October 2, 2025 • 26 mins
The prime minister has just returned from 10 days of high-wire diplomacy, initially at the United Nations in New York before swinging through London and stopping by Abu Dhabi on his way home.
He’s claimed some credit for helping push along a potential peace plan for Gaza, spruiked Australia’s social media ban on the global stage, and drummed up interest in Australia’s green transition and critical minerals reserve.
Foreign affairs correspondent Matthew Knott was on the PM’s plane and, with Jacqueline Maley away this week, he joins chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal.
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S1 (00:01):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Paul Satchell, it's Friday, the
3rd of October. The Prime Minister has just returned from
ten days of high wire diplomacy. Initially the United Nations
in New York, before swinging through London and stopping by
Abu Dhabi on his way home. He's claimed some credit
for helping push along a potential peace plan for Gaza.
(00:23):
Spruiked Australia's social media ban on the global stage and
drummed up interest in Australia's green transition and critical minerals reserve.
Foreign affairs correspondent Matthew Knott was on the PM's plane
and he joins us today. Knotty, how are you?
S2 (00:37):
It's nice to be here.
S1 (00:44):
You've been away for a couple of weeks in New York, London,
the UAE. Sometimes these trips can look a bit different
up close to how they appear to us back home.
What were your observations of the Prime Minister? And what
did you observe about the state of the world we're in?
S2 (00:59):
Yeah, I'm not sure how it seemed from an Australian
point of view, but the striking thing, having been on
some of these trips with the Prime Minister and particularly
in the first term, was a real difference in the
level of ambition that he had on this trip and
a difference in his persona in, in the way he
(01:19):
was acting. You know, the way he was feeling was
clearly a much more confident, much more self-assured in what
he was doing. He wasn't just there to ride the
wave of the summits. Uh, even on something like the
Middle East, which the government repeatedly says, we're not a
major player in that part of the world. And they
still do say that he was right in their meeting
(01:42):
across those three stops that you mentioned, actually meeting several
of the key players. So the trip started with a
meeting with the King of Jordan. Then in London, he
met with Tony Blair, who was just emerging, could play
a key role in this Gaza transitional authorities, and then
on the way back and met the president of the UAE.
(02:03):
And the UAE is another key country looking ahead to
a post-war Gaza. So he was right in the middle
of it. There at this two state solution conference are
hosting an event on Australia's social media ban, with other
leaders from around the world coming to watch and saying
they wanted to learn from Australia. And even while there
(02:26):
was a lot of speculation at the start of the
trip about Will, he won't he meet Donald Trump? The
Prime Minister was very confident, looking, very relaxed, and that
all made sense when it emerged that he had locked
in a white House meeting with the president.
S1 (02:41):
We'll get to the Gaza peace plan and what role
the Prime Minister did or did not play in it.
But just quickly, I want to talk about his stop
through London. The prime minister was pretty widely criticized back
home for giving a speech at the Labour Party conference
on right wing populism and backsliding on democracy in Australia.
At the same time, Andrew Hastie, the outspoken Liberal frontbencher,
(03:01):
made a real ripple with his interventions on what Conservative
Australia needs to do to win. And he sparked a
conversation about the populist right in Australia. It's nowhere near
as potent as it is in the UK with the
rise of Reform and Nigel Farage. I'm interested in what
the Prime Minister said at the Labour Party conference and
a meeting with progressive leaders the day before, on what
(03:21):
the difference is in the political climate in the UK
and Australia. Why is Labour ascendant here and really struggling
in the polls in the UK, according to our Prime Minister?
S2 (03:32):
Well, it was very striking. They're arriving in the UK.
The difference from Australia and the difference that the Starmer
government there is experiencing compared to where Albanese is, even
at the Labour conference, there were anti-immigration protesters there outside.
This issue is dominating all of British politics. While we
(03:55):
were there, Keir Starmer was announcing plans for a digital
ID card that all Britons would have to use to
show that they're there legally. Nigel Farage is dominating the
political landscape there and that's what Anthony Albanese flew into.
And this pretty controversial appearance in Liverpool, it really stood
(04:17):
out as being different to everything else that was happening
on the trip. Having a bilateral meetings, um, the UN
General Assembly, that was all very diplomatic. And yeah, attending
this progressive conference, uh, that was clearly parties from the
centre left. But there he was meeting with the Prime
(04:38):
Minister of Canada, the prime minister of Spain. He was
talking to them about free trade.
S1 (04:43):
All progressive leaders. Right?
S2 (04:44):
Yeah. Progressive, all progressive leaders. But, um, and I don't
think there's anything wrong with, uh, Anthony Albanese talking about
the nature of centre left politics and doing some big
picture thinking. He thinks this is important.
S3 (04:56):
The labor mission has never been a theoretical exercise or
just a rhetorical one. Our work is measured in deeds,
and it depends on delivery, on change. Our citizens can
see tangible, practical outcomes that make a positive difference to
people's lives. This is where.
S2 (05:17):
At this stage of his second term, it's a bit
of that. Paul Keating, give them the big picture. What's
the narrative? And he sees the speech in Liverpool as
part of that. But there's no getting around the fact
it was a very party political event and that Keir
Starmer is a man under pressure. So I think what
(05:37):
you see the difference in that, Anthony Albanese is benefiting
from the fact that Australia now doesn't have this issue
with boat people arriving like we used to. He's benefiting
from the fact that that's not on the agenda. Immigration
obviously is a big issue here, as we've seen with
the recent protests, but it's not nearly as significant as
(06:01):
it is in the UK or Europe. That was dominating
the entire discussion at this progressive summit was, how do
center left leaders pursue progressive politics while not letting this
immigration issue get away from them? So the climate is
very different. And, uh, at this stage of his second
(06:24):
term with facing not really an effective opposition in Australia,
that's just totally different to the climate in the UK.
