One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has claimed his faith in US President Donald Trump \u201cdoesn\u2019t really matter\u201d and instead Australia must \u201cdeal with the cards that have been dealt\u201d to it, after the US leader again threatened to blow up civilian infrastructure in Iran, should a peace deal not be struck. <\/p>\n
In a post on his Truth Social account, Mr Trump said the US was \u201cgoing to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!\u201d. \u201cThey\u2019ll come down fast, they\u2019ll come down easy and, if they don\u2019t take the DEAL, it will be my Honour to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other presidents, for the last 47 years,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n
The threat comes as both the US and Iran have accused each other of violating a fragile two-week ceasefire. Australia has repeatedly backed calls for an end to the conflict and urged the warring parties to ramp up diplomatic negotiations to achieve the same. <\/p>\n
Mr Joyce echoed this sentiment on Monday, telling Seven\u2019s Sunrise Australians all \u201choped and prayed\u201d the conflict would come to an end as soon as possible. <\/p>\n
But he also refused to make an assessment of Mr Trump\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
Asked if he had faith in the US leader, the New England MP said: \u201cWell, it doesn\u2019t really matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to deal with the cards that have been dealt with us,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt does show the world in a febrile nature, and we\u2019re living in a different world now. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it shows that, as we\u2019ve always known, there\u2019s no such thing as a short war. They just go on, and this one\u2019s going on.\u201d
But a major learning for Australia was to \u201cprepare ourselves better in the future\u201d, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe were not prepared for this. And if something like this happens again \u2026 we have got to be vastly better prepared than we were this time, because this is in some areas is a train wreck, economically.\u201d<\/p>\n
Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek earlier told the same broadcaster Australia wanted to see peace \u201cas soon as possible\u201d, conceding the global uncertainty did not \u201cbenefit anyone\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we\u2019ve seen real impacts on civilians in Iran and around the Middle East, which, of course, we\u2019re concerned about,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd although Australia is not formally a party to this conflict, Australians are paying a very heavy price for it.
\u201cYou certainly see the price at the petrol station, but you also see it flowing through to goods and services across the economy … We want to see de-escalation, and we want to see the situation resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Australia was not consulted or informed by the US and Israel ahead of their strikes on Iran on February 28. But Australia was the first country to express qualified support for US actions, supporting the goal of degrading Tehran\u2019s nuclear capability. <\/p>\n
Anthony Albanese has since called for clarity on Mr Trump\u2019s objectives.<\/p>\n
More to come. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has claimed his faith in US President Donald Trump \u201cdoesn\u2019t really matter\u201d and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-618042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}