I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. When the United States launch strikes in Iran, Australia was quick to back the move. Prime Minister Anthony Alberzi says it's about defending global security, but critics say that argument sounds familiar. More than two decades ago, another Australian prime minister used almost identical arguments to justify joining Australia's wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq. Back then, Alberanzi himself warned those decisions would redefine Australia as a willing backer of US militarism, no matter whether it's in the national interest or not. Today Political editor at Craikey Burnet Keane and why he believes the Prime Minister has undergone a remarkable transformation and what it means for Australia as the conflict grows. It's Saturday, March seven. Bernard, great to have you on seven AM.
You wrote this week that Anthony Albernezi's transformation into Deputy Sheriff John Howard is complete. What did you mean by that?
People with I guess longer memories will recall that John Howard half accepted half struggled with the suggestion that he might have been the Deputy Sheriff of the United States both before the George W. Bush presidency and the Afghan and Iraq ventures and afterwards.
And if terrorists ever get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, that will, in my very passionate belief and argument, constitute a direct, undeniable and lethal threat to Australia and its people.
The suggestion was that he was so loyal to the United States that effectively Australia was an agent of the United States its foreign policy and military policy in this region. And it's hard to see much of a difference between John Howard and Anthony Albanezi in that regard.
I want to see the possibility of Iran getting a nuclear weapon removed once and for all, and I also want to see a removal of the ongoing threat that has been there for such a long period of time. I've Iran endangering peace and security and stability, not just in its own region, but here in Australia.
Of course, Australia is much more so than it was under John Howard a base for US military activities aimed at China. We're a supply dump for US military supplies for all. With China, we're becoming a submarine base for them. We spend a lot of money building up as Tinder Northern Territory to be a B fifty two bomber base.
We have training for marines here. We've become even far more integrated into the US military machine than under John Howard, and with the principal goal of fighting a war against a key power in our own region, which really does make us much more of a deputy sheriff I think now than under John Howard. Even if the kinds of retoric and rationale that we're seeing from Anthony Alberizia, I guess a kind of a poor photo copy of what
we heard from John Howard. Around Iraq, there was a pretense back during the lead up to the Iraq War that international law mattered.
As a quaint nation.
Well, we're all agreed that now, except for the Albanezi government itself, we're all agreed in the opposition agrees international law and the so called rules based international la is a thing of the past.
For primer, mister Karney, you've said that Canada will not participate in US military action in Iran, So can you defineh.
Point is there's a failure of imagination going on right now, and we're seeing it pretty sh We contrasted with Mark Carney being here In Anthony Albanese's response, Mark Carney, Canadian Prime minist has been very clear that the world has changed. The international rules based order is no more. International law has been jumped, and you know we've got to adjust to that.
And now you know, more uncertain, more divided world. Canada and Australia our middle powers charting on our own course with confidence, ambition and partnership.
So why was Anthony Albanezi so quick to get behind America's strukes this week, given that the there is a general consensus that it breaches international law. Why did he come out so strong when other leaders, like some of the Europeans and Kiss Darma took a more measured approach.
I think that Anthony Alberneze's strategy with Trump is keep your head down, don't say anything that might upset the mad King in Washington. Kiss Armer obviously been reluctant to support the venture, refused permission for UK military basis to be an air basis to be used that earned him a rebuke. Trump's been teeing off on the Spanish government for very openly criticizing and again refusing to allow Spanish
resources to be used in the conflict. Anthony Albanezi seems to be absolutely terrified of the idea that Donald Trump might say something bad about him, and therefore Anthony Alberaneesi preemptively almost leaps to do whatever Donald Trump really would like. Plus, we've got a media environment which is very pro us, particularly led by News Corp, which is an American corporation, and Albanese of course would prefer not to be criticized
by the media for not being sufficiently pro us. I mean, he's spent a lot of last year being sort of criticized by the media for not being sufficiently basically groveling to Trump. And I'm sure that falls part of his political calculations about how quickly and how high he should jump when the Americans say jump.
