Australia's center-right leader Tony Abbott, who won a landslide victory at national elections on Saturday as voters brought an end to six years of Labor government, is considered as a staunch and outspoken friend of Israel.
Abbott, 55, a former journalist, business manager and trainee priest, promised to restore political stability, cut taxes and crack down on asylum seekers arriving by boat.
Election officials said with about 80 percent of the vote counted, Abbott's Liberal-National Party coalition is expected to have more than 90 seats in the new 150-seat parliament to 55 for Labor.
While outgoing Labour Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had abandoned Australia’s long-standing pro-Israel position, Abott has pledged during the election campaign