This blog is now closed
Albanese government criticised for ‘weak’ response to US attacks on Iran as experts decry ‘flagrant breach’ of law
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
The US bombing of Iran represents a “fundamental threat to world peace” and Australia must distance itself from the attack, leader of the Greens Larissa Waters said.
In a statement published today, Waters said Australia could not allow itself to be dragged into “another brutal US war in the Middle East” and said the US strikes were a “blatant breach of international law”.
Waters said the escalation was a “terrifying and catastrophic escalation by the USA, and Australia must condemn it”:
From Iraq to Afghanistan, we have seen Australia follow the US into devastating and brutal wars that have done untold damage to the people of the Middle East. We know that you cannot bomb your way to peace.
Australia must always work for peace and de-escalation. Australia is not powerless, and we cannot be involved in another brutal war in the Middle East.
Australia must take this opportunity to get out of Aukus, have an independent foreign policy that centres peace, and must not allow the use of Australian US military bases like Pine Gap in this conflict.
Only when countries like Australia push back and hold to principles and international law and back them up with material actions, will there be a chance for peace.
Senator David Shoebridge, the Greens spokesperson on defence and foreign affairs, said the world was “at a crossroads” and “the Albanese government must choose to be a force for peace not for war”:
With US president Trump’s bombing of Iran showing clearly that he is no friend of peace, and the Albanese government must distance Australia from these actions.
With that we’re wrapping up the blog. The US strike on Iran, the likely consequences for the Middle East and the global order have, of course, dominated the discussion today. Here’s a quick recap.
President Donald Trump announced about 10am AEST that the US had bombed nuclear sites in Iran, including the Fordow nuclear site. The strike was carried out by US stealth B2 bombers, in coordination with the Israeli leadership.
The Australian government has called for “de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy” in the Middle East and warned Australians the security situation in the region remains volatile.
The Coalition says it “stands with the United States of America today” in a statement supporting the attacks.
The Greens say the bombing of Iran is a “flagrant breach” of international law and called upon the government not to be dragged into another brutal conflict in the region.
Crowds have gathered in Sydney and Melbourne for pro-Palestinian protests.
We’ll pick things up again tomorrow.
NSW building regulator to get $145.1m injection
Returning again to domestic Australian politics, New South Wales’ building regulator will receive a $145.1m cash injection over the next four years in the 2025-2026 state budget to better fund compliance initiatives.
The funding will go to allowing for the digitisation of penalty infringement notices, to better allow the regulator to perform more targeted inspections, and more prosecutions.
It will also be used to fund taskforces in coordination with the with Fair Trading, Asic, ASQA (Australian Skills Quality Authority) and the NSW State Coroner, to ensure all necessary prosecutions across different jurisdictions can be carried out.
The minister for building, Anoulack Chanthivong said the funding bump showed that the Minns government was working to ensure build quality.
Ensuring homes, whether they be apartments or free-standing houses, are built to the highest standards is critical to helping address the housing crisis we inherited in NSW.
To do this, the NSW government established Building Commission NSW as a dedicated regulator with the aim of restoring confidence in the construction sector and ensuring building quality is improved across the state.
Commissioner, James Sherrard said the regulatory had already carried out “thousands” of inspections across the state and the funding boost “will provide the Commission the funding security it needs to keep inspections going and ensure building quality is maintained across the state.”
It will also allow us to continue to progress key building legislative reforms, and deliver education to the industry, so the sector is supported and can continue to improve into the future.
Federal Labor ministers at odds over contentious NT gas pipeline decision, internal document shows
Senior Albanese government ministers disagreed over whether a controversial Northern Territory gas pipeline should be allowed to go ahead without being fully assessed under national environment laws, an internal document shows.
An environment department brief from February shows representatives for the agriculture minister, Julie Collins, and the Indigenous affairs minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, were concerned about the impact of the Sturt Plateau pipeline’s construction on threatened species and First Nations communities.
A delegate for Collins argued the development should be declared a “controlled action”, a step that indicates it was likely to have a significant impact on a nationally important environmental issue and required a thorough assessment under federal law.
The brief, released under freedom of information laws, shows this was not accepted by the department, acting on behalf of the then environment minister, Tanya Plibersek. It concluded the pipeline did not need a national environmental impact statement before going ahead.
For more on this story, read the full report by Guardian Australia’s Adam Morton and Lisa Cox.
Heckler interrupts Hastie
A press conference held by Andrew Hastie has been interrupted by a protester who has heckled the shadow defence minister, accusing the US of engaging in an illegal war and asking whether there was any evidence to justify US attacks.
The press conference is Hastie’s third statement on the conflict today, including an earlier appearance on ABC Insiders and a joint-statement issued with Coalition leader Sussan Ley.
Hastie sought to cast the US attack on Iran as a “necessary action”:
President Trump gave the offer of negotiations, and over the last two days, the Iranians have not taken up that offer. So the Coalition stands in solidarity with the Iranian people. We regret the loss of life in Iran and Israel, and we hope for a peaceful settlement going forward.
Hastie was interrupted by the heckler who challenged the shadow defence minister over the Coalition’s position.
He added that there was “always a risk” that the conflict may escalate further:
War is the one area of public policy that you can’t control. Wars can really get out of control. And I think there’s also a risk that if the Iranian regime falls, we’ll see a mass movement of people out of Iran into places like Europe. So there’ll be refugees. And then there is the question of who fills the vacuum. If the regime collapses. And we’ve seen what happened to Iraq with Isis, we saw what happened in Afghanistan as well. So these are very difficult and tricky times ahead. But the Coalition wants peace. We want a peaceful settlement.
