This is getting beyond stupid

(First published in The New Daily August 14)

(Photo by Mike Bowers)

After months of reflection, recriminations and resolute commitments to change, we finally have the first concrete policy position for a government Sussan Ley would lead.

The Opposition Leader can’t tell you yet what the Liberals would do on housing or cost of living, or energy or climate, or how they would tackle the disruption tsunami from AI, or how they would position Australia in the shifting geopolitical space – that’s all “under review”.

But she can tell you that whenever the Coalition next wins government – at best a prospect for 2031, assuming the Coalition as we know it still exists then – it will “un-recognise Palestine”.

So the first policy priority for a future Coalition government would be going through the process of un-recognising a nation’s statehood in at least six years’ time, and this is something everyone is supposed to treat very seriously.

Yet it made headlines across Australia. Why? What does it possibly matter what the Coalition claims it would do in the 2030s? What is the rationality for thinking this is remotely serious, or even remotely possible?

Sure, it signals the Coalition has not shifted one iota on recognising a genocide, but we knew that. And a serious opposition would not pretend it has any role here other than to say what it supports or doesn’t support.

Pretending that there is any reality in which a government in the 2030s sticks to a commitment made in 2025 based entirely on emotion and political expediency is the epitome of delusion.

Running it as if this is a serious prospect, which could impact a decision the Albanese government has made in ANY way is just as delusional. And yet here we are.

Michaelia Cash, who has given up any pretence of being serious in favour of bedding down power on a sinking ship, followed up with claims that Anthony Albanese had “enboldened” Hamas with a “propaganda” victory, claiming it’s another reason the Coalition would revoke the decision.

Yet there is never any reflection on whether not recognising Palestine is a reward for Israel’s non-stop military bombardment which has slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians – that we know of – trampled international law with no sign of slowing.

The knee-jerk reaction is yet another example of the lack of political maturity that exists not just in the Coalition, but with its leadership.

When Labor decided to change the stage-three tax cuts to ensure a fairer distribution across income levels, Ley – then deputy opposition leader – was straight out of the box saying a future Coalition government would reverse the decision.

That it would repeal the legislation that gave most taxpayers a better tax cut (do not forget that people on welfare pay tax but are often left out of the tax discussion), and follow through with the Morrison government plan to give most of the money to the top 10 per cent of earners.

It was such bad politics that the Dutton opposition spent the rest of the term of Parliament pretending Ley had never said it.

Yet, once again, here we are with a knee-jerk reaction that makes no sense in reality, or on the politics, being treated as a serious policy position.

The louder signal is that the Coalition will continue its march off the political cliff.

If Ley’s instinctual reaction to an inevitable geopolitical shift is to try to appease the rabid right of her party (an analysis given weight by Cash’s breathless intervention not 24 hours later), then we don’t need a review to tell us where the Liberal Party is going on climate or any other big issue facing Australia.

Even after losing not one but two elections on these policies and being reduced to a historic low point in representation (below the point that saw the end of the previous centre-right parties that preceded it), the Coalition is still happy to be led by the nose by its far-right flank.

Less than a week ago, Western Australian MP Andrew Hastie, who has spent the past year building his own hard conservative fiefdom, deliberately set off the leadership flurries.

It was calculated as a reminder that whatever this is from the Coalition, it’s temporary. At least he’s being intellectually honest, which is more than what is on offer from Ley.

It’s not that the recognition put forward by the Albanese government is perfect policy, or even that it will mean an end to the death, starvation, torture and displacement of Palestinians at the hands of Israel.

Just as it should not have taken seeing the images of children and people being deliberately starved by Israel for the world to begin to take note (Human Rights Watch assessed starvation being used as a weapon of war as early as December 2023 and the ICC chief prosecutor endorsed HRW’s position just a few months later), it should not have taken Israel’s allies two years to start applying pressure. This is particularly true given that the highest court in the world found in January 2024 that the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide was “plausible” and they were at “real and immediate risk” of irreparable harm.

But Ley’s need to appease the far-right harpies dragging the Coalition into the political abyss one backwards step at a time proves beyond a doubt there is nowhere for this Coalition to go, but the history books.