July 7, 2023
Anthony Albanese’s office has stepped in and directed a senior cabinet minister to delete a tweet attacking Donald Trump and his son, with foreign policy experts describing the incident as a diplomatic “own goal”.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil accused Donald Trump Jr of attempting to blame the Albanese government for delays in his Australia tour, calling him a “sore loser” and a “big baby”.
She also attacked the former US president over his election fraud claims, saying he “lost an election fair and square”.
The Australian understands Ms O’Neil deleted the tweets at the direction of the Prime Minister’s office.Strategic Analysis Australia director Michael Shoebridge said Ms
O’Neil’s comments were “an unnecessary own goal” that lacked foresight given Mr Trump may be the Republican nominee for the White House at next year’s election. Mr Shoebridge said the election of Mr Trump for a second term was “absolutely a credible scenario”.
“My view is that it would not be wise to turn an issue into a personal issue about somebody,” Mr Shoebridge said.
“The right focus for a minister is policy and substance, and personalising issues is normally not productive, and people remember personal things more than they do big policy things.
“We saw with the previous administration there were a lot of people who discounted Trump winning an election as a possibility and found themselves doing a lot of hard work trying to build that relationship.”
Ms O’Neil’s attack came after Mr Trump Jr delayed his planned visit to Australia for promotional tours in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Tour organiser Turning Point Australia says his visa was granted only 24 hours before he was to leave for Sydney, claiming the process was deliberately delayed by the government.
But Ms O’Neil said his visa was treated the same as that of any other visitor. She claimed the real reason Mr Trump Jr cancelled was because of poor ticket sales.
“Geez Donald Trump Jr is a bit of a sore loser. His dad lost an election fair and square – but he says it was stolen,” she tweeted.
“Now he’s trying to blame the Australian government for his poor ticket sales and cancelled tour.
“Donald Trump Jr has been given a visa to come to Australia. He didn’t get cancelled. He’s just a big baby, who isn’t very popular.”
Former UKIP leader and enthusiastic Trump supporter Nigel Farage refuted Ms O’Neil’s claims that Mr Tump Jr’s tour had been postponed due to poor ticket sales, and insisted: “We’ll be back.”
“Donald Trump Jr had attracted huge interested and 8,000 tickets had already been sold,” Mr Farage said in a statement. “Many are saying that the late visa is a form of cancel culture,” he added.
A key partner for the event, Conservative Political Action Conference, also disputed the claim of poor ticket sales.
CPAC director Andrew Cooper claimed the organisers had had no problems selling tickets and had been forced to make a last-minute call to delay the tour as Mr Trump Jr did not have a visa on Wednesday.
“No, there were no problems selling tickets at all. It was postponed because he didn’t have a visa, it was four days out from the show and there was no visa so we had to make a call,” Mr Cooper said.
“It had sold plenty of tickets, we are bitterly disappointed. It will go ahead and will be sold out when it does.”
Mr Albanese on Thursday shrugged off suggestions Mr Trump Jr’s visa controversy could impact Australia’s relationship with the US if his father was returned to the White House.
The Prime Minister said Mr Trump Jr’s visa was dealt with “in the normal way” and that the deferral of his travel was a matter for him.
“I‘ll tell you the elections that I’m focused on – I’m focused on an election that I’ll be involved in some time in 2025,” Mr Albanese said. “But what I’m really focused on is just governing in an orderly, good way. Delivering on the commitments that we’ve made, providing Australia with good government.”
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said Ms O’Neil’s comments were “juvenile” and “childish”.
Senator Paterson said Ms O’Neil should “leave the woke tweets to Labor backbenchers and get back to focusing on the national security challenges facing Australia”.
“Like it or not, Trump could be elected president again in less than 18 months. If that happens, I hope for the sake of the AUKUS agreement that cabinet ministers in national security portfolios are able to restrain themselves from juvenile tweets like these,” Senator Paterson said.
Foreign policy expert Peter Jennings said the attacks from both Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney – who this week criticised the voice No campaign of “importing American-style Trump politics – and Ms O’Neil undermined Mr Albanese’s election promise to govern differently.
He said Mr Trump remained a hugely influential figure in the Republican Party and that Australians expected more from government ministers.
“I think it fails the test of stability, not even a ministerial standard but a human standard,” Mr Jennings said. “Our government should be careful not to build a legacy of casual abuse for the person who could become the president of the US.
“A year ago Anthony Albanese said he was going to do things differently, like be transparent and consultative and all of the things that he has turned out not to be, and now has become casually rude, and I don’t think it’s acceptable for any politician.
“O’Neil goes after Trump because he is an easy figure for the centre-left to attack but they (the US) are our closest international partner and we should expect better behaviour from our senior ministers.”
