Joe Hildebrand: Opposition Leader ‘anything but loyal’ for US Republican letter on Palestine stance
Sussan Ley's extraordinary letter to US Republicans challenging Australia's Palestine position has shattered decades of bipartisan foreign policy tradition, writes Joe Hildebrand.
Traditions are solutions to problems we forgot we had.
Ironically it took a friend to recently remind me of this saying because it is one that we all need to urgently remember.
Nowhere is tradition more important than in Australian politics, which is as much governed by convention as it is the letters in our constitution.
And the most vital tradition of them all is that whatever divisions the government and opposition of the day might have on domestic matters, when it comes to the rest of the world, Australia presents a united front.
Even if there are strong disagreements on foreign policy itself, the convention has always been that these are debated and resolved in parliament and in the domestic sphere.
That is to say never airing grievances on the international stage and absolutely never, under any circumstances, involving foreign governments in domestic disputes.
Indeed, the only thing worse than either of those two cardinal sins would be to tell a foreign power that you are on its side instead of Australia’s.
This week Sussan Ley violated all three of these vital rules and thus proved that she is not only unfit to ever be prime minister – an academic argument if ever there was one – but also unfit to be Leader of the Opposition.
Indeed, the very role of opposition appears to be as foreign to her as the powers she is courting.
The whole Westminster system, upon which Australia’s parliamentary democracy is predicated, is based on the concept of “His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition” – namely that you can have free and robust debate between the government and the alternative government only if both are unquestionably loyal to the state.
By writing to US Republicans to declare that the Coalition would overturn the Australian government’s recognition of Palestine, possibly at the behest of the Israeli government – with whom Ley had a highly unusual phone call at around the same time – Ley has been anything but loyal.
Treachery would be a better word for it, perhaps even treason.
Ley has told one, perhaps two, foreign powers that the opposition is on their side – not Australia’s.
To be clear, this is not about whether the decision to recognise Palestine is right or wrong – I have publicly and repeatedly voiced grave concerns about it myself.
But the place to do that is in Australia, and the people to do it to are Australians.
The one thing you don’t do is effectively invite foreign interference into Australian politics and – ultimately – Australian elections.
It is frankly incomprehensible that Ley or those advising her would not be able to grasp this fundamental principle.
If they were so hopelessly ignorant of the implications, that alone would be grounds for mass sackings, herself included.
If they knew the gravity of their actions and did it anyway, that would be grounds for something worse.
Thankfully for them the punishment for high treason no longer carries the death penalty.
Even more worrying for the Liberal Party is that this act was not just morally reprehensible but politically insane.
Fresh off a record low Newspoll of 27 per cent for the Coalition, and an election result that may have wiped it out for a decade or more, Ley’s response has been to re-hitch her party’s fortunes to the millstone that dragged it to its current depths.
Amid the myriad missteps on the Green Mile that led the Coalition to its current oblivion was the perception that it was on Donald Trump’s side more than it was Australia’s.
This was a constant fluttering red flag in all of Labor’s research and the ALP’s historic haul of 94 seats – including Peter Dutton’s – circled the national mood with a sea of red ink.
To sidle up with Trump’s Republicans against Australia again is, as one lyrical judge famously said, the very definition of Daniel escaping the lion’s den and then going back for his hat.
As that case continues to prove, miscalculations don’t come much more disastrous than that.
And to make matters worse – were that even possible – the opposition’s divide-and-conquer cosy-up was done on the ever-misguided assumption that there was an existential rift between Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump.
Since Ley’s spectacularly crude faceplant, the Prime Minister has gone from being painted as a US pariah to having a face-to-face and handshake with the Prez, with a follow-up phone call and now an official state meeting in the Oval Office next month.
What a huge difference a day makes.
This is a joyous occasion for the Australia-US alliance and a clear triumph for democracy and diplomacy.
Ley’s dangerous and ludicrous letter proves she knows nothing about either.
Workers protest on pay as our pollies rack up flights and meals
