Prime Minister Anthony Albanese compared the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump to the ongoing pro-Palestinian protests outside the offices of Australian MPs, including his own, saying “these kinds of things can escalate.”
Is that a long bow to draw? And if not, should the rhetoric be backed up by action to reduce the risk of the Australian protests escalating?
The prime minister was speaking at Parliament House in Canberra yesterday, in response to news that a gunman had attempted to assassinate Donald Trump on a rooftop, with a bullet grazing the former president’s ear.
One rallygoer was killed and two others are in critical condition. The shooter was shot dead by the Secret Service and the former president was removed from the site while being protected from the threat of further attacks.
“I have expressed my concern that people who dismiss actions outside polling stations as unimportant could escalate these kinds of issues,” the prime minister told reporters yesterday.
‘Therefore [the protests] must be unequivocally named and opposed. The kind of incidents we have seen outside some polling stations are inappropriate.’
Victorian Labor MPs Josh Burns and Peter Khalil have been targeted by aggressive protesters, including the dumping of fake bodies outside their offices.
However, these protests continue and disrupt constituency activities.
A bullet grazed former US President Donald Trump’s ear on Sunday AEST. The gunman was shot dead by the Secret Service
While there is a world of difference between someone firing eight long-range shots from a nearby rooftop at a political rally – in a country with easy access to guns, where presidents and leading politicians have been assassinated in the past – and protesters camping out outside Australian polling stations, Albo was keen to emphasise that such situations can and do escalate.
Therefore, “they must be addressed and unequivocally combated,” he said. But what exactly does that mean?
In the case of eight-month-old protests outside his own taxpayer-funded polling station — which he has closed since January and continues to do so — Albo is still refusing to relocate the protesters, even as they camp out on the grounds with their signs up.
Just last week, his spokeswoman and former Guardian Australia political editor Katharine Murphy described the protests outside the prime minister’s office as peaceful and appropriate in a democracy: “Citizens in a democracy have a right to peaceful protest,” the prime minister’s spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia.
The prime minister expressed those sentiments in his remarks yesterday: “People can express their views democratically, whether they are for or against issues… peaceful demonstrations are fine.”
So it remains clear and unequivocal that Albo will not demand that the protesters be removed from his own office – even though the AFP says they pose a security risk and that the office cannot therefore be reopened.
What does he mean then when he says that these protests must be addressed and fought ‘unequivocally’?
How can a prime minister warn of the risk of escalation but do nothing tangible to prevent it? Using only words instead of actions.
Is that a long bow, Mr Prime Minister? And if not, should the rhetoric be backed up by action to reduce the risk of the Australian protests escalating?
Perhaps Albo is simply trying to achieve a delicate political balancing act: he continues to rhetorically condemn pro-Palestinian protests in his speeches in the national media.
This gives him the opportunity to also target the Greens who support them, while quietly defending their right to protest, so as not to offend the pro-Palestinian voters in his own electoral backyard.
And Albo hopes that these protests simply do not escalate, despite the fact that he points out the risk that they could. If they do, he will refer everyone to his rhetoric, not his actions.
Walking on both sides of the street can be difficult, but it gets even harder when you compare the Australian protests you described as peaceful to an assassination attempt on a former US president.
Still, Albo goes for it.
If he wants to draw a parallel between these events and be taken more seriously, he must clamp down on the Australian protests that he says are threatening to escalate.
But if he’d rather leave them on the proverbial grassy knoll in front of polling stations like his, perhaps Albo shouldn’t equate the threat they pose to what happened in the US last weekend.
So that his false equivalence is not unequivocally exposed.