And I think we can hopefully move forward now that the three key facilities have been targeted. But then again, we have to wait for the battle damage assessment that will come out over the coming days.
No senior members of the Albanese government have fronted cameras to speak about the US attacks on Iran but the government issued a statement a few hours ago attributable to an unnamed spokesperson.
Fears for Iranian civilians
In the wake of the United States bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, Australian Iranians’ fears for friends and family in their ancestral homeland are growing, not only over aggression from the US but from the nation’s weakened government.
Kambiz Razmara, the vice-president of the Australian-Iranian Society of Victoria, said Donald Trump’s intervention had added to the fear and trauma experienced by Iranian people while intensifying pressure on the Iranian government:
We are devastated by what we see and the suffering of people … if in light of the devastations, no change is brought about in Iran, then all the suffering would only serve the purposes of those who brought on the war, as we are certain that oppression would further escalate in Iran.
To me as I process the information, [Trump] has asserted his control and, at the very least, the crumbs of his deal making should be the freedom of our people.
Now that they’ve done it, [the US] cannot back off the regime, because it would be terrible for our people.
Razmara’s community in Melbourne have much greater fear at how a vulnerable Iranian government might treat its people than a US invasion, he said.
Trump’s call for peace after announcing the bombing raised the prospect of a peace deal, which Razmara feared could leave the Iranian government empowered to treat its citizens more aggressively:
I just feel so desperate that the reality of what we are facing … for our Iranian communities in Iran, is just further devastation, further oppression, because [the government is] going to double down, so it’s just no win situation for the Iranians.
‘Israel is doing the world’s work,’ Tony Abbott says
Tony Abbott has become the latest former Australian prime minister to react to US strikes against Iran:
Israel is doing the world’s work in trying to destroy forever the Iranian nuclear weapons programme and it’s good that America has supported its ally.
Zionist Federation hails US strikes
The Zionist Federation of Australia has welcomed US strikes on Iran as a “necessary and courageous response to an urgent threat”, claiming that Iran has “pursued nuclear weapons while sponsoring terrorism that has killed thousands of Israelis, Americans and others across the world”:
Iran’s actions are not just a danger to Israel, they are a clear and present threat to the West and to the international rules-based order. We commend President Trump and the United States for their moral clarity and leadership in taking decisive action to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
The Zionist Federation of Australia stands in full solidarity with Israel and the United States, and thanks all those working to confront the Iranian regime’s aggression and protect global security. We hope these actions help pave the way for a more stable and peaceful Middle East.
‘What will happen to Iranian people?’
Australian advocate Rana Dadpour has made contact with friends and family in Iran after losing connection from them for two days. They were anxiously awaiting their government’s next move, she said, and fearing the repercussions, whether the Islamic Republic retaliates against the US or pursues peace.
Nuclear leaks and radiation from the destroyed sites were the most pressing concern for those living nearby, with distrust for official advice driving some to seek help online, Dadpour, co-founder of advocacy organisation AusIran, said.
But others further from the three facilities feared the government would accelerate executions of political prisoners, while arrests were surging once more amid the war as police accused people of spying for Israel:
Right now, they are even more scared of the regime, because now they feel like it has been crushed on so many fronts, and the only side that it can turn to and take revenge [is] Iranian people, because they are not armed. They don’t have any means to protect themselves.
Dadpour, a former Iranian citizen, left the country after feeling her life was at risk after her involvement in peaceful protests. She said people living in Iran felt little optimism whether the government fought back or sued for peace:
If the regime decides to retaliate, and bring on another crisis … then what will happen to Iranian people? Will there be more bombs falling on them?
[Or] if the regime in Iran decides for any reason to sit [at] the table and negotiate, then … people are again being left alone with a regime that is now hurt and weakened, and [its] primary target will be Iranian people again.
‘A flagrant breach of anything that resembles legality’
Allan Behm, a special adviser at the Australia Institute thinktank, said the US decision to bomb Iranian nuclear sites was a “flagrant breach” of the international rules-based order.
Behm, a former adviser to the now foreign minister, Penny Wong, told Guardian Australia:
America has held the leadership of the free world since the end of the second world war, and one of the legacies of American leadership has been what we love to call the international rules based order. This is, I think, a flagrant breach of anything that resembles legality in the conduct of international relations.
The Americans had no reason to go and bomb Iran. They did it because they could, in the same way that Israel, which might have had a little bit more of a reason, but I don’t think it had sufficient reason to use armed force.
‘That would be a tragic lack of sovereignty’
David Shoebridge also attacked the Albanese government over its “moral failure”, both in its statements and practical actions, to distance itself from the US actions, including leaving Aukus, removing US bases from Australian soil and ending the two-way arms trade with Israel:
Of course we hold concerns that just like with other attacks in the region, that Pine Gap may have helped deliver this illegal attack on Iran.
The Albanese government may not have been told by the US government what use they’re making of those so-called joint facilities in Australia. That would be a tragic lack of sovereignty by Australia.
But the Albanese government should make a clear statement that no military base in Australia, whether joint, a joint military base with the United States or otherwise, will be used for this unfolding US war, the third US war in the Middle East in this century.