If we delve into the midst of time, burn it and go back to the year two thousand and three, a younger Anthony Albanezer had a very different perspective on our involvement in the Iraq or, saying it was an unjust war with no un backing what's changed in that time to the way he now responds to conflicts like this in twenty twenty six.
Anthony Obernize is the one who can answer that question. But there's a kind of epistemological question here. I think, you know, did Anthony Albaneze actually believe that when he said it in two thousand and three and have his views changed or did he never believe it? And he was articulating that as a you know, as a political
statement which is intended to strengthen his political position. There are people who are saying, look, Anthony abenez has always been, always been about Anthony Albanezi, and his statements have always been in a sense performative. Well, that's true. Obviously, it's very cynical. I'd like to think that all politicians, even you know, even the ones that I have very little time for, actually have some sense of some guiding value.
But you know, it is a pretty stark contrast between the anti Albanezi of two thousand and three downs in US militarism and the anti Albanze of twenty twenty six.
If we look at the political calculation here, that the domestic political calculation here, Bernard is the PM likely to regret going all in on this war if the war itself continues to drag prices up and affect our cost of living.
Obviously, the longer the war goes on, the more likely we are to get a significant and prolonged oil price spike and a gas price spike in its wake. That is going to have ramifications. But if people can see that it's primarily caused by a war, they're probably less likely to blame Antony Albanesi, even though he supports that war.
I think that it will be another breck in one kind of war, which is the perception that Antoni Albanese is very reflexively pro American and does not articulate what is I think a widespread view of revulsion Donald Trump that is abroad in the Australian electric We saw that since last May in the election result, and I think if Alberanezi finds himself too a drift of popular sentiment in regard to something that is as closely associated with Trump as this Iranian venture, then I think there'll be
some sort of collateral damage.
Coming up. The scathing review, the liberals didn't want you to see burden in a classic example of the streisand effect. The other big political news of the week was the Liberal Party election review. They tried to keep it under wraps because of a cranky Peter Dutton. That only increased the attention to it, and this week the whole thing was leaked. What did it say that was so bad?
Well, it was pretty critical of Peter Dutton, you know, speaking of them, who really has much sympathy for Peter Dutton. I think it was actually pretty harsh on Dutton. Observation that the review team made was which Nick mentioned of Prue Gowd made the observation that no one who contributed to the review was prepared to be self critical, which is pretty funny. I said, every everyone was happy to
criticize everyone else. No one engaged in any sort of reflection on their own on their own performance.
Is that Spider Man meme where you know half doesn't spider matter? Or pointing at each other and blaming each.
Other exactly, Yeah, they're all pointing at each other saying, look, that's where your big problem is. I think that it had touched on a couple of things that I think are really problematic for the Liberals. Obviously, one is quote unquote the women problem. It came back to that issue several times and made the point that, look, Liberal's been talking about this issue for a long time, no one's ever done a deep dive on how they can actually
fix it. Angus Taylor, of course knifed the first female leader of the Liberal.
Party, so not a great start.
Yeah, not probably not in a strong position to be leading the charge on a greater female representation. It talked about the age gap and the fact that structurally, systematically the Liberal Party is an old person's and Angus Taylor coming out so strongly against any sort of tax reform that might benefit younger generations at the expense of you know, older asset owners people like me probably said another signal
along those lines. And of course the issued with migrant communities, which is really highly relevant given Taylor's almost made immigration. You know, he said the immigration is going to be one of his big issues. He's saying that there's too many migrants coming and they're not good enough, which is not the kind of signal that is going to win back migrant communities. You know, who's shown over a course of a couple of elections that they're not overly happy with the Liberal Party.
I mean you mentioned the report was very hash on Petere Dutton. He's even threatened to sue defamation. What did it say about him specifically that irked him so much.
