The pond just knew that the reptiles would stitch up the pond with a late breaking prattle by Polonius, but how could an aging, irrelevant columnist ignore a feeble bit of attention-seeking by a politician torn by internal ructions?
And so and thusly, how could the pond ignore same and send Polonius off to the archive cornfield, when a better way would be a late arvo posting celebrating the latest folly?
Straight into it ... with the reward a chance to observe Polonius attempting an our Henry on Australian history ...
The header: Foreign policy rifts echo through history, minister, Penny Wong fumed at Sussan Ley’s letter to US Republicans voicing opposition to Australia’s recognition of Palestine, but many precedents suggest Ley’s action was anything but ‘rogue’.
The caption for the Queen Victoria joke (attribution only, and a "we" would have been better): Penny Wong was not amused. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
Polonius began by outlining his understanding of the matter to hand:
Foreign Minister Penny Wong was interviewed by Sally Sara on ABC Radio National last Tuesday. She was asked about a letter that Sussan Ley had sent to some Republican members of the US Congress concerning the decision by the Albanese Labor government to recognise a Palestinian state.
On September 19, 25 Republicans, including senators Ted Cruz and Joni Ernst, wrote to the prime ministers of Australia, Canada and Britain and the President of France, describing their decision to “unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state” as “reckless policy that undermines prospects for peace”.
A copy of the letter was sent to President Donald J. Trump and to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The reptiles interrupted this lecture from behind the arras with a snap of the enfeebled and surrounded attention-seeker, Sussan Ley wrote to US Congress criticising Australia’s decision to recognise Palestinian statehood.
Now the key word here is "wrote".
Back in the day a letter was a meaningful communication, and a boon to stamp collectors, and way above some politician barnstorming around the country shouting how wrong the government's foreign policy was.
This will come as news to vulgar youff, who, pace Dame Slap's beefing reported earlier this day, spend their days texting each other (when not sexting).
Incidentally, whatever happened to stamp collecting?
The pond can still remember the excitement when it picked up a penny Big Red and added it to its collection, with dreams of selling it for a small fortune in some twenty years time, when its value would have increased by squillions ...
Now you can pick it up for a buck on Ebay. So it goes ...
Sorry, the pond digresses.
Back to official letters as a meaningful form of communication, and naturally the pond looked to Polonius to provide evidence of opposition leaders writing letters to heads of government of other countries:
Asked by Sara about Ley’s approach, Wong was not amused.
She had this to say: “The opposition of Australia running a rogue foreign policy is not in the nation’s interests. You know, we are (at) Australia’s strongest when our country speaks with one voice; and I think Australians know that, and it is a pity that Sussan Ley does not.”
When asked what she meant by this, the Foreign Minister replied: “It is possible to back Australia and still be an effective opposition.”
It is understandable why Wong was annoyed by Ley’s intervention. After all, the UN heads of state and government meeting was underway in the General Assembly in New York and Anthony Albanese had just formally announced Australia’s decision with respect to a Palestinian state.
However, the historical evidence suggests that Ley is anything but a “rogue” Opposition Leader when it comes to foreign policy. There are, after all, many precedents on the Labor Party side of Australian national politics in opposing foreign policy decisions by governments.
Labor supported Britain during World War I (1914-18). However, it opposed the conscription of Australian men to reinforce the First Australian Imperial Force on the frontline. This was essentially a foreign policy decision over which Labor split in 1916. From opposition, Labor opposed conscription.
Yes, yes, all very well, and all very important, but where's the letter from the opposition leader to the Brits' PM explaining that they had no time for trench warfare?
At this point, the reptiles interrupted with another snap HV Evatt with British PM Winston Churchill in England in 1943.
That suggested that Polonius might dig up a letter between the pair ...but before proceeding, the pond must regretfully interrupt Polonius by noting that none of the matters he discusses notably seemed to include action by way of official letter.
And an official letter, once upon a time, meant something.
Don't take the pond's word for it.
Take Joe Hildebrand in, of all places, the Daily Terror penning Opposition Leader ‘anything but loyal’ for US Republican letter on Palestine stance, Sussan Ley's extraordinary letter to US Republicans challenging Australia's Palestine position has shattered decades of bipartisan foreign policy tradition, writes Joe Hildebrand.
The pond provided an archive link so that correspondents could see that it was real, and that it began thusly ...
Ironically it took a friend to recently remind me of this saying because it is one that we all need to urgently remember.
