Albanese Seeks Security Council Position and Criticizes Iran in Landmark UN Address

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has advocated for reform within the United Nations to address both longstanding and emerging global issues during his inaugural speech to the General Assembly.

In his address, he made a case for Australia to secure a position on the UN Security Council, while also highlighting his comprehensive foreign policy focused on regional security and climate initiatives.

“The United Nations serves a purpose beyond being a stage for powerful nations to block each other’s goals,” Albanese remarked in his maiden speech as Prime Minister at the UN.

“Here, middle powers and smaller countries can express and realize our ambitions. That’s why Australia is pursuing a seat on the UN Security Council for the 2029-30 period.”

Australia first held a temporary seat on the UN Security Council in 1946, with its most recent term in 2013-2014.

Reviving a bid originally launched by the Turnbull government in 2015, Albanese said Australia was “ready to play its part” in reforming the body and making it stronger, if it was elected to a sixth term.

The Security Council has five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The countries currently elected for a two-year term include Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Somalia.

UN risks ‘losing trust’ PM says, calling out Iran

Albanese urged unity among the UN members to meet global challenges of climate change as well as an end to wars in Gaza and Ukraine, or risk losing public trust.

“If we resign ourselves to the idea that war is inevitable, or relegate ourselves to the status of disinterested bystanders,” he said.

“If our only response to every crisis is to insist that there is nothing we can do, then we risk being trusted with nothing.”

This appeal followed findings by security agencies that Iran was behind two antisemitic incidents in Australia, such as the arson attack at the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne last December.

“We expelled the Iranian ambassador from Australia,” Albanese said.

“And here at the United Nations, we repeat to the world, there is no place for antisemitism.”

He has painted a picture of a highly unstable global environment, urging nations to act cooperatively to act against dictators, tyrants, oppressive regimes and autocracies.

“And if ever we had the luxury of imagining that breaches of international law were not our concern, or that conflict and turmoil in another part of the world could not affect us, those days are long gone,” he said.

Unlike US President Donald Trump, who recently dismissed climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” Albanese described it as an “existential threat.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Donald Trump are set to meet at the White House next month. Source: Supplied / Instagram

Hours after welcoming China’s first emissions reduction target of 7 to 10 per cent by 2035, Albanese reaffirmed his government’s commitment to a 2035 target for reducing carbon emissions by 62 to 70 per cent, first announced last week.

PM reaffirms calls for Gaza ceasefire

The prime minister reaffirmed Australia’s calls for a ceasefire, flow of aid into Gaza, immediate release of Israeli hostages taken by militant group Hamas on 7 October 2023, as well as the absence of Hamas in the future of the state.

“We are determined, ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’… ‘and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours’,” Albanese said, quoting the UN charter Australia helped draft 80 years ago.