I think it was kind of the focus on his personal characteristics that I think really upset.
Him, sort of character assessment stuff.
Well, it talked about him. The original version talked about him as being grim and introverted, not characteristics you want in an alternative prime minister. That was taken out. But it also talks about, you know, women not liking Dutton, Dunton not appealing to female voters, which he took as a kind of a reference to the fact that has
a quite distinctive appearance. Whether the review is intended that or not, I don't know, but I guess if I'd been described similar ways, I might think, well, geez, she's having a crack the way it looks not to flash. But the overall tone of the comments about Dutton kind of suggest that he was a bit of a loner. He didn't trust anyone, he was a bit paranoid, and he concentrated power in his own hands and as a result, everything got stuffed upe. I think there are elements of
that that are true. But the idea that Dutton came in, you know, almost like the mini Trump, that he was portrayed as you know, somewhat inaccurately and somehow took over the party and look took it off in directions it shouldn't have gone. And you know, I did all these crazy things that you don't do in normal campaigns. I
think that is a little unfair. I think that overly focusing on either Dutton's appeal or the way Dutton did things risks kind of shifting the responsibility away from the people who allowed that to happen, which includes his parliamentary colleagues.
And what did the review actually say about the current leadership? I mean, you spoke about migrant communities and Angus Taylor's immigration agenda. What did the report say about Jane Hume and Angus Taylor?
Doesn't talk about Angus Taylor in person at all, doesn't name him. It reflects rather critically on the decision that was made in the budget lock up last year to oppose the labor's tax cuts, which obviously Taylor was part of. There's still a bit of mystery about whether you know who drove that, whether it was Dutton and how much
Taylor requiesced. Jane Hume, on the other hand, is mentioned mentioned very critically for her extraordinary capacity to alienate migrant communities and particularly Chinese community, with a throwaway reference to Chinese spies.
You don't need to go out that far on the polling Booth's Claire. There might be Chinese spies that are hanging out for you, but for us, there's dozens, thousands, hundreds of young people that are out there handing out how to vote cuts.
Imagine being the labor operatives. He saw that during the campaign. They must have just thought new beauty.
That's what the newspapers are saying. I think they're getting it.
I think they're getting a bit desperate. It's really interesting to read the report about the issue of migrant communities and the fact that the Liberals are kind of a bit performative about it. It's go and have a photo op. And there are people amongst the candidates who lost, there are people saying, you know, we've actually got to really change our mindset about migrant communities. Amelia Hamer, who lost narrowly lost Cuon she made an absolutely fascinating observation that
it's not like the nineteen seventies. She made the point little people come here, but they don't set for their ties with their home country anymore. They go back and forth. They see themselves as being the product of two countries and that's really odds with the kind of hardline if you don't like it, to leave it kind of mentality of the right.
And finally, Bernard, as you mentioned, the report noted that past election reviews have identified some of these recurring issues, like their problem with women, but the recommendations have been largely ignored. Will this time be any different and what lessons need to be learned most urgently by the Liberal Party?
The review is more interested in the structure and in how they sold policies and who was doing that. So it's trying to make much more concrete recommendations and one of those is much more engagement with migrant communities and young people. And one of the things that observed was there's very few women actually within the leadership of the Liberals Secretariat or its campaign HQ, and that's got to
be remedied. So there was a focus on more doable recommendations if you like, but the fact that they we're so key to bury. It really suggests that despite the effort to actually make them more implementable, they suffer the same fate as previous recommendations, and obviously labor will be hoping that no, they don't keep the memo this time and just keep on making the same sort of mistakes and alienating the same sort of communities.
Bernard, thank you so much for your time.
My pleasure.
Seven AM is a daily show from Solstice Media. It's made by Atticus Bastow, Ariel Richards, Chris Dangate, Crystal Color, Nicole Johnston, Travis Evans, Zolnvecho and me Daniel James. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Bordio. Thanks for listening to seven IM have a great weekend.