Nowhere is tradition more important than in Australian politics, which is as much governed by convention as it is the letters in our constitution.
And the most vital tradition of them all is that whatever divisions the government and opposition of the day might have on domestic matters, when it comes to the rest of the world, Australia presents a united front.
Even if there are strong disagreements on foreign policy itself, the convention has always been that these are debated and resolved in parliament and in the domestic sphere.
That is to say never airing grievances on the international stage and absolutely never, under any circumstances, involving foreign governments in domestic disputes.
Indeed, the only thing worse than either of those two cardinal sins would be to tell a foreign power that you are on its side instead of Australia’s.
This week Sussan Ley violated all three of these vital rules and thus proved that she is not only unfit to ever be prime minister – an academic argument if ever there was one – but also unfit to be Leader of the Opposition.
Indeed, the very role of opposition appears to be as foreign to her as the powers she is courting.
The whole Westminster system, upon which Australia’s parliamentary democracy is predicated, is based on the concept of “His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition” – namely that you can have free and robust debate between the government and the alternative government only if both are unquestionably loyal to the state.
By writing to US Republicans to declare that the Coalition would overturn the Australian government’s recognition of Palestine, possibly at the behest of the Israeli government – with whom Ley had a highly unusual phone call at around the same time – Ley has been anything but loyal.
Treachery would be a better word for it, perhaps even treason.
Ley has told one, perhaps two, foreign powers that the opposition is on their side – not Australia’s.
To be clear, this is not about whether the decision to recognise Palestine is right or wrong – I have publicly and repeatedly voiced grave concerns about it myself.
But the place to do that is in Australia, and the people to do it to are Australians.
The one thing you don’t do is effectively invite foreign interference into Australian politics and – ultimately – Australian elections.
It is frankly incomprehensible that Ley or those advising her would not be able to grasp this fundamental principle.
If they were so hopelessly ignorant of the implications, that alone would be grounds for mass sackings, herself included.
Treachery? Or even treason?!!
And the fire's coming from inside the usually Lib-friendly Daily Terror house?!
The pond threw another another blue tongue on the lettuce, with the odds shortening by the day ...
Um, okay, on the upside, maybe the lettuce will deliver where the stamp collection failed.
Now back to Polonius's feeble attempts at justifying treachery and treason ...
In 1950, the Menzies Coalition government decided to send military assets to Malaya to assist British and New Zealand forces in the defence of the British colony against a communist insurgency. Australia’s forces were increased in 1955 and 1957 and some remained in place until 1963 during what was called the Malayan Emergency.
In 1955 the Labor Party split again – on this occasion partly because of attitudes to communism. Labor leader Bert Evatt declared that Australia’s role in the defence of Malaya “will be easily misrepresented as an act of aggression”. It wasn’t.
In 1957, the Australia-Japan Commerce Agreement was signed. This was one of the most important civil treaties in Australian history and of benefit to both parties. An initiative of the Coalition government and supported by the Democratic Labor Party that emerged from the Labor split of 1955, it was opposed by Labor.
Labor leader Evatt told the House of Representatives on August 28, 1957, that “the treaty should not be adopted”. He was supported by Jim Cairns, a prominent member of the Labor Left.
Still no letters, just idle verbiage of the kind Polonius loves?
Telling on the government in the House of Reps is what every opposition tattletale has done since the farce began way back when.
Where are the bloody letters?!
Never mind, the reptiles seized the chance to offer up a snap of Ming the Merciless, as they always do, what with their devotion to live behind 1950s picket fences, Sir Robert Menzies, pictured in 1950. Picture: National Library of Australia
Inspired by Ming, the pond thought it would finish off Joe's rant:
Thankfully for them the punishment for high treason no longer carries the death penalty.
Even more worrying for the Liberal Party is that this act was not just morally reprehensible but politically insane.
Fresh off a record low Newspoll of 27 per cent for the Coalition, and an election result that may have wiped it out for a decade or more, Ley’s response has been to re-hitch her party’s fortunes to the millstone that dragged it to its current depths.
Amid the myriad missteps on the Green Mile that led the Coalition to its current oblivion was the perception that it was on Donald Trump’s side more than it was Australia’s.
This was a constant fluttering red flag in all of Labor’s research and the ALP’s historic haul of 94 seats – including Peter Dutton’s – circled the national mood with a sea of red ink.
