Australian policy now decided on the steps of the Lakemba Mosque. By David Flint in The Spectator.
In 2012, during a heated Labor caucus meeting, then-Foreign Minister Bob Carr reportedly issued a challenge to his colleagues that has since become a chilling piece of political folklore. Arguing against Julia Gillard’s insistence on maintaining bipartisan policy and not recognising Palestinian delegates at the UN, Carr allegedly demanded to know: ‘How could I possibly explain this from the steps of the Lakemba Mosque?’
Fourteen years later, it appears the ‘Lakemba Veto’ has evolved from a desperate plea into a formal pillar of Australian national security, at least while Labor is in office. …
Here we go, in 2026:
On March 16, 2026, Federal Transport Minister Catherine King … stepped onto the national stage to issue a preemptive and highly provocative snub to our most critical ally, the United States. Speaking to ABC Radio National, she didn’t just decline a request; she ruled one out before it was even made. In a statement that felt more like an electoral bribe than a strategic briefing, Ms King declared: “We won’t be sending a ship to the Strait of Hormuz. We know how incredibly important that is, but that’s not something that we’ve been asked or that we’re contributing to.” …
The gratuitously provocative and insulting nature of this refusal is staggering. At the time of her broadcast, the Trump administration had made no formal, specific request to Canberra. Yet, Labor felt the need to rush to the microphones to reassure a very specific domestic audience that Australia would not lift a finger to help the United States secure the world’s most vital oil artery.
The most likely reason for this ‘preemptive no’ isn’t a lack of naval capacity or a sudden pivot to the Indo-Pacific. It is a calculated act of political survival.
Following the 2025 election, where Labor’s primary vote in Western Sydney was significantly reduced by the ‘Muslim Vote’ movement, the Albanese government is now in a state of terminal fear. They are so beholden to the concentrated voting blocs in seats like Watson and Blaxland that they have effectively adopted what is an antisemitic line of least resistance. By refusing to oppose the Iranian regime’s blockade of the Strait — a regime that funds the very proxies their inner-city and Western Sydney constituents support — Labor has decided that saving Tony Burke’s seat is more important than securing the global energy supply.
But it’s not enough! Last week, Albanese and Burke were run out of Lakemba Mosque to cries of Allahu Akbar and “feral pig”:
Meanwhile, Australians are suffering:
While they play to the mosque steps, they are abandoning the traditional working-class voters who are being driven into the arms of One Nation. They are the ones paying $3.00/L at the petrol pump — a direct consequence of the instability Labor refuses to help quell….
Apparently, Australia’s defence strategy is no longer being written in Russell Offices; it is being dictated by an assessment of the electoral effect through that barometer for Labor: the steps of the Lakemba Mosque.