanging over our children”.
The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has acknowledged “widespread suffering” of civilians in Gaza but has stopped short of saying the situation amounted to collective punishment.
The government’s position is that Israel has the right to defend itself, but “the way Israel exercises its right to defend itself” should be in line with international humanitarian law.
The leader of the Greens, Adam Bandt, said Australia should have voted “with most of the world for a ceasefire” at the UN general assembly and argued Labor “cannot wash its hands of what happens now”.
The motion, drafted by Jordan, attracted support from 120 nations including New Zealand and France, while only 14 – including the US and Israel – voted no. Australia was among 45 countries – including the UK, Germany, India and Canada – that abstained from voting. Dutton said Australia should have voted with the US and Israel.
James Larsen, Australia’s representative to the UN, told the assembly that Australia agreed with the aims of the resolution and repeated Australia’s calls for a humanitarian pause to allow food, water and medicine to reach people in Gaza.
But Australia abstained from voting with “disappointment” because the resolution as drafted was “incomplete” as it did not name Hamas at the perpetrator of the 7 October terrorist attack, Larsen said.
Albanese has requested a call with Netanyahu – but has also said he understands a call with the Australian prime minister is not “at the top of the list”.
Additional reporting by Jordyn Beazley
