Danby slams Labor over Iran stance
Former Labor MP has sharp words for ex-colleagues over their stance on Iran.
Michael Danby has fired a broadside at his former Labor colleagues over the Albanese government’s pronouncements on Israeli and US intervention in Iran.
In an interview with The AJN after he addressed a JNF Gold Patrons luncheon in Melbourne on June 26, the former Member for Melbourne Ports (now Macnamara) took the government to task over its repeated calls for “dialogue” and “de-escalation”, calling these “completely inappropriate for the circumstances”.
“Should we have left Hitler in his bunker and kept talking about dialogue?” said Danby, describing Australia’s stance over Israel’s 12 days of bombardments and the US bunker-buster missions as “just so out of touch — politically Australia has lost all credibility”.
Asked about Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s responses to the US-Israeli operation in Iran and her other Middle East policies, Danby was adamant. “She comes out with all of these inappropriate comments in the middle of a war when you have to decide what side you’re on, and not only that, she’s jeopardising the interests of Australia.”
Emphasising he rejects the views of Israeli government ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, Danby said Wong’s application of Magnitsky-style sanctions against the pair was ironic, as the Foreign Minister initially opposed the introduction of these types of sanctions in Australia.
Claiming Wong had a change of heart after former Senate colleague, the late Kimberley Kitching, persuaded her of the value of Magnitsky sanctions, he said Kitching made it clear that this class of sanctions “focused on autocracies where people suffer from corruption or have no rule of law”.
“It was never to be focused on democracies, because in Israel, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich can be censured by the Knesset, censured by their own parties,” he said.
Danby accused Wong of singling out the two controversial Israeli ministers, while turning a blind eye to candidates for sanctions in countries Australia prefers to have close ties with.
Asked if Australia’s stance has weakened its global status, particularly in the eyes of the Trump administration, Danby said of the government, “It’s all going to come back and bite them … especially when [Prime Minister Anthony Albanese] eventually has to go to Washington.”
Standing in for scheduled speaker Maayan Hoffman, executive editor of Israel’s ILTV News, who was delayed in Israel by the Iran war, Danby told the JNF luncheon that the Israeli-US military campaign has been a turning point in the Middle East.
He said that regardless of ongoing debate about the exact extent of damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities, “at least they were stopped in the meantime and all these other [nuclear development and ballistic missiles] processes have been destroyed.”
Recalling Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force and architect of Iran’s Israel encirclement strategy, who was eliminated by the US in 2020, Danby said, “The big picture is that Soleimani’s Iranian project is over.”
Attendees at the event viewed a firsthand video report from former JNF Victoria president Ronit Fraid on the ground in Israel, describing how Israelis have been coping with the missile barrages from Iran.
Fraid concluded, “I pray that all our hostages will be released, Israel will no longer be under any threat, and we can realise the peace for which we have always yearned.”