The Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, has done Labor, and Australia, no favours by his devotion to ensuring that there is not a millimetre of difference between the Labor and Coalition parties on terrorism in Australia, in the Middle East, on the rise of the Islamic State and the imperative of resisting it, and the sending of Australians into harm's way as part of an international attempt to defeat the military side of IS. It is one thing to show that Australians have the same broad views of the national interest, and similar responses to threats to it, but the pursuit of national interest is almost always improved by intelligent debate, open consideration of alternatives, engagement with the Australian public and with informed views in other nations, and by scrutiny and discussion of strategy, tactics and aims. By playing leader of the opposition so loyalist and so determined to suppress internal Labor dissent on the issue, Shorten has dealt Labor out of the debate. He might be being kept reasonably well informed about what Australia is doing, but the price paid is of being dealt completely out of the councils of the intervention.
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The effect is bad for Labor – again showing a significant number of potential followers that Labor is so "pragmatic" and gun-shy, and Shorten so focused on being a small target, that it is to the Greens and similar parties that one must go to see policy alternatives. It reinforces images of Abbott as the leader, the initiator, the articulator, and Shorten, at best, as the echo. No doubt Shorten agrees broadly with a policy of intervention, and wants to send no international signal of dissent about the nation's resolve. He probably also calculates that neither he, nor Labor, can out-macho Abbott and the Liberals in a hairy-chest competition. But that is no reason to refrain from intelligent criticism, and the canvassing of alternative approaches. As more and more Labor members seethe under the censorship and show it, it will, inevitably, be his leadership, not Abbott's, which is questioned.
Much more significantly, Labor's unwillingness to criticise or scrutinise actually damages the quality of the debate Australia must have before it commits itself to policy about the safety of Australians in the world. In recent months, the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, seems focused on national security and foreign-policy issues, at the expense of domestic and economic issues. This is not because any of his domestic or economic problems are going away; indeed, on the whole they are getting worse from neglect. Playing on the international stage, however, casts a spotlight on unifying, rather than divisive, leadership qualities, and generally, effectively forces Labor off the stage. Playing the hawk, and seeking to take an international lead on action, also reinforces images of decisiveness, determination and courage. It is, however, by no means clear that his policies are thought out. Indeed they may, perversely, be strengthening, not weakening, the enemy.
It is already becoming clear, for example, that the focus on IS has tended to give it a peculiar authority and status within the radical and militant, but also previously divided, Sunni movement that it previously lacked. There are signs that supporters of al Qaeda, previously bitter enemies of IS, now recognise its leadership, in part because the west has anointed it Public Enemy No 1, the position al Qaeda once had. Likewise, American efforts to give a leadership role in the intervention to Muslim "allies", particularly Sunni ones, have produced, at best, only token responses. Turkey, in particular, is pursuing its own interests, not the West's.
The failure to get significant international Muslim support gives propaganda support to IS charges that the intervention is a re-run of the crusades (and to its argument that the leaders of many Western-aligned Muslim countries are corrupt pragmatists). Likewise, in Australia itself, serious efforts to separate a campaign against IS-inspired jihadists and others susceptible to conversion to terror, here or abroad, from action against supporters of Islam is under threat. As ever, some fear that attempts to separate fanatics from the faithful has taken second place to isolating the general faithful from the broader community. Labor could be – should be – doing more to prevent this happening, but cannot while it is afraid that a single sign of deviation from Abbott will have Labor itself branded as disloyal.
