Dutton takes aim at Wong over Palestinian state
‘Penny Wong has irreparably damaged our relations with our ally Israel,” Opposition leader says.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s speech on Tuesday, in which she laid the groundwork for Australia to prematurely recognise a Palestinian state, was “the most reckless act of a Foreign Minister I have seen in my 22 years in the Parliament,” Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said on Wednesday.
Delivering the Tom Hughes Oration at the Sydney Opera House, Dutton touched on a number of issues including Wong’s speech in Canberra the previous evening, the recent spike in antisemitism in Australia, and the Jew baiting of the Australian Greens.
Dutton said Wong “had the audacity to blame Israel for a failure of a two-state solution”.
it was Hamas’ barbarity on October 7 which has set back the goal of a two-state solution,” he said, noting that the terror organisation has pledged to repeat its heinous acts.
“This reality makes the Foreign Minister’s remarks last night utterly illogical, ill-timed and inappropriate.
“For a crass domestic political win, Penny Wong has irreparably damaged our relations with our ally Israel … and it has weakened our international standing.”
On anti-Israel hate and antisemitism, Dutton said, “It conditions young minds to reject the liberal democratic values which underpin the Australian achievement.”
Referring to the ugly scenes outside the Sydney Opera House on October 9, he said, “What we saw that night was a contempt for law and liberty, a contempt for freedom of belief and association, and a contempt for democracy.”
Noting that incidents of antisemitism in Australia had increased by 738 per cent in the months since, he said there had been a failure “of law enforcement to exercise its power” and a “failure of political leadership from those in power”
“The events at the Sydney Opera House – and subsequent incidents – have laid bare an antisemitic rot afflicting our nation, our society, and our institutions,” he said.
Declaring that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “has not risen” to the moment, he recalled Albanese saying in a speech at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum “we must not let anti-Semitism ‘find so much as a foothold here”.
“The problem is that anti-Semitism has found many footholds in our country,” Dutton said. “The Prime Minister has failed to grasp the gravity of what’s happening on our soil. He cannot see the danger which antisemitism poses to our social cohesion, to our way of life, and to the preservation of the Australian achievement.
“The Prime Minister and members of his government have downplayed the unprecedented level of antisemitism afflicting our country by dishonestly treating it as analogous with other forms of prejudice.”
But he reserved extra strong criticism for The Greens, who he said “have become the most dangerous political party in our country”.
“Deputy Leader Mehreen Faruqi posed for a photo with pro-Palestinian student protesters who carried a placard depicting an Israeli flag being thrown into a bin with the words, ‘Keep the world clean’. New South Wales State parliamentarian Jenny Leong invoked a Nazi era trope in accusing the ‘Jewish lobby’ seeking to ‘influence power’ using its ‘tentacles’,” he said.
“Just as their environmental façade masks their socialist tendencies, the Green’s anti-Zionism veneer conceals their anti-Semitism.”
Dutton also took aim at antisemitism within educational institutions.
“Since October 7, Hamas’ cause has regrettably found its champions and cheer squads in many democratic nations,” he lamented.
“In late November, hundreds of Australian students skipped school to join pro-Palestinian rallies. Crowds of young people chant, ‘From the river to sea, Palestine will be free’. Some are oblivious to the genocidal meaning of the words. Others can’t name the river or the sea.
“These rallies expose the chilling degree to which schools and universities have become places of indoctrination instead of education.”
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