Topics: U.S.-Iran war

HAMISH MACDONALD: Dave Sharma is the shadow assistant minister for citizenship and multicultural affairs, also, uh, former Australian Ambassador to Israel. Good morning to you.

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DAVE SHARMA: Good morning, Hamish. Nice to join you.

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HAMISH MACDONALD: We’ve heard this morning from the defence minister, deputy prime minister. He says, says the federal government is working on contingency plans to assist Australians stranded. Is enough being done?

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DAVE SHARMA: Well, look, I would say that before this crisis erupted more could have been done, Hamish. I mean, the risk of the conflict here was eminently foreseeable. And I think the Australian government was aware of that. They, they ordered the evacuation of dependents from Israel last Wednesday and offered the voluntary evacuation of other dependents from Jordan and Qatar and the UAE on the same day. I think that would have been the time for the prime minister or the foreign minister or the defence minister to, to step up and give a press conference and warn Australians about the risks of conflict in the region, and then perhaps some Australians would have deferred their travel plans. Some Australians would have gotten on commercial flights while they were still available. But instead, look, we had the prime minister last week talking about the line of succession to the House of Windsor rather than the real and serious risk of conflict in the Middle East. And now we've seen, as you said, over 100,000 Australians impacted by this.

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HAMISH MACDONALD: Uh, now that this war has started, it's a much more difficult challenge to evacuate and provide assistance to Australians in the region. you've worked in Australian Diplomatic Service. Are you saying explicitly that this was an oversight of the federal government?

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DAVE SHARMA: Yes, I do believe that someone senior in the government, the prime minister, the foreign minister or the defence minister should have devoted some of their own media time last week to this issue, held a press conference, put out a press release drawing the media's attention to this issue rather than just relying on travel advice updates, uh, for those astute enough to be following them on the Smartraveller portal. I mean, I do think there was... Clearly, that should have been done to raise this awareness amongst the Australian traveling public.

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HAMISH MACDONALD: Does it surprise you that some of these countries were not included in the Smartraveller registration portal opening?

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DAVE SHARMA: Yes, it does 'cause I think this was quite clear that this would become a regional conflict very quickly once Iran was, It would respond by at least attacking US facilities elsewhere in the region, that probably its proxies like Hezbollah would get involved, that US bases in places like Qatar and Iraq and the UAE and Bahrain would be targeted. So this was, um, always going to become, in my view, a regional conflict very quickly.

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HAMISH MACDONALD: The foreign minister, Penny Wong, says ideally you want these people, 115,000 of them, brought home on commercial flights. Uh, we can understand the reasons for that. Uh, how would you say the federal government should respond now?

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DAVE SHARMA: Well, look, I think Yes, obviously, commercial flights on open air routes is, is the best option, but obviously there is limited commercial flight availability and the airspace is, uh, only open intermittently right now, so that creates challenges. Now, in previous, crises of this nature, the Australian government has chartered civilian aircraft to help with the evacuation, at least to regional hubs. They've also used military aircraft, C-17s and C-130s. Um, that all depends on getting access to airfields, of course, but I would expect that those are the sorts of contingencies that hopefully have been discussed before this point in time, but certainly that are being discussed now. But this is the sort of... There should have been contingency planning around this scenario because, as I said, the risks of a conflict in the Middle East have been eminently foreseeable over at least the last month or two since the United States started... created the biggest military footprint in the Middle East since the prelude to the Iraq War in 2003.

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HAMISH MACDONALD: Dave Sharma is here, Liberal senator for New South Wales, former Australian Ambassador to Israel. Obviously you'd be aware that some mosques here in Sydney as well as Melbourne are, are holding or, or planning to hold public memorials, uh, for the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the strikes. Now, uh, Australia has designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, uh, as a terrorist organisation… part because of the allegation that it was behind some of these antisemitic incidents in Australia, one here in Sydney, the Hadassah Israel Synagogue attack in Melbourne. Do you think this is a matter for police given that it is now a crime in Australia to praise or glorify a listed terror organisation?

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DAVE SHARMA: Look, I think that certainly law enforcement should be looking into this and seeing whether this falls foul of our national security and terrorism laws because the IRGC, it's, it's in the process of being listed as a terrorist organisation. That has not gone through parliament yet, as I understand it. Um, but other parts, there are a large number of designated individuals in Iran who are subject to our sanctions regime. But clearly, even if laws have not been broken, I think this is in exceptionally poor taste and shows a colossal misjudgement. I mean, Iranians in Iran and around the world are overwhelmingly welcoming the departure of Ayatollah Khomeini from, Khamenei, rather, from scene.

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HAMISH MACDONALD: We certainly know that of the Iranian diaspora. I think it's a little harder to tell inside Iran because there's, there is an internet blackout. That does seem hard to judge.

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DAVE SHARMA: Look, I'm not going to pretend to be a, to be a demographer of these things, but I've seen footage of large celebrations inside Iran. And bear in mind, if you're coming out to celebrate the downfall of the regime in Iran, you're doing so at considerable risk to yourself. You just see, have to see what happened to the tens of thousands of protesters who were murdered in the streets or executed subsequently or tortured because they came out to protest against the regime just in January last month. So, it's a much higher bar to come out and protest the downfall the regime in Iran than it is to commiserate the loss of the leader. So, I think we need to bear that in mind as well when we're assessing the public response to this.

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HAMISH MACDONALD: Dave Sharma, thank you very much for your time.

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DAVE SHARMA: Thanks so much, Hamish.

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