Opinion: What our worst modern PM could learn from one of the best

We’ve had a long line of flawed prime ministers, but when it comes to abject failure of leadership, Anthony Albanese takes the biscuit, writes Mike O’Connor.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has achieved what I thought to be the unachievable. He has managed to make me ashamed to be an Australian.

We’ve had the mercurial dysfunction of the Whitlam years, the arrogance of Fraser, the brilliance of Hawke and Keating, the steady hand of Howard, the chaos of Rudd, the incompetence of Gillard, the missteps of Abbott, the strutting self-importance of Turnbull and the flawed judgment of Morrison, but when it comes to an abject failure of leadership, our 47th Prime Minister and Member for Grayndler, Anthony Albanese, takes the biscuit.

You can make allowances for stupidity and ignorance, but weakness and cowardice are more difficult failings to forgive.

His decision last week to refuse to condemn the International Criminal Court’s move to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and in all but the same breath refusing an entry visa to Australia for a former Israeli government minister marks a low point in this country’s political history.

The former interior and justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, who had planned to attend a security conference here, was denied a visa to come to Australia on character grounds despite being allowed entry in March last year to attend another conference.

The grounds for failing a character test include that the person could “vilify a segment of the Australian community, or incite discord in the Australian community or in a segment of that community”.

Muslim imams in Sydney and Melbourne rage against the Jewish community and preach hatred and violence. Iran’s ambassador to Australia, Ahman Sadeghi, calls for the destruction of Israel and the “Zionist plague” but that’s just fine. Look the other way and mumble something about free speech with any criticism of the Muslim community triggering shrieks of “Islamophobia.”

When a former minister of the only democratic state in the Middle East asks to visit our country, however, she is denied entry because she might incite discord. What a sad, shameful state of affairs.

The move by the ICC, denounced by US President Joe Biden as outrageous, has been met with what could most generously be described as a muted response by our government, with Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong saying the government respects the independence of the ICC.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel was given no chance to answer the allegations, the court’s advisory panel was stacked with people who have expressed anti-Israel views, the process was rushed and in any case the ICC only has jurisdiction over its member states, and Israel is not one of them.

It has now become apparent that the Albanese government will go to any lengths in its attempts to save those Labor-held seats with significant Muslim populations which could be lost in next year’s federal election.

It seems to be working with the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils praising the ICC and by inference, Australia’s limp acceptance of its ruling, as a bold move, while the Zionist Federation of Australia described the decision as morally bankrupt.

Where are we headed as a nation when each day in the name of political expedience we see our leaders edging further and further away from supporting the right of a people to defend and protect its homeland and its families?

Hamas invaded Israel and slaughtered 1200 people, and has since said it will do so “again and again”.

If such an invasion were to happen on our home soil, would a white flag be hoisted atop Parliament House and the Prime Minister call for a peaceful solution?

The next time the Prime Minister heads overseas, he might care to direct his VIP aircraft to Amsterdam and take a cab to Prinsengracht 263 where he will find Anne Frank’s House, that place where she and seven other Jews including three members of her family hid for two years before being betrayed to the Nazis and sent to the death camps. Only her father, Otto Frank, survived.

As he leaves what is now a museum, the Prime Minister might notice a message on the wall written by Otto Frank.

It reads: “We cannot change what happened any more.

“The only thing we can do is learn from the past and to realise what discrimination and persecution of innocent people means.”

He might also ponder the words of Bob Hawke, who possessed the courage and leadership so sadly lacking today, and who warned that “if the bell tolls for Israel, it won’t just toll for Israel, it will toll for all mankind.”