Comment

Paul Bongiorno
Albanese’s New York risks pay off

Frank Sinatra once sang that if you can make it in New York, you can “make it anywhere”. It could well be the anthem for Anthony Albanese’s assertive trip this week, putting his stamp on Australia’s sovereignty at the apex world forum of the United Nations General Assembly.

The prime minister managed to declare the country’s independence from its major strategic partner the United States on the burning issues dominating international affairs, while at the same time confounding his naysayers back home by advancing his personal rapport with President Donald Trump.

It was bold and at odds with Albanese’s reputation as a cautious leader. The risks appear to have paid off.

Albanese carefully but successfully navigated his way to defy Trump on Palestinian recognition, climate change action and social media bans, while still scoring a White House meeting next month and a warm greeting from Trump at a cocktail party hosted by the president.

The “Trump snubs Albanese” headlines were false and redundant in less than 24 hours, something the prime minister knew was the case as he kept schtum, waiting for the administration to announce an Oval Office meeting that Trump himself had assured Albanese would happen in a phone call a fortnight ago.

In the game of adversarial politics, you can’t blame the Liberals for seeking to make hay from the fact it had been more than 200 days since Trump assumed office with no personal leaders’ meeting. After all, Albanese had played the same politics himself in opposition. In this instance, however, it was a political miscalculation – if for no other reason than Trump has toxic appeal in Australia, as any number of opinion polls have noted.

In the SEC Newgate poll two months ago, for example, 70 per cent of respondents expressed negative sentiments about the American president. This went to perceptions that Trump was having an adverse impact on global peace and security, the cost of living and Australia’s relationship with the US.

According to one minister, the Coalition’s desire to be seen as being in lockstep with Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demonstrates they have learnt nothing from the last election. There is a firm view in Labor that Peter Dutton’s unquestioning support of the Israeli military response in Gaza, even as the death toll rose and more of the Gaza Strip was reduced to rubble, won him no votes.

Albanese made clear at his news conference after the formal announcement of Australia’s recognition of Palestine that it was in “our national interest” based on “our values”.

“I am saying that Australia makes our position clear as a sovereign nation. Our foreign policy isn’t determined in Washington or Beijing or Wellington, for that matter; our foreign policy is determined around the cabinet table in Canberra.”

The reference to Wellington was a hint that Albanese was disappointed his “good friend”, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, did not join Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada in the announcement. Had it done so, four of Washington’s trusted security partners in the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing arrangement would have left Washington isolated.

The prime minister pushed on, saying Australia was “in sync” with its international partners. Palestinian recognition was also granted by France and several other European nations who were not only allies of America but also supporters of the state of Israel.

Trump expressed his disagreement in an extraordinary, almost hour-long rant to the UN General Assembly. He said recognition would encourage continued conflict in Gaza: “Some of this body are seeking to unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state. The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists, for their atrocities.”

Albanese counters that the Hamas terrorists would be disarmed and excluded from the process leading to a Palestinian state, and in this the 22 Arab League nations have agreed to play their part.

One commentator noted the president seemed more upset with the escalator at the UN building stalling than he was with his allies disagreeing with him over Palestine.

Trump’s ambassador to Israel, the influential Republican Mike Huckabee, told Radio National Breakfast that Australia’s stand was not a “low point” in relations with Washington but “a point of stress”. He said the US feels “the government of Australia has made a very serious mistake”.

Huckabee said he was “comforted” that Sussan Ley replied to the 25 congressional Republicans who, in an open letter to Albanese, Canada’s Mark Carney, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Keir Starmer, condemned their stand as “reckless” and said they “may invite punitive measures in response”.

Just what those punitive measures might be is not clear. The statement smacks more of bluster than anything else. The US already imposes punitive tariffs on everybody and in security terms relies on Australia for Pine Gap global military communications as well as having a strategic military and intelligence presence in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Ley informed the Republicans, who are identified as being strongly in the “Make America Great Again” camp, there was not bipartisan support for the Albanese government’s policy. She said if the Liberals were returned to power, they would reverse it.

She claimed the government’s view did not reflect that of most Australians, citing a Resolve poll in The Age that just 24 per cent of Australians support unilateral recognition.

It did not suit Ley’s purpose to cite a YouGov poll that found 54 per cent supported the recognition of Palestine as a separate state, or a DemosAU poll that found 45 per cent support against 23 per cent who oppose recognition before a negotiated settlement.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong was furious with Ley, accusing her of running a “rogue foreign policy” that is not in the national interests. She said Australia is strongest “when our country speaks with one voice”.

The opposition’s stance weakens the pressure Albanese was hoping Australia could exert on Israel and the US to end the war.

It is not unprecedented for an opposition to have different views from a government on foreign policy. This disagreement gives comfort to the Netanyahu government, however, which is facing increasing condemnation the longer its campaign in Gaza continues. Its gratitude was expressed in a phone call to Ley from the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar.

Netanyahu himself responded emphatically, asserting a two-state solution “will never happen”. This blows away the almost 80-year-old project enshrined in UN resolutions that a separate Palestinian state alongside the newly created Jewish state of Israel was a goal to be achieved.

It is 32 years since then prime minister Paul Keating and his travelling party of staff and journalists were invited to witness the signing of the Oslo peace accords by Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the south lawns of the White House.

An Israeli extremist later assassinated Rabin for his efforts, especially the ceding of settler “land for peace”. Since that time, the settlements, contrary to international laws, have grown exponentially.

A policy paper from The Australia Institute, “Beyond the Two-State Solution”, says the Rabin compromise is no longer possible as “neither Israelis nor the Jewish diaspora would countenance civil war to remove the ideologically committed settlers from the total of over 730,000 Jews now in illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem”.

No future Israeli prime minister is likely to follow Rabin’s example and send in the army to remove the settlers, which raises the question: is Australia’s recognition of Palestine an empty gesture, as many of its critics claim? Something proposed by Albanese to placate the Left faction of the Labor Party?

This gesture is no factional play. Labor MPs from the dominant Left and the Right report their offices have been swamped with demands for Australia to do more to contribute to ending the war by way of sanctions and condemnation. One says their constituents have been increasingly appalled at what they are seeing on their TV screens.

There is no doubt the pressure will now be on Albanese, Starmer, Macron and the other world leaders to do more.

In his United Nations speech the prime minister said Australia wants the killing to stop because every innocent life matters, Israeli and Palestinian. In that regard, The Australia Institute paper says between 1994 and 2005 Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups carried out more than 150 suicide attacks, killing about 1000 Israelis. That was brutally exceeded by the 1200 massacred on October 7, 2023.

As the conflict since has continued, however, the global sympathy for Israel has dissipated. Albanese said, “Right now, Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe. And for this, the Israeli government must accept its share of responsibility.”

The prime minister concedes the two-state solution risks being “beyond reach”. Whatever the fading prospects, Australia is looking to back “a credible, co-operative peace plan that supports recovery in Gaza and security for Israel”.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 26, 2025 as "Making it in old New York".

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