The Australian government’s condemnation of Hamas for targeting Israeli civilians and its support for the right of Israel to defend itself was total and unambiguous.
But you wouldn’t know it if you only tuned in to certain rightwing outlets or watched the press conferences of the opposition leader, Peter Dutton.
The opposition’s weaponisation of the most minute points of difference between the Coalition and Labor on the situation in Gaza – and at times its outright falsehoods – are sure signs that US-style extreme political polarisation is now a feature of Australian politics.
Just hours after the attacks started, the foreign minister unequivocally condemned them and recognised Israel’s right to defend itself.
Australia unequivocally condemns the attacks on Israel by Hamas including indiscriminate rocket fire on cities & civilians.
— Senator Penny Wong (@SenatorWong) October 7, 2023
We call for these attacks to stop & recognise Israel’s right to defend itself.
Australia urges the exercise of restraint & protection of civilian lives.
But because Penny Wong urged “restraint”, talking heads on Sky after dark and Coalition politicians got stuck in. Dutton claimed there was some attempt to argue an equivalence between Israeli retaliation and Hamas’s “barbaric attacks”. There was not.
Wong questioned what “the alternative to Australia urging restraint and the protection of civilian lives” might be, labelling it “extraordinary” for Dutton to suggest it is wrong to advocate protecting civilian lives.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, copped criticism online for tweeting 16 hours after the attacks were launched – never mind that Wong had already commented. There was no ambiguity in the government’s position.
Australia stands with our friend Israel in this time.
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) October 7, 2023
We condemn the indiscriminate and abhorrent attacks by Hamas on Israel, its cities and civilians.
We recognise Israel’s right to defend itself.
The Coalition demanded that Australia sign up to a coalition of the willing, should Israel require military assistance. As Wong and Albanese explained, no such request had been made.
Meanwhile, Labor was being chipped on its left flank by the Greens, several of whom didn’t want the Australian parliament illuminated blue and white in solidarity with Israel.
The Greens were more forward-leaning in statements about Israel’s occupation. But even Labor accepts the term “Occupied Palestinian Territories” so, again, it’s more a matter of emphasis than some substantive difference.
On Monday evening there were ugly protests including outside the Sydney Opera House, in which some people shouted antisemitic slogans.
By Tuesday Dutton’s complaint was that Albanese hadn’t spoken to any of the community leaders he met with at the Lakemba mosque in relation to the voice to parliament “to say that this distasteful protest shouldn’t have gone ahead”.
Apparently Albanese was supposed to pick up the phone to imams who did not organise the protests to denounce them. Never mind that he did so from Uluru that afternoon and the rally’s actual co-organiser Fahad Ali had already denounced the behaviour of some “idiots” in the crowd as “not only vulgar but completely selfish”.
Dutton chipped Albanese for not calling a national security committee meeting to discuss “threats as they might manifest here”. “What happens if, as Hamas is threatening at the moment, there are beheadings, or some of the hostages are killed?”
No doubt Australia’s law enforcement and security agencies are planning for all eventualities but it would’ve been more astounding if the prime minister and senior ministers found time to play armchair general responding to pure hypotheticals.
The Australian ran the former Liberal prime minister John Howard accusing Labor of “pussyfooting” with terror because two senior ministers, Chris Bowen and Tony Burke, had not condemned the protest full-throatedly enough. Burke had condemned Hamas; Bowen had backed Albanese on condemnation of the rallies.
The New South Wales Labor premier, Chris Minns, over-corrected for the sin of allowing the first protest to go ahead, vowing to ensure that pro-Palestine protesters could not “commandeer” Sydney’s streets again.
But still on Wednesday afternoon, Dutton claimed Albanese “can’t see antisemitism playing out” and “should be out there sending a very clear message that these rallies shouldn’t take place”. The prime minister had already called the protest “appalling” and said it “shouldn’t have gone ahead” 24 hours earlier.
Terrible things are happening overseas: the murder and kidnap of innocent Israeli civilians and reprisals that arguably amount to collective punishment, cutting Gaza off from water and electricity.
The strength of feeling about this in sections of the Australian community is understandably extreme.
All of this is bad enough without one side of politics misrepresenting the Australian government’s response, making unreasonable demands and trying to score points.