To sidle up with Trump’s Republicans against Australia again is, as one lyrical judge famously said, the very definition of Daniel escaping the lion’s den and then going back for his hat.
As that case continues to prove, miscalculations don’t come much more disastrous than that.
And to make matters worse – were that even possible – the opposition’s divide-and-conquer cosy-up was done on the ever-misguided assumption that there was an existential rift between Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump.
Since Ley’s spectacularly crude faceplant, the Prime Minister has gone from being painted as a US pariah to having a face-to-face and handshake with the Prez, with a follow-up phone call and now an official state meeting in the Oval Office next month.
What a huge difference a day makes.
This is a joyous occasion for the Australia-US alliance and a clear triumph for democracy and diplomacy.
Ley’s dangerous and ludicrous letter proves she knows nothing about either.
Well the pond's not exactly celebrating the chance to meet up with the Cantaloupe Caligula, with the chances of a demented ravaging high, and an invitation to share his values ...
Whatever, there was that note ....
...this act was not just morally reprehensible but politically insane.
Back to the increasingly desperate Polonius, desperately trying to drum up precedents for the insane inclination to treason and treachery ...
Labor, under the leadership of Arthur Calwell and, later Whitlam, vehemently opposed Australia’s Vietnam commitment. Moreover, Labor MP Cairns effectively led Australia’s opposition to the Vietnam commitment.
And there’s more. In early 2003 the John Howard-led Coalition committed the Australian military to what was called the coalition of the willing (Australia, Britain, the US and Poland) to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.
Speaking at the National Press Club in March 2003, Labor leader Simon Crean said: “As I speak, we are a nation on the brink of war; a war we should not be in.”
By mid-2004, Mark Latham was Labor leader. He committed Labor to withdrawing Australian forces from Iraq if it defeated the Howard-led Coalition government in the forthcoming 2004 election.
Disagreements aplenty, that being the nature of the game, but still no letters in the mix. The reptiles did throw in another snap, In 2022, a spokeswoman for Senator Wong said the government had not made any decision on changing official recognition of Israel’s capital. Picture: AFP
Meanwhile, Joe had referenced other odd behaviour, another story in the Terror, but it wasn't a letter, it was only an indiscreet phone call ...
FWIW(less than a penny Red), here's the front bit ...
Mischief-making, but hey, it's good to know that the opposition is all in on ethnic cleansing and genocide, not to mention mass starvation as a war tactic, and incidentally a war crime.
And it was no letter, it was just a foreign power seeking to interfere with a willing opposition, attempting to justify its genocide by blathering about leftist governments ...
Ms Ley said Australia should follow the US’s lead on foreign policy.
“We should always stand up for Australia’s national interest, and that aligns us with our major ally, the US,” she told Nine’s Today.
Similarly, Mr Wallace said there were “very strong left governments that are being led in the UK and in Canada at the moment” and that Anthony Albanese “has jumped on the bandwagon with these left wing governments”.
Follow the US's lead? She'd better make sure she doesn't step into some cement ...
Never mind, it was just an indiscreet phone call, not a treasonous official communication by way of letter.
Back to Polonius, still seeking letters like some villain in a Victorian romance ...
Specifics were never announced. But it was assumed that any move to change the embassy’s location would have been to West Jerusalem, which has been part of Israel since 1948 and is the location of the Israeli parliament and supreme court.
This decision was strongly contested by Wong in her capacity as Labor’s foreign spokeswoman.
At the time Wong declared: “Foreign policy and Australia’s national interest are far too important to be played with in this fashion.” She added that “all Australians deserve a leader who puts the national interest ahead of his self-interest and governs in the best long-term interest of the nation”.
The historical message seems to be that oppositions – whether Coalition or Labor – oppose government foreign policy on occasions. This Wong should well remember.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.
This is probably the silliest and stupidest column Polonius has scribbled in some considerable time. No wonder the reptiles tried to hide it away ...
There's a wilful obfuscation and blurring of what used to be a potent means of communication, an official letter on official letterhead, with the usual round of domestic politics, where foreign affairs are just one topic for grievances and insults hurled across the chamber, the standard sort of barney that's been going on for decades...
What a dissembler he is, but as he's aged, how pitiful, decrepit and enfeebled he's become...
Meanwhile, the pond would surely have been left behind, but what a world it would have been without King Donald and his Xian minions (and maybe Polonius would have gone too) ...
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