On May 21, Australians went to the polls and delivered Labor Party Leader Anthony Albanese a victory. He will now lead Australia’s first left-wing government in almost a decade. In his acceptance speech, Albanese promised unity. “I want to seek our common purpose and promote unity and optimism, not fear and division,” he declared.
Albanese’s government could be Australia’s most left wing in recent memory, although Australian politicos say he has moderated over the course of his career. Whether Albanese governs from the center or the fringe is not yet clear. Labor’s national vote declined and remains below that of the governing Liberals, but the support of both Greens and independents make up the shortfall. It remains unknown whether Labor will have a majority of seats without making policy concessions to Greens and independents. Also unclear is whether Albanese will confuse the electorate’s desire for a change in style with a mandate for transformation as Joe Biden has in the United States.
When it comes to Australia’s foreign policy, there is both good and bad news. The good is Australia remains committed to its alliance with the United States, though the strength of Albanese’s commitment to develop the trilateral AUKUS (Australia-United Kingdom-United States) alliance remains unclear: Many influential party officials—former Prime Ministers Paul Keating and Kevin Rudd, and Foreign Minister Bob Carr most notably—are notoriously soft on China. It is a good sign that Albanese and Peggy Wong, who is among Labor’s more leftist faction and takes over today as foreign minister, will both go to Japan for the meeting of the Quad. It is a wise decision as Beijing seeks to divide and distract American allies as Russian President Vladimir Putin once did with Europe.
The Middle East is a mixed bag. Albanese also has a history of criticism of Israel and has never demonstrated much empathy for the country or what it takes for a tiny democracy to thrive in a hostile region of dictatorships against all odds and then, in recent years, win over former enemies one by one. That said, Wong has traditionally understood Israel’s security needs and appears inclined to continue the bipartisan understanding in Australia of the reality of the threat posed by both Palestinian and Hezbollah terrorism; while a senator, she never embraced the simplistic and inaccurate narratives toward the Jewish state now dominant among American progressives. Nor do either Albanese or Wong engage in the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign that has done more to delegitimize progressivism and institutions ranging from Amnesty International to the Harvard Crimson than any external enemy could.
The real problem will be Iran. Scott Morrison’s outgoing government was not great on Iran issues, but grew better with time as it understood the falsity of the reformist-hardliner narrative in the Islamic Republic, grew impatient with Tehran’s hostage diplomacy, and understood the contradictions inherent in Iran’s stated defense of its nuclear program. Albanese, however, continues to buy into the myth that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action effectively constrained Iran’s nuclear ambitions. To calibrate diplomacy to wishful thinking rather than reality or to embrace a fiction for the sake of appealing to an international elite with no existential stake in the game is international security malpractice.
Whether Albanese’s Labor government governs with a majority or a coalition, it will have little political margin for error. The Biden administration will be tempted to co-opt Canberra to support its worst diplomatic instincts but, should Albanese comply, Labor may soon find itself in the same predicament as Democrats now do. To confuse the loudest on social media with mainstream society and its innate appreciation for democracy, liberty, and a willingness to stand up to terrorists and their sponsors would be to condemn Albanese’s government to be one of Australia’s shortest.
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