From the way Morrison was boasting about the release of Kylie Moore-Gilbert, you’d almost forget he was announcing an abject surrender to a dangerous regime.
From the way Scott Morrison and Marise Payne were boasting about how they’d secured the release of the Melbourne academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert you’d think they’d sent the commandos on a daring rescue mission to Tehran rather than an official to Bangkok to work out the Thai price to release three Iranian government agents who had attempted murder Israeli diplomats.
The prime-ministerial rhetoric at his press conference with the Foreign Affairs Minister Payne was surreal. Listening to him it was almost possible to forget he was announcing this country’s abject surrender to one of the world’s worst regimes.
“Our message to the Iranian government,” he explained, “is the detention of Australians for no reason that can be substantiated is just not on. It’s not lawful, it is not recognised by Australia and we won’t accept it and we will do everything to ensure we can, in Australia’s interest, to secure the release of people who have been falsely detained.”
Sorry Prime Minister, but that’s not correct. The message we have sent Tehran, with this deal, and the earlier release of an Iranian wanted by the US for sanctions busting, is a simple one: crime pays.
Dr Moore-Gilbert’s family and friends are free to rejoice in her freedom after all they have done to keep her predicament before the public for the past two years.
Read the article by James Campbell in the Herald Sun.