‘Ratbag’ Iranian envoy hauled-in over anti-Israel post

The Coalition says Iran’s top diplomat in Australia should be expelled following his call for Israel’s destruction, as Anthony Albanese declared the ambassador’s comments were ‘abhorrent’.

Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi. Picture: X

The Coalition says Iran’s top diplomat in Australia should be expelled over his call for Israel’s destruction, as Anthony Albanese declared the ambassador’s comments were “abhorrent” and revealed the government had hauled him in for an official dressing down.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham demanded “a far stronger response”, saying Ahmad Sadeghi’s comments would expose him to prosecution under Australia’s hate speech laws if not for his ­diplomatic immunity.

The call came as Peter Dutton urged the government to rethink Australia’s support for United Nations Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, after an official UN probe revealed on Tuesday that nine of the organisation’s employees were believed to have been involved in the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel.

In a social media post on Saturday referencing Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, Mr Sadeghi called for the “wiping out” of the “Zionist plague” by 2027.

The Prime Minister said Mr Sadeghi had been summoned for talks with Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials over his inflammatory comments.

“I make it clear there is no place for the sort of comments that were made online in social media by the Iranian ambassador. They’re abhorrent. They are hateful, they are anti-Semitic and they have no place,” Mr Albanese said, just a day after his government warned surging online misinformation was fuelling the threat of domestic terrorism.

The censure follows the government’s dressing-down of Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon in June over his government’s conduct in the war in Gaza, delivered by Assistant Foreign Minister Tim Watts.

Senator Birmingham said the ambassador’s “flagrant disregard for Australian standards” required a “far stronger” response by the government.

“There are options available under Article 9 of the Vienna Convention to declare a foreign diplomat persona non grata at any time and without the need for any explanation,” he said. “The abhorrent hate spread by ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi should make him unwelcome in our country.”

Penny Wong said Mr Sadeghi’s comments were “repugnant’ and inconsistent with the nation’s values, but Australia had an interest in maintaining diplomatic relations with Iran. Former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson said Mr Sadeghi was a “ratbag” who had been rightly called out by Senator Wong. He also warned the government needed to ensure proper security checks for 2000 Palestinian refugees from Gaza before accepting any of them as permanent residents. “As a general rule, I think you do need very careful security checks in respect of anyone coming out of Gaza at this point,” he said.

Releasing the results of the UN’s UNRWA investigation, spokesman Farhan Haq said nine of the agency’s staff had been sacked, revealing “the evidence was sufficient to conclude that they may have been involved in the October 7 attacks”.

He said any participation of the UN Relief and Works Agency employees in the attack that led to the Gaza war was “a tremendous betrayal of the sort of work we are supposed to be doing on behalf of the Palestinian people”.

Mr Dutton said it was “completely and utterly unacceptable” that the agency’s staff were involved in the October 7 attacks.

“It should cause the Albanese government to reconsider their involvement, their engagement, their funding of UNWRA,” he said. “We’ve called for them before not to provide this funding through this organisation, but they’ve chosen to go with their own bad judgment.”