S1 (06:33):
It seems to me to be kind of dripping in irony.
Nigel Farage is campaigning in the UK for a boat
turn back policy that our conservatives championed under Tony Abbott
and Scott Morrison. Uh, labor very reluctantly embraced that policy.
It's quite a difficult thing for a center left party
to do. And now the Prime Minister is in the
UK spruiking that policy is the way the centre left wins.
S2 (06:55):
Yes, he certainly wasn't explicitly talking about boat turn backs,
for example. But he did allude to the fact that
Australia has this under control. So yes, I think he's
reaping the benefits of some very tough decisions that other
people took.
S1 (07:11):
Well, it might be anathema to him to use language
like that, but that is the nature of the policy.
S2 (07:15):
Mhm.
S1 (07:23):
Let's move on to Gaza where now a couple of
days on from the 20 point peace plan, Trump announced
at the white House with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister,
along his side. What does Hamas said about the deal,
and what's the reaction been like in Israel in its
early stages?
S2 (07:38):
Well, Hamas has given conflicting signals, which I think does
make sense when you think about this plan, which is
striking for the fact that there are two parties in
this conflict, Israel and Hamas. And any end to this
war is going to be an agreement between the two
of them. But Hamas has had no role in this process,
(07:59):
certainly no direct role. I'm sure there was backchannel negotiations
with countries like Qatar, and they would have been aware
what was going on. But this is a US Israeli
proposal backed by Arab nations, particularly in the region that's
being presented to Hamas as an ultimatum.
S4 (08:17):
What the future holds for the Palestinians, no one really knows.
But the plan that we put forward today is focused
on ending the war immediately getting all of our hostages back,
getting everything back. Hard to believe when you even say it.
And creating conditions for durable Israeli security and Palestinian success.
(08:40):
Israeli security is going to be involved. We're going to
help you.
S2 (08:43):
So we've heard different things from Hamas leaders. We've heard
that it's biased, that it's one sided, that it's there
are so many problems with it in terms of what
it would mean for the Palestinian people, but they've also
said that they're open to looking at it. I think
what you'd expect is for Hamas, which is under a
huge amount of pressure from neighboring countries, and Hamas is
(09:06):
very aware of the media narrative. They're very aware of
the way things get reported. So I don't think Hamas
wants headlines of Hamas rejects peace plan. Hamas wants the
war to continue. So one possibility is that Hamas says
we welcome this plan, but we have some of our
(09:26):
own ideas, and that puts it back into Netanyahu's court,
who's presented it as you have to do everything we
want right now within 72 hours, release the hostages. So
I think Hamas, even though many of their leaders have
been killed, you know, there are still some people left
who will be thinking this through strategically. That's one option
for them. But the idea of them unilaterally disarming, handing
(09:52):
over all their weapons, leaving Gaza is pretty, fantastical idea.
S1 (09:58):
And they've rejected many of those pleas in the past. Right?
This is quite an asymmetric deal. So you do wonder
what's in it for Hamas, other than succumbing to pressure
from Arab states and potentially easing the suffering of their people?
But they have noted in the past Hamas leaders that
the suffering of their people might be worth it in
some regard for the elevation of the Palestinian cause internationally.
(10:20):
So do you see this dragging on and not coming
to a resolution soon?
S2 (10:25):
Yeah. Hamas's whole raison d'etre is is armed struggle that's
in their DNA. That's what they're all about. There's a
lot of discussion about even the fact they came to
govern Gaza was not really part of their original rationale,
like their passion is not providing social services and education
and healthcare and and all that. That's not really what
(10:48):
they're about. It's armed struggle with Israel to try and
achieve a big aim. So the thing with this plan is, though,
there are so many flaws in it. Are there so
many holes in it? Are there so many things that
are unrealistic about it? Yes. But what the world is
saying is this is the plan we've got. This is
a template and this is what we have to deal with.
(11:11):
Is it better than a few days ago when there
was absolutely nothing? And the IDF is really into Gaza
City and, you know, the war's intensifying and carrying on
towards the two year anniversary of October 7th. This is
the train that's leaving the station. So everyone's jumping aboard.
The question is, how do you get Hamas to really, uh,
(11:35):
lock on to that, even with the hostages? The hostages
have been their key leverage. You can imagine them thinking
this through. Okay. If we hand all the remaining hostages,
living and dead, over to Israel, then what's stopping Netanyahu
in a few weeks, finding some pretext to start the
war again. Trump will have received all the credit for
(11:59):
achieving the release of the hostages. And then will we
be back at war again? So there's so many ways
to be skeptical about this plan. Uh, but it's the
one we've got.
S1 (12:11):
And on the other side, it's not without risk for Netanyahu. Right?
He's trenchantly opposed the Palestinian Authority playing a role in Gaza.
He's trenchantly opposed to statehood. Yet the plan makes reference
to both. So going down this path risks blowing up
his own right wing coalition. Isn't that right? Because some
of these far right ministers, the two who Australia have sanctioned,
(12:34):
don't agree with those ideas. So is there a chance
that Israel goes slow on this and lets it fizzle
out and continues on with its plans in Gaza?
S2 (12:43):
Yes, I think if you look at it objectively, it's
a very Israel friendly plan A, particularly in the short
term when it's most likely that anything would happen, Open.
