Labor’s ‘university-level’ politics is tearing apart the nation

University politics is all care and no responsibility, with few consequences. Picture: AFP

Let me tell you about that time, decades ago, when I was accidentally elected to the student guild council at my university.

That’s right, elected by accident. What makes it even more ridiculous, though no less true, is that I was elected on a Young Labor unity ticket.

Picture this. It was the early 1990s, I was heading into the final year of study at Curtin University in Western Australia. I was as uninterested then as I am now in a political career of any kind.

Likewise, I’m still a bit of a soft touch when it comes to helping out a mate.

Enter one of my buddies from journalism class who was dating a bloke running for guild president on a ticket called unity. Unity, that’s a concept I have no issue with, I thought, naive as all get-out.

This Young Labor unity team needed one more person on the ticket. Unwinnable position, the 12th man, if you will. You’ll never get elected, they promised me.

Guess what happened? Student guild councillor, Gemma Tognini, that’s what.

University politics is pretend, as I found out.

Others may cry foul over my recollections but they are quite clear. Our council meetings were exceptionally well catered, also a clear memory. We dealt with many things, month to month. Some infantile, some more serious, but not often.

It was pretend politics for those who one day hoped to play the game for real. A mate of mine who was studying at UWA was part of a ticket for that student guild election called the Party Party. Its chief policy platform, as I recall, was to convert the entire fleet of guild cars to Suzuki Mighty Boys.

University politics is all care and no responsibility, and definitely no consequences.

Which brings me to the present and our spineless federal government. It was former federal Labor member for Melbourne Ports Michael Danby who called it first though.

Former Labor member for Melbourne Ports Michael Danby has crticised the government’s handling of the war in Gaza. Picture: AAP

Last weekend Danby, who also is the former chairman of the foreign affairs, defence and trade committee, described the Albanese government’s handling of the war in Gaza as university-level politics.

Taking aim at Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Danby (rightly) criticised his former parliamentary colleague for constantly berating Israel, just as it had secured a ceasefire from Hezbollah and was on the verge of doing the same with Hamas.

It’s clear there’s no love lost between the two, but on this one it’s impossible to disagree with Danby, especially following comments Wong made this week during a speech in her home state of South Australia.

In it, she said the federal government treated Israel no differently to any other country, protesting that she expected it to abide by international law just like Russia and China.

“We expect Russia to abide by international law and end its full-scale war on Ukraine … we expect China to abide by international legal decisions on the South China Sea,” Wong said while delivering the Hawke Lecture at the University of South Australia in Adelaide.

Respectfully, Minister, are you trying to p-ss in this nation’s collective pocket and tell us it’s raining? By “expect them to comply” do you mean you will continue to say and do nothing?

Having followed this government’s flaccid response to the depraved barbarity of the October 7 massacre, the reckless refusal to tackle hatred of Jews head on, the victim-blaming of Israel as it sought to defend itself, I welcome the opportunity to compare this to Australia’s response to Russia’s and China’s decades-old human rights violations.

When has Wong called in the Chinese ambassador to dress him down? When has Wong addressed the UN to demand the release of Uighurs and to castigate Beijing? It’s believed that China has detained more a million Uighurs in recent years, all sent to re-education camps and sentenced arbitrarily to hundreds of thousands of (collective) prison terms. Where is Wong? Nowhere, that’s where.

Now Russia. Let’s start with Ukraine (low-hanging fruit is always the easiest).

Russia’s invasion is an obvious violation of international law and a crime of aggression. Additionally, Russia is also the most sanctioned country, according to Human Rights Watch. Dissidents have a nasty habit of falling from balconies. The International Criminal Court has a standing arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and Russian children’s rights commissioner (there’s a misnomer) Maria Lvova-Belova for the forced deportation of Ukrainian children into Russia.

Alexei Navalny died in Russian captivity on February. Photo: AFP

That’s before we get to the murder of activist Alexei Navalny, who died while serving a 19-year prison sentence in a remote jail in the Arctic Circle.

While I’m at it, honourable mention to this government’s laissez-faire approach to the (now former) Assad regime, responsible for the murder of 600,000 Syrians, a quarter of a million of whom starved to death; the Taliban’s ongoing systemic erasure of women; the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria by Boko Haram and other Islamist extremists; and Iran’s violent program of capital punishment and torture, and its subjugation of women.

There are two things the above have in common.

First, there are no Jews involved, so feel free to join those dots. Second, however these issues evolve, there are no electoral considerations affecting this government. No Uighurs to swing votes.

This week Wong backed a shameful UN resolution for a permanent unconditional ceasefire in Gaza. Unconditional, meaning no requirement to dismantle Hamas or for the hostages it abducted to be returned.

As former Israeli foreign minister and peace negotiator Tzipi Livni says, Palestinians need to choose ballots or bullets. In backing this vote, Wong says they can have both and they can keep the hostages as long as they like.

Australians understand this position rewards and emboldens terrorists and their supporters, both in the Middle East and in growing number here in Australia, while Wong and Anthony Albanese are missing what the rest of us see with searing clarity.

Senator Penny Wong, pictured in Perth on Friday, is missing what the rest of us see with clarity. Picture: DFAT

For us, it’s not about politics or power.

For us, it is about our values as a country, as a community, who we are and what we hold dear. It’s about the fact, on their watch, these values have been attacked and eroded with impunity.

Australians value fairness and tolerance. We know right from wrong.

Murdering kids at a music festival is wrong. Brutal, depraved sexual violence, the murder of people in their own homes is wrong. Standing with and rewarding the people who did it, giving them what they demanded, is wrong.

Letting violent, vicious protests take place week after week on Australian streets, in which there are calls for the end of the Jewish people, is wrong.

Refusing to see this assault on our values, on our Australian way of life, is astonishing, yet here we are.

All of Australia watched the Prime Minister reluctantly drag himself to the site of the Adass Israel Synagogue firebombing at Ripponlea in Melbourne, days late and well after the attack had been declared an act of domestic terrorism.

Days after Albanese chose to stay in Perth, get on the beers with Labor Party donors, stay the night and then spend Saturday afternoon playing tennis.

Let me reiterate that. He chose to stay in Perth, even as the nation reeled. This was his priority. In the moment of crisis, those were his values.

University politics, indeed.