Labor's Left backed Trump's strikes on Iran. It's not the only issue they've shifted on

Sydney Morning Herald

12 hours ago

The first Australian minister to endorse US President Donald Trump's decision to strike Iran's nuclear facilities over the weekend wasn't the prime minister or foreign minister. It was Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek, who happened to have the 6.45am breakfast TV slot on Monday.
'We do support the strikes and I know the foreign minister [Penny Wong] is going to be on your program later this morning to go into more detail,' Plibersek said dutifully.
The prominent member of Labor's Left was then joined by two of her factional colleagues, Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese, who reinforced the government's decision.
It was a far cry from two decades ago, when all three MPs signed a letter to George W. Bush, protesting against the war in Iraq.
'The ALP firmly believes that international conflict should, wherever possible, be dealt with peacefully and through international co-operation under the auspices of the United Nations,' reads the letter, which Plibersek delivered personally to Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, during the president's visit to Australia in 2004. 'When all attempts for a peaceful resolution have been exhausted, United Nations sanction is vital if force is to be used.
'What is to prevent other countries from following the example of our attack on Iraq, and arguing the right to preventive self-defence? Why shouldn't North and South Korea attack each other using the template we developed in Iraq? Or India and Pakistan?
'The precedent we have set is a very dangerous one, and there is every indication that the world will become less safe, not more, because of our actions.'
Yet when Albanese endorsed Trump's strike on Iran, without ever saying that the country was on the cusp of producing a nuclear weapon, no one in his parliamentary party publicly complained. Some Left faction MPs contacted by this masthead even refused to grouse privately.