Topics: Muslim vote in Australia; Iranian ambassador antisemitic comments; AUKUS;
09:20PM AEST
9 August 2024
Laura Jayes: Joining me now is the Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, Simon Birmingham. Simon, thanks so much for your time. As always. I just want to pick up there where Jonno left off, because this is going to be a red-hot issue going into the next election early next year, I suspect. How will this whole conflict affect the vote for the conservatives?
Simon Birmingham: Good morning, LJ. Well, I think Australian politics and politics across democracy is more generally is always stronger when the political parties, particularly the parties of government, are focused on pluralist representation, are able to spread across our society and particularly across faith groups and be able to represent the diversity of backgrounds that exist in countries like ours. And that is where I hope our debate can manage to stay. I understand that there are deeply held and passionate views when it comes to the situation in the Middle East, and obviously I have been very critical of some of the changes in position the Albanese Government have made over time, and even more critical of the extremist approaches taken by the likes of the Greens during this debate. But ultimately, Australia is not a party that is going to achieve or solve Middle East peace. Our election will be determined on a range of different issues. Of course, confidence in the approach parties bring to their foreign policy and international outlook will be part of that. But I would urge people not to think that they are going to somehow resolve the Middle East through the ballot box in Australia, let alone through some of the other more abhorrent or violent actions that we’ve seen in Australia.
Laura Jayes: The Muslim vote is quite concentrated in where the marginal seats are northern Melbourne, western Sydney. Do you suspect and the polling has shown this, that a lot of those either rusted on Labor voters or rusted on Liberal voters in those marginal seats might be looking to the Greens, because we have seen the Greens really foster that, wouldn’t you agree?
Simon Birmingham: There are certain elements of that just don’t make sense. If you look at the analysis of it. That is that of course the Greens are a far-left party on so many different levels. And it is often why I find the way in which the Greens approach these issues. And you have Greens members who are happily standing alongside people at rallies, who are waving flags in support of the likes of Hamas or others, when the reality is if Hamas took full power and full government over the Palestinian territories, you would end up with something like Iran, a situation where the values that the Greens espouse in terms of tolerance and inclusion and acceptance of people based on different sexualities and other factors, are complete anathema to the ideology that the likes of Iran and their terrorist proxies seek to bring to those parts of the world, and indeed, infect into our countries, too.
Laura Jayes: Yeah, and it has been, well, a broader issue in our country. The social cohesion aspect of all of this is not one that can be just put under the carpet. And I think that was being further fanned by a tweet from the Iranian ambassador this week.
Simon Birmingham: Well, it was a shameful act by the Iranian ambassador, and it’s not the first offence. He was basically applauding the concept, cheering on the concept of wiping out Jews from Israel. And clearly, he was advocating for genocide. And he’s made similar remarks before. He’s been condemned by the government before. And yet we saw no escalation. If anything, a weaker response from the Albanese Government this time than had occurred previously. Really, there’s got to be a tipping point when it comes to somebody who is a foreign official, given the opportunity to work in this country as to whether they outstay their welcome. And that’s why having thought very carefully-
Laura Jayes: What should happen does the government have power to expel him?
Simon Birmingham: The government absolutely has powers under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to declare a foreign diplomat persona non grata, which is to say they’re no longer welcome in this country. In doing so, remove the type of normal diplomatic protections. And in the case of this ambassador, his type of hate speech may well be in breach of Australian law. And if it wasn’t for his diplomatic immunity, he could well be being charged. And it is at that level of gravity that the government needs to do more than have a mid-level DFAT official give him a stern talking to. They need to actually be clear that this is one step too far and he should be gone and packing his bags back to Tehran.
Laura Jayes: Okay, well, we’ll try and follow that up and see what the government’s response is. Just finally, I want to get your thoughts on AUKUS. This is a really incremental type project, but these hurdles are crucial and they need to be jumped over every step of the way. A big step forward for AUKUS overnight.
Simon Birmingham: It’s a great step forward. We’re approaching the three-year anniversary of Scott Morrison and the Coalition government announcing the AUKUS partnership, and from that, we have really been able to work clearly across governments and parties to achieve momentum in AUKUS. We want to see even greater momentum right across defence and we’ve been critical of aspects of the defence strategic review and failure to drive that forward. But in terms of AUKUS, we welcome the White House, President Biden providing this important advice to Congress. It enables the next stage in terms of technology sharing to happen and puts us on a really important trajectory forward. And it comes at a crucial time in terms of world affairs. People should certainly not be listening to the lack of strategic analysis coming from the likes of Paul Keating, and they should be understanding the global challenges that we face and the importance for Australia of having the strongest deterrence framework and the world’s best technology to make us as safe as possible.
Laura Jayes: Simon Birmingham, always good to talk to you. We’ll see you soon.
Simon Birmingham: Thanks very much, LJ.
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