It's front loaded to Israel's benefit, this plan. And there's
many caveats that Netanyahu, for example, standing next to Trump,
was talking about how we're going to have a very
(13:05):
staged withdrawal, a slow withdrawal. Experts of homed in, in
that aspect as as one area where, well, this isn't
the end to the war and Israel pulling out that
you might suspect, or you might people might be thinking
of when they think about the end to the war.
He's he's reading it in a different way, I think,
(13:25):
perhaps even than other people. And some of the long
term ideas in the plan about statehood. It's vague language
about aspirations for a Palestinian state. The role for the
Palestinian Authority is vague and contingent on reforms that would
take years to to take effect, elections all at the
(13:47):
same thing we've been talking about with the statehood debate here.
So that's not troubling in the short term for Netanyahu.
But as you say, the political dynamics in Israel and
his coalition. Yeah, they don't they don't want the war
to end at all. And throughout the whole process, the
big criticism, one of many of Netanyahu, is that he's
never spoken about what in detail about what's going to
(14:10):
come after the war. So now he's actually putting his
name to some ideas here. People may not like them,
people may want to change them. But he's actually talking
about the day after the war. That in and of
itself is controversial in Israel, with his far right cabinet
ministers who hate this is Netanyahu says one thing in Washington,
(14:34):
one thing in Israel sends out very different messages. Essentially,
is this just part of a negotiating tactic for Hamas
to say no or scuttle the deal in some way?
And he says, well, we tried. We presented you with
a deal to end the war, and you didn't take it.
We're going to keep going on.
S1 (14:51):
And I noticed some of the opposition leaders, Joe Lapid
and Benny Gantz offered to hold the coalition up if
he goes down this path. So maybe that's a that's
an avenue that pushes Netanyahu to the center of politics. Ironically,
just on that day after the war that we're talking
about in hopeful language, what do we know about this
international stabilization force and this Board of peace that Trump
says that he would chair? Are they just fuzzy concepts
(15:14):
that don't have much detail or.
S2 (15:16):
I think, to be skeptical about it? I think the
Board of Peace is a way to keep Trump really
involved in this and kind of brand it as a
Trump initiative, like he's branded things throughout his life. The
idea that while running the United States, Trump was the
America First president who's supposed to be focused on us
(15:38):
Americans and working class Americans and making their lives better.
Now he's got this moonlighting role in the Gaza Peace Board.
I think what everyone says is that's just a way
of showing Trump that it's his initiative. He's going to
get credit for anything good that happens here at Tony
Blair would be doing much more of the work.
S1 (15:58):
Maybe they'll operate out of a Trump Tower with Gold
Trump imprint in Gaza City.
S2 (16:02):
Yeah, that's that's possible. Well, that was part of his
original Riviera plan.
S1 (16:08):
Which he shifted away from dramatically. Right?
S2 (16:09):
Yes. And that's that is good that that was a
to be honest, pretty crazy idea that was never going
to happen. But it's good that we're dealing with at
least more realistic solutions for Gaza that don't involve most
of the Gazan population. Leaving the area are the stabilization force. Look,
everyone who's an expert in this area says it will
(16:31):
be really, uh, complicated. This is something the UN has
done throughout its lifetime, including countries like Lebanon, much criticized
for the way it goes, goes about its role, for example,
like you're up against, say, in Gaza, you have Hamas,
which is a militant force. You've got the might of
(16:53):
the Israeli military, UN peacekeepers, how significant are they going
to be there? Obviously, the Middle Eastern nations around need
to take a key role and need to be invested
in making it happen. It would be extremely difficult in
that withdrawal we were talking about before. Yeah, there's there's
(17:14):
discussion of at which stage the Israeli military would hand
over to this stabilization force. That could take a long time.
S1 (17:22):
Would it be UN backed?
S2 (17:24):
Presumably I think the UN would have a role. What
we're talking about here is definitely UN mandated, but with
a very strong role for particularly the Arab countries in
the region to lead it. I and other journalists on
the trip have been asking Anthony Albanese about this, and
he very much has not ruled out Australia playing a
role in this force. We would certainly not be the
(17:47):
main players, but like with the coalition of the Willing
and Ukraine, He's left open the possibility of Australia being
involved in some way and playing a role as good
international citizen, but there's still a lot of detail to
be spelt out about how it would work.
S1 (18:06):
Just on Trump, many analysts have said for a long
time it was always going to be him who had
enough sway to step in and try and solve this dispute.
It's quite remarkable that Trump forced Netanyahu to apologise for
the Qatar bombing at the white House. I heard Greg Sheridan,
the columnist from The Australian, say that in all of
his time covering Netanyahu, he's never heard him apologise. Probably
(18:29):
speaks to Trump's sway. What does it say about the
role Trump is trying to play? What are his intentions,
and is it a statement of fact to say that
he has the most sway on Israel out of anyone
in the world?
S2 (18:42):
Definitely. Well, the just the United States in and of
itself is always crucial for Israel, and that's a key
role for the Israeli prime minister, whoever that is, is
to manage the relationship with the US because of the
military equipment, the weapons that the US provides Israel with.
They wouldn't have been able to fight this war and
(19:04):
also everything else going on with Iran, with Lebanon, they
wouldn't have been able to do all that without all
the equipment that comes from the US. The Trump Netanyahu
dynamic is fascinating. We saw really actually, before Trump was inaugurated,
he essentially forced Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire agreement,
(19:26):
but that fell apart when Netanyahu essentially broke it off.
He didn't want to pursue it through all its stages.
He just wanted to get as many hostages back as
he could. Initially, he didn't want to end the war
at that stage, and since then he's really played a
Trump at every turn and outplayed him. He restarted the war,
(19:47):
he bombed Iran and convinced America to become involved with that,
which Trump initially didn't seem to want to do. It
goes against his whole philosophy of keeping America out of
these foreign entanglements. But that Qatar issue that really annoyed Trump,
to put it mildly. I think that's a key turning
(20:08):
point here, is that Israel really went a step too far.
S5 (20:11):
It was the attack no one expected in broad daylight
near the center of Qatar's capital. It was another demonstration
of hard Israeli power, a serious escalation in Israel's Multi-front
war in the Middle East, and a blow for America's
diplomatic efforts to end the Gaza War.
S1 (20:32):
Hamas and Qatar has a US military base, has worked
on negotiations.
S2 (20:36):
Trump went and visited there. He's very invested in this
part of the world. Also, from a business perspective, he's
got a lot going on with these leaders. He's got
golf courses all over the Middle East. Um, yeah, he's
getting jets from them. So then when Israel went in
and tried to assassinate Hamas leaders who were gathering for
(20:59):
ceasefire negotiations and didn't even succeed in doing it, that
was a massive failure. And it really annoyed Trump the
way it played out. That's why he told Netanyahu to
get on the phone, and he's clearly impatient about how
long the war has gone on, and he has exerted
a bit of pressure on Netanyahu. The question with Trump
(21:21):
always is how long is his attention span? How long
is he going to stay invested in this? The war
in Ukraine will come back to prominence again, whereas Netanyahu
is playing a longer game.
S1 (21:32):
And Trump's just entering a shutdown in the US. So
there's so many issues he's he's having to deal with.
Let's go to our prime minister's role. He said on
the plane back from the UAE to you this week,
I think dressed in his, uh, in his New South
Wales Blues jumper with the name Albanese on the back. Uh,
that he and the other Western leaders who have been
pushing for Palestinian statehood in recent weeks, including at the UN,
(21:56):
did play a role in bringing about this process that
Trump announced. Is that right? What does he mean by that?
S2 (22:03):
Well, yes, he is not claiming central credit, but he's
talking about Australia as being part of this really wave
of momentum for something to happen here. So it was
interesting looking at the way it's played out and say,
Trump's plan, the 20 point plan. There's a bit of
copying and pasting from other plans. So, uh, Emmanuel Macron
(22:25):
at his two state solution conference at the UN, which
neither the Israel or the US had any part of
and totally opposed, he was talking about a lot of
the ideas that are in the Trump plan. He was
talking about the International Stabilisation Force using that terminology. And
all the leaders at that two state solution conference have
(22:47):
been working on declarations and plans, and Trump has adopted
a lot of it, essentially made it a bit more
pro-Israel and got Israel on board with it. So the
question really is subconsciously, I think, at a level you'd
never hear Trump or Netanyahu say that countries like Australia, Canada,
(23:07):
the UK recognising Palestine, they say they oppose that it
was counterproductive. It was rewarding Hamas for what had happened.
They totally opposed it rhetorically. But what Albanese would say
is this is adding to the pressure. This is adding
to the momentum. This is adding to the sense that
the war is simply gone on too long. That's the argument.
(23:31):
So essentially what Anthony Albanese is saying is that we
did what we thought was right. Look at the results.
We've got a peace plan. Uh, things are moving in
the right direction, and we're playing our role in that.
S1 (23:44):
And the big argument always from Penny Wong was we
will only do we've shifted to an earlier recognition, because
we could do so at a time when we could
create international momentum for peace. And they can make an
argument that that's come about. But the US has said
for weeks that the Macron, Australia UK push actually pushed
Netanyahu to the right, prompted him to start thinking about
(24:06):
annexing the West Bank, and that only when Trump stepped
in to say no to annexation and to bring Netanyahu
to the table, did the tables get turned? So there's
another argument, right, that Trump is the only driver of this,
and he actually cleaned up the mess of the other
Western leaders. That's an argument that could be made on
the other side.
S2 (24:25):
Yeah, Trump is absolutely the key player in how Trump
is feeling about it. And Trump's patience levels really with Netanyahu.
And he had a meeting with Middle Eastern leaders, a
big one at the UN. And so it's clear they've
said what their absolute redlines are and what they can't accept.
And he's listening to them. So all this talk about
(24:46):
annexing the West Bank, they've made clear that that's a
no go zone. He's also thinking about when he presented
this plan. It wasn't just an end to the war
in Gaza. He's talking about eternal peace in the Middle East.
He wants many more of the Abraham Accords. He likes
to call them the Abraham Accords.
S4 (25:03):
I'd like to say it that way, because the real people,
that's what they call Abraham. I would say Abraham, but
it's so much nicer when you say Abraham. It's so
much more elegant.
S2 (25:16):
He went on a long riff about this at the
press conference about how you say it, as Trump always does,
while talking about very serious matters. So yeah, he wants
to unlock all these deals, these peace agreements throughout the
Middle East, and he sees this as part of it.
And so that absolutely would not happen if Israel and
Netanyahu pursued the maximalist agenda of annexing the West Bank,
(25:41):
of putting settlements back into Gaza. Nothing's going to happen
in the future if they were to do that. So
Trump's essentially said, pull your head in. I'm a friend
of Israel. I'm looking after you. But there have to
be some limits here. I want to do things in
the Middle East, and that's where we've ended up with
this peace plan.
S1 (26:00):
Well, it sounded like a fascinating trip. And if the
last two years has been anything to go by, the
conflict might drag on. So we'll talk to you about
it again soon. Thank you for joining us, knotty.
S2 (26:10):
No worries at all.
S1 (26:16):
Today's episode was produced by Kai Wang. Our executive producer
is Tammy Mills, and Tom McKendrick is head of audio.
To listen to our episodes as soon as they drop,
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(26:39):
every week. I'm Paul Carl. Thanks for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Paul Satchell, it's Friday, the
3rd of October. The Prime Minister has just returned from
ten days of high wire diplomacy. Initially the United Nations
in New York, before swinging through London and stopping by
Abu Dhabi on his way home. He's claimed some credit
for helping push along a potential peace plan for Gaza.
(00:23):
Spruiked Australia's social media ban on the global stage and
drummed up interest in Australia's green transition and critical minerals reserve.
Foreign affairs correspondent Matthew Knott was on the PM's plane
and he joins us today. Knotty, how are you?
S2 (00:37):
It's nice to be here.
S1 (00:44):
You've been away for a couple of weeks in New York, London,
the UAE. Sometimes these trips can look a bit different
up close to how they appear to us back home.
What were your observations of the Prime Minister? And what
did you observe about the state of the world we're in?
S2 (00:59):
Yeah, I'm not sure how it seemed from an Australian
point of view, but the striking thing, having been on
some of these trips with the Prime Minister and particularly
in the first term, was a real difference in the
level of ambition that he had on this trip and
a difference in his persona in, in the way he
(01:19):
was acting. You know, the way he was feeling was
clearly a much more confident, much more self-assured in what
he was doing. He wasn't just there to ride the
wave of the summits. Uh, even on something like the
Middle East, which the government repeatedly says, we're not a
major player in that part of the world. And they
still do say that he was right in their meeting
(01:42):
across those three stops that you mentioned, actually meeting several
of the key players. So the trip started with a
meeting with the King of Jordan. Then in London, he
met with Tony Blair, who was just emerging, could play
a key role in this Gaza transitional authorities, and then
on the way back and met the president of the UAE.
(02:03):
And the UAE is another key country looking ahead to
a post-war Gaza. So he was right in the middle
of it. There at this two state solution conference are
hosting an event on Australia's social media ban, with other
leaders from around the world coming to watch and saying
they wanted to learn from Australia. And even while there
(02:26):
was a lot of speculation at the start of the
trip about Will, he won't he meet Donald Trump? The
Prime Minister was very confident, looking, very relaxed, and that
all made sense when it emerged that he had locked
in a white House meeting with the president.
S1 (02:41):
We'll get to the Gaza peace plan and what role
the Prime Minister did or did not play in it.
But just quickly, I want to talk about his stop
through London. The prime minister was pretty widely criticized back
home for giving a speech at the Labour Party conference
on right wing populism and backsliding on democracy in Australia.
At the same time, Andrew Hastie, the outspoken Liberal frontbencher,
(03:01):
made a real ripple with his interventions on what Conservative
Australia needs to do to win. And he sparked a
conversation about the populist right in Australia. It's nowhere near
as potent as it is in the UK with the
rise of Reform and Nigel Farage. I'm interested in what
the Prime Minister said at the Labour Party conference and
a meeting with progressive leaders the day before, on what
(03:21):
the difference is in the political climate in the UK
and Australia. Why is Labour ascendant here and really struggling
in the polls in the UK, according to our Prime Minister?
S2 (03:32):
Well, it was very striking. They're arriving in the UK.
The difference from Australia and the difference that the Starmer
government there is experiencing compared to where Albanese is, even
at the Labour conference, there were anti-immigration protesters there outside.
This issue is dominating all of British politics. While we
(03:55):
were there, Keir Starmer was announcing plans for a digital
ID card that all Britons would have to use to
show that they're there legally. Nigel Farage is dominating the
political landscape there and that's what Anthony Albanese flew into.
And this pretty controversial appearance in Liverpool, it really stood
(04:17):
out as being different to everything else that was happening
on the trip. Having a bilateral meetings, um, the UN
General Assembly, that was all very diplomatic. And yeah, attending
this progressive conference, uh, that was clearly parties from the
centre left. But there he was meeting with the Prime
(04:38):
Minister of Canada, the prime minister of Spain. He was
talking to them about free trade.
S1 (04:43):
All progressive leaders. Right?
S2 (04:44):
Yeah. Progressive, all progressive leaders. But, um, and I don't
think there's anything wrong with, uh, Anthony Albanese talking about
the nature of centre left politics and doing some big
picture thinking. He thinks this is important.
S3 (04:56):
The labor mission has never been a theoretical exercise or
just a rhetorical one. Our work is measured in deeds,
and it depends on delivery, on change. Our citizens can
see tangible, practical outcomes that make a positive difference to
people's lives. This is where.
S2 (05:17):
At this stage of his second term, it's a bit
of that. Paul Keating, give them the big picture. What's
the narrative? And he sees the speech in Liverpool as
part of that. But there's no getting around the fact
it was a very party political event and that Keir
Starmer is a man under pressure. So I think what
(05:37):
you see the difference in that, Anthony Albanese is benefiting
from the fact that Australia now doesn't have this issue
with boat people arriving like we used to. He's benefiting
from the fact that that's not on the agenda. Immigration
obviously is a big issue here, as we've seen with
the recent protests, but it's not nearly as significant as
(06:01):
it is in the UK or Europe. That was dominating
the entire discussion at this progressive summit was, how do
center left leaders pursue progressive politics while not letting this
immigration issue get away from them? So the climate is
very different. And, uh, at this stage of his second
(06:24):
term with facing not really an effective opposition in Australia,
that's just totally different to the climate in the UK.
S1 (06:33):
It seems to me to be kind of dripping in irony.
Nigel Farage is campaigning in the UK for a boat
turn back policy that our conservatives championed under Tony Abbott
and Scott Morrison. Uh, labor very reluctantly embraced that policy.
It's quite a difficult thing for a center left party
to do. And now the Prime Minister is in the
UK spruiking that policy is the way the centre left wins.
S2 (06:55):
Yes, he certainly wasn't explicitly talking about boat turn backs,
for example. But he did allude to the fact that
Australia has this under control. So yes, I think he's
reaping the benefits of some very tough decisions that other
people took.
S1 (07:11):
Well, it might be anathema to him to use language
like that, but that is the nature of the policy.
S2 (07:15):
Mhm.
S1 (07:23):
Let's move on to Gaza where now a couple of
days on from the 20 point peace plan, Trump announced
at the white House with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister,
along his side. What does Hamas said about the deal,
and what's the reaction been like in Israel in its
early stages?
S2 (07:38):
Well, Hamas has given conflicting signals, which I think does
make sense when you think about this plan, which is
striking for the fact that there are two parties in
this conflict, Israel and Hamas. And any end to this
war is going to be an agreement between the two
of them. But Hamas has had no role in this process,
(07:59):
certainly no direct role. I'm sure there was backchannel negotiations
with countries like Qatar, and they would have been aware
what was going on. But this is a US Israeli
proposal backed by Arab nations, particularly in the region that's
being presented to Hamas as an ultimatum.
S4 (08:17):
What the future holds for the Palestinians, no one really knows.
But the plan that we put forward today is focused
on ending the war immediately getting all of our hostages back,
getting everything back. Hard to believe when you even say it.
And creating conditions for durable Israeli security and Palestinian success.
(08:40):
Israeli security is going to be involved. We're going to
help you.
S2 (08:43):
So we've heard different things from Hamas leaders. We've heard
that it's biased, that it's one sided, that it's there
are so many problems with it in terms of what
it would mean for the Palestinian people, but they've also
said that they're open to looking at it. I think
what you'd expect is for Hamas, which is under a
huge amount of pressure from neighboring countries, and Hamas is
(09:06):
very aware of the media narrative. They're very aware of
the way things get reported. So I don't think Hamas
wants headlines of Hamas rejects peace plan. Hamas wants the
war to continue. So one possibility is that Hamas says
we welcome this plan, but we have some of our
(09:26):
own ideas, and that puts it back into Netanyahu's court,
who's presented it as you have to do everything we
want right now within 72 hours, release the hostages. So
I think Hamas, even though many of their leaders have
been killed, you know, there are still some people left
who will be thinking this through strategically. That's one option
for them. But the idea of them unilaterally disarming, handing
(09:52):
over all their weapons, leaving Gaza is pretty, fantastical idea.
S1 (09:58):
And they've rejected many of those pleas in the past. Right?
This is quite an asymmetric deal. So you do wonder
what's in it for Hamas, other than succumbing to pressure
from Arab states and potentially easing the suffering of their people?
But they have noted in the past Hamas leaders that
the suffering of their people might be worth it in
some regard for the elevation of the Palestinian cause internationally.
(10:20):
So do you see this dragging on and not coming
to a resolution soon?
S2 (10:25):
Yeah. Hamas's whole raison d'etre is is armed struggle that's
in their DNA. That's what they're all about. There's a
lot of discussion about even the fact they came to
govern Gaza was not really part of their original rationale,
like their passion is not providing social services and education
and healthcare and and all that. That's not really what
(10:48):
they're about. It's armed struggle with Israel to try and
achieve a big aim. So the thing with this plan is, though,
there are so many flaws in it. Are there so
many holes in it? Are there so many things that
are unrealistic about it? Yes. But what the world is
saying is this is the plan we've got. This is
a template and this is what we have to deal with.
(11:11):
Is it better than a few days ago when there
was absolutely nothing? And the IDF is really into Gaza
City and, you know, the war's intensifying and carrying on
towards the two year anniversary of October 7th. This is
the train that's leaving the station. So everyone's jumping aboard.
The question is, how do you get Hamas to really, uh,
(11:35):
lock on to that, even with the hostages? The hostages
have been their key leverage. You can imagine them thinking
this through. Okay. If we hand all the remaining hostages,
living and dead, over to Israel, then what's stopping Netanyahu
in a few weeks, finding some pretext to start the
war again. Trump will have received all the credit for
(11:59):
achieving the release of the hostages. And then will we
be back at war again? So there's so many ways
to be skeptical about this plan. Uh, but it's the
one we've got.
S1 (12:11):
And on the other side, it's not without risk for Netanyahu. Right?
He's trenchantly opposed the Palestinian Authority playing a role in Gaza.
He's trenchantly opposed to statehood. Yet the plan makes reference
to both. So going down this path risks blowing up
his own right wing coalition. Isn't that right? Because some
of these far right ministers, the two who Australia have sanctioned,
(12:34):
don't agree with those ideas. So is there a chance
that Israel goes slow on this and lets it fizzle
out and continues on with its plans in Gaza?
S2 (12:43):
Yes, I think if you look at it objectively, it's
a very Israel friendly plan A, particularly in the short
term when it's most likely that anything would happen, Open.
It's front loaded to Israel's benefit, this plan. And there's
many caveats that Netanyahu, for example, standing next to Trump,
was talking about how we're going to have a very
(13:05):
staged withdrawal, a slow withdrawal. Experts of homed in, in
that aspect as as one area where, well, this isn't
the end to the war and Israel pulling out that
you might suspect, or you might people might be thinking
of when they think about the end to the war.
He's he's reading it in a different way, I think,
(13:25):
perhaps even than other people. And some of the long
term ideas in the plan about statehood. It's vague language
about aspirations for a Palestinian state. The role for the
Palestinian Authority is vague and contingent on reforms that would
take years to to take effect, elections all at the
(13:47):
same thing we've been talking about with the statehood debate here.
So that's not troubling in the short term for Netanyahu.
But as you say, the political dynamics in Israel and
his coalition. Yeah, they don't they don't want the war
to end at all. And throughout the whole process, the
big criticism, one of many of Netanyahu, is that he's
never spoken about what in detail about what's going to
(14:10):
come after the war. So now he's actually putting his
name to some ideas here. People may not like them,
people may want to change them. But he's actually talking
about the day after the war. That in and of
itself is controversial in Israel, with his far right cabinet
ministers who hate this is Netanyahu says one thing in Washington,
(14:34):
one thing in Israel sends out very different messages. Essentially,
is this just part of a negotiating tactic for Hamas
to say no or scuttle the deal in some way?
And he says, well, we tried. We presented you with
a deal to end the war, and you didn't take it.
We're going to keep going on.
S1 (14:51):
And I noticed some of the opposition leaders, Joe Lapid
and Benny Gantz offered to hold the coalition up if
he goes down this path. So maybe that's a that's
an avenue that pushes Netanyahu to the center of politics. Ironically,
just on that day after the war that we're talking
about in hopeful language, what do we know about this
international stabilization force and this Board of peace that Trump
says that he would chair? Are they just fuzzy concepts
(15:14):
that don't have much detail or.
S2 (15:16):
I think, to be skeptical about it? I think the
Board of Peace is a way to keep Trump really
involved in this and kind of brand it as a
Trump initiative, like he's branded things throughout his life. The
idea that while running the United States, Trump was the
America First president who's supposed to be focused on us
(15:38):
Americans and working class Americans and making their lives better.
Now he's got this moonlighting role in the Gaza Peace Board.
I think what everyone says is that's just a way
of showing Trump that it's his initiative. He's going to
get credit for anything good that happens here at Tony
Blair would be doing much more of the work.
S1 (15:58):
Maybe they'll operate out of a Trump Tower with Gold
Trump imprint in Gaza City.
S2 (16:02):
Yeah, that's that's possible. Well, that was part of his
original Riviera plan.
S1 (16:08):
Which he shifted away from dramatically. Right?
S2 (16:09):
Yes. And that's that is good that that was a
to be honest, pretty crazy idea that was never going
to happen. But it's good that we're dealing with at
least more realistic solutions for Gaza that don't involve most
of the Gazan population. Leaving the area are the stabilization force. Look,
everyone who's an expert in this area says it will
(16:31):
be really, uh, complicated. This is something the UN has
done throughout its lifetime, including countries like Lebanon, much criticized
for the way it goes, goes about its role, for example,
like you're up against, say, in Gaza, you have Hamas,
which is a militant force. You've got the might of
(16:53):
the Israeli military, UN peacekeepers, how significant are they going
to be there? Obviously, the Middle Eastern nations around need
to take a key role and need to be invested
in making it happen. It would be extremely difficult in
that withdrawal we were talking about before. Yeah, there's there's
(17:14):
discussion of at which stage the Israeli military would hand
over to this stabilization force. That could take a long time.
S1 (17:22):
Would it be UN backed?
S2 (17:24):
Presumably I think the UN would have a role. What
we're talking about here is definitely UN mandated, but with
a very strong role for particularly the Arab countries in
the region to lead it. I and other journalists on
the trip have been asking Anthony Albanese about this, and
he very much has not ruled out Australia playing a
role in this force. We would certainly not be the
(17:47):
main players, but like with the coalition of the Willing
and Ukraine, He's left open the possibility of Australia being
involved in some way and playing a role as good
international citizen, but there's still a lot of detail to
be spelt out about how it would work.
S1 (18:06):
Just on Trump, many analysts have said for a long
time it was always going to be him who had
enough sway to step in and try and solve this dispute.
It's quite remarkable that Trump forced Netanyahu to apologise for
the Qatar bombing at the white House. I heard Greg Sheridan,
the columnist from The Australian, say that in all of
his time covering Netanyahu, he's never heard him apologise. Probably
(18:29):
speaks to Trump's sway. What does it say about the
role Trump is trying to play? What are his intentions,
and is it a statement of fact to say that
he has the most sway on Israel out of anyone
in the world?
S2 (18:42):
Definitely. Well, the just the United States in and of
itself is always crucial for Israel, and that's a key
role for the Israeli prime minister, whoever that is, is
to manage the relationship with the US because of the
military equipment, the weapons that the US provides Israel with.
They wouldn't have been able to fight this war and
(19:04):
also everything else going on with Iran, with Lebanon, they
wouldn't have been able to do all that without all
the equipment that comes from the US. The Trump Netanyahu
dynamic is fascinating. We saw really actually, before Trump was inaugurated,
he essentially forced Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire agreement,
(19:26):
but that fell apart when Netanyahu essentially broke it off.
He didn't want to pursue it through all its stages.
He just wanted to get as many hostages back as
he could. Initially, he didn't want to end the war
at that stage, and since then he's really played a
Trump at every turn and outplayed him. He restarted the war,
(19:47):
he bombed Iran and convinced America to become involved with that,
which Trump initially didn't seem to want to do. It
goes against his whole philosophy of keeping America out of
these foreign entanglements. But that Qatar issue that really annoyed Trump,
to put it mildly. I think that's a key turning
(20:08):
point here, is that Israel really went a step too far.
S5 (20:11):
It was the attack no one expected in broad daylight
near the center of Qatar's capital. It was another demonstration
of hard Israeli power, a serious escalation in Israel's Multi-front
war in the Middle East, and a blow for America's
diplomatic efforts to end the Gaza War.
S1 (20:32):
Hamas and Qatar has a US military base, has worked
on negotiations.
S2 (20:36):
Trump went and visited there. He's very invested in this
part of the world. Also, from a business perspective, he's
got a lot going on with these leaders. He's got
golf courses all over the Middle East. Um, yeah, he's
getting jets from them. So then when Israel went in
and tried to assassinate Hamas leaders who were gathering for
(20:59):
ceasefire negotiations and didn't even succeed in doing it, that
was a massive failure. And it really annoyed Trump the
way it played out. That's why he told Netanyahu to
get on the phone, and he's clearly impatient about how
long the war has gone on, and he has exerted
a bit of pressure on Netanyahu. The question with Trump
(21:21):
always is how long is his attention span? How long
is he going to stay invested in this? The war
in Ukraine will come back to prominence again, whereas Netanyahu
is playing a longer game.
S1 (21:32):
And Trump's just entering a shutdown in the US. So
there's so many issues he's he's having to deal with.
Let's go to our prime minister's role. He said on
the plane back from the UAE to you this week,
I think dressed in his, uh, in his New South
Wales Blues jumper with the name Albanese on the back. Uh,
that he and the other Western leaders who have been
pushing for Palestinian statehood in recent weeks, including at the UN,
(21:56):
did play a role in bringing about this process that
Trump announced. Is that right? What does he mean by that?
S2 (22:03):
Well, yes, he is not claiming central credit, but he's
talking about Australia as being part of this really wave
of momentum for something to happen here. So it was
interesting looking at the way it's played out and say,
Trump's plan, the 20 point plan. There's a bit of
copying and pasting from other plans. So, uh, Emmanuel Macron
(22:25):
at his two state solution conference at the UN, which
neither the Israel or the US had any part of
and totally opposed, he was talking about a lot of
the ideas that are in the Trump plan. He was
talking about the International Stabilisation Force using that terminology. And
all the leaders at that two state solution conference have
(22:47):
been working on declarations and plans, and Trump has adopted
a lot of it, essentially made it a bit more
pro-Israel and got Israel on board with it. So the
question really is subconsciously, I think, at a level you'd
never hear Trump or Netanyahu say that countries like Australia, Canada,
(23:07):
the UK recognising Palestine, they say they oppose that it
was counterproductive. It was rewarding Hamas for what had happened.
They totally opposed it rhetorically. But what Albanese would say
is this is adding to the pressure. This is adding
to the momentum. This is adding to the sense that
the war is simply gone on too long. That's the argument.
(23:31):
So essentially what Anthony Albanese is saying is that we
did what we thought was right. Look at the results.
We've got a peace plan. Uh, things are moving in
the right direction, and we're playing our role in that.
S1 (23:44):
And the big argument always from Penny Wong was we
will only do we've shifted to an earlier recognition, because
we could do so at a time when we could
create international momentum for peace. And they can make an
argument that that's come about. But the US has said
for weeks that the Macron, Australia UK push actually pushed
Netanyahu to the right, prompted him to start thinking about
(24:06):
annexing the West Bank, and that only when Trump stepped
in to say no to annexation and to bring Netanyahu
to the table, did the tables get turned? So there's
another argument, right, that Trump is the only driver of this,
and he actually cleaned up the mess of the other
Western leaders. That's an argument that could be made on
the other side.
S2 (24:25):
Yeah, Trump is absolutely the key player in how Trump
is feeling about it. And Trump's patience levels really with Netanyahu.
And he had a meeting with Middle Eastern leaders, a
big one at the UN. And so it's clear they've
said what their absolute redlines are and what they can't accept.
And he's listening to them. So all this talk about
(24:46):
annexing the West Bank, they've made clear that that's a
no go zone. He's also thinking about when he presented
this plan. It wasn't just an end to the war
in Gaza. He's talking about eternal peace in the Middle East.
He wants many more of the Abraham Accords. He likes
to call them the Abraham Accords.
S4 (25:03):
I'd like to say it that way, because the real people,
that's what they call Abraham. I would say Abraham, but
it's so much nicer when you say Abraham. It's so
much more elegant.
S2 (25:16):
He went on a long riff about this at the
press conference about how you say it, as Trump always does,
while talking about very serious matters. So yeah, he wants
to unlock all these deals, these peace agreements throughout the
Middle East, and he sees this as part of it.
And so that absolutely would not happen if Israel and
Netanyahu pursued the maximalist agenda of annexing the West Bank,
(25:41):
of putting settlements back into Gaza. Nothing's going to happen
in the future if they were to do that. So
Trump's essentially said, pull your head in. I'm a friend
of Israel. I'm looking after you. But there have to
be some limits here. I want to do things in
the Middle East, and that's where we've ended up with
this peace plan.
S1 (26:00):
Well, it sounded like a fascinating trip. And if the
last two years has been anything to go by, the
conflict might drag on. So we'll talk to you about
it again soon. Thank you for joining us, knotty.
S2 (26:10):
No worries at all.
S1 (26:16):
Today's episode was produced by Kai Wang. Our executive producer
is Tammy Mills, and Tom McKendrick is head of audio.
To listen to our episodes as soon as they drop,
follow Inside Politics on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you
listen to your podcasts. And to stay up to date
with all the political news and exclusives, visit The Age
and The Sydney Morning Herald websites, or sign up to
our politics newsletter for insights and analysis in your inbox
(26:39):
every week. I'm Paul Carl. Thanks for listening.
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