Bishop, Danby trade blows over Iran
SENIOR Labor Party figures are backing Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danby’s call for a parliamentary debate about Australia’s relations with Iran, with a motion to be moved once parliament resumes, his office told The AJN this week.
SENIOR Labor Party figures are backing Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danby’s call for a parliamentary debate about Australia’s relations with Iran, with a motion to be moved once parliament resumes, his office told The AJN this week.
Danby has also stepped up his campaign against Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who he accuses of “cosying up” to the Islamic Republic, erecting a billboard at St Kilda Junction in Melbourne stating “Say no to Bishop’s Iran deal”.
Danby told The AJN this week: “She has actually gone further than my ad suggested, suggesting that Australia would support Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who has killed 200,000 of his own people, remaining in place in some kind of Iranian-Russian settlement in Syria.
“Such an arrangement would bring the Iranians to the borders of Israel in the Golan.”
Danby said he has “repeatedly challenged” Bishop to hold a parliamentary debate to discuss “the merits of her sudden policy shift” on Iran.
“By visiting Iran in May, by meeting the Iranian foreign minister in New York in September, by announcing an intelligence sharing deal with Iran, by encouraging Western military cooperation with Iran, by announcing negotiations to increase the number of visas Iranians will get for Australia and by floating the possibility of Iranian consulates in Sydney and Melbourne, Ms Bishop has to all intents and purposes signalled a new Australian policy vis-a-via Iran,” he said.
Bishop flatly rejected Danby’s accusations on Sky News earlier this week.
“The only deal I am seeking to negotiate with Iran is over the Iranian asylum seekers who came to Australia – 8000 of them are in detention – under a Labor Government, of which Michael Danby was a member,” she said.
“Danby has gone out on his own self-interested political campaign to recapture the Jewish vote after Labor has failed to stem support for the anti-Semitic BDS campaign, and that prominent Labor figures like Bob Carr have taken up the Palestinian cause to the exclusion of Israel.”
She also addressed Danby’s charge that Australia “would support” Assad.
“This regime has used chemical weapons and barrel bombs on its own citizens – atrocious acts – but the Geneva process that began in 2011 to find a political solution has not been able to achieve that. The Assad regime has continued to exist,” she said.
“So the reality is that we must find a compromise, and this is the position I put forward over the weekend – that Australia maintains you can’t take any option off the table, but of course … it would be a managed compromise.”
The AJN asked Bishop’s office for specific responses to Danby’s other accusations, however with the foreign minister currently in New York, a response was not received by deadline.
Last week, Bishop did address Danby’s statement that “[Prime Minister] Malcolm Turnbull can be a friend of Israel or a friend of the dangerous Iranian regime, he cannot be both”, by pointing out the Coalition’s “steadfast” friendship with Israel.
“We have reversed a number of UN voting positions of the former Labor government, of which Michael Danby was a member,” she said.
“The government also rejects the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign supported by many within Labor and the union movement.”
GARETH NARUNSKY
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