Prime Minister Anthony Albanese compared the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump to ongoing pro-Palestinian protests outside Australian parliamentary offices, including his own, saying “these things can escalate.”
Is this a risky strategy? If not, is it necessary to back up rhetoric with action to reduce the risk of protests in Australia escalating?
The Prime Minister spoke yesterday in Parliament in Canberra, in response to the news that a gunman from a rooftop had tried to assassinate Donald Trump. A bullet grazed the former president’s ear.
One rally attendee was killed and two others are in critical condition. The attacker was shot dead by the Secret Service and the former president was quickly removed from the event site while being protected from the threat of further attacks.
“I have expressed my concern that people simply dismissing actions outside election offices may cause these things to escalate,” the prime minister told reporters yesterday.
“That is why (the protests) must be denounced unequivocally and combated. The type of incidents we have seen outside some electoral offices are inappropriate.”
Victorian Labor MPs Josh Burns and Peter Khalil have been subjected to aggressive actions by protesters, including having fake corpses dumped outside their offices.
However, these protests continue, disrupting the activities of the constituent offices.
On Sunday at 10:00 a.m. (US Eastern Standard Time), a bullet grazed former US President Donald Trump’s ear. The shooter was shot dead by the Secret Service.
While there is a world of difference between someone firing eight shots from a long-range weapon at a political rally from a nearby rooftop (in a country with easy access to guns and a history of assassinating presidents and prominent politicians) and protesters camping outside Australian electorate offices, Albo wanted to point out that these kinds of situations can and do escalate.
That is why, he said, “they must be denounced and opposed unequivocally.” But what exactly does that mean?
In the case of the eight-month-old protests outside his own taxpayer-funded electoral office (which has been closed since January and remains closed), Albo continues to refuse to let the protesters move forward, despite them camping out on the premises with their posters plastered on them.
Last week, his spokeswoman and former Guardian Australia political editor Katharine Murphy described the protests outside the prime minister’s constituency office as peaceful and appropriate in a democracy: “Citizens in a democracy have the right to peacefully protest,” the prime minister’s spokeswoman told the Daily Mail Australia.
The prime minister echoed those sentiments in his comments yesterday: “People can express their opinions democratically, whether for or against certain issues… peaceful demonstrations are fine.”
It is therefore clear and unequivocal that Albo will not demand that the protesters outside his own office be dispersed, even though AFP says they pose a security threat that prevents the office from reopening.
So what do you mean when you say that these protests need to be denounced and opposed “unequivocally”?
How can a prime minister warn of the risk of escalation and do nothing concrete to prevent it? He is merely using words instead of actions.
Is that a risky strategy, Mr Prime Minister? If not, is it necessary to back up rhetoric with action to reduce the risk of protests in Australia escalating?
Perhaps all Albo is really trying to achieve is a delicate political balancing act: he will continue to rhetorically condemn pro-Palestinian protests when addressing national media.
This also allows him to target the Greens who support them, while quietly defending his right to protest, so as not to upset pro-Palestinian voters in his own electoral backyard.
And Albo will hope that these protests do not escalate, despite pointing out the risk that they might. If they do, he will refer each and every one of them to their rhetoric, not their actions.
Walking on either side of the street can be tricky, but it gets a little harder to navigate when you compare what Australian protests have described as peaceful to an assassination attempt on a former US president.
Still, Albo is trying his hardest.
If he wants to draw parallels between those events and be taken more seriously in doing so, he should disperse the Australian protests, which he says risk escalating.
However, if he prefers to leave them sitting on the proverbial grassy knoll in front of electoral offices like his own, perhaps Albo should not compare the threat they pose to what happened in the United States over the weekend.
So that their false equivalence is not clearly indicated.
