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.

As such, it now serves as a controlling criterion not only in relation to the foreign policy but also to the defence policy of the Commonwealth.

On March 16, 2026, Federal Transport Minister Catherine King – a minister whose portfolio usually stops at the coastline – 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.’

This, of course, also assumed we had a ship. According to commentary, the Albanese defence policy is such a failure that we do not have a ship to send anyway. She went on to reiterate,

‘I’m informed that we’re not intending to send ships to the Strait of Hormuz. We’re well prepared here in this country to weather the economic crisis that is occurring as a result of the Middle East, but we’re not planning to send a ship.’

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.

Recent events will make the Albanese government even more wary.

Notwithstanding all Labor has done, including its many years of tolerating antisemitism – which accelerated after the Hamas outrage of 2023 – when Mr Albanese and Minister Burke visited the mosque at the end of Ramadan recently, they were vigorously booed.

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. Labor is banking on the idea that these blue-collar families will eventually preference them back, but they are ignoring the deep-seated disgust at a government that prioritises identity politics over the national interest.

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. If the Albanese government continues to allow such pressure to veto our international alliances, are they planning for us to end up without allies and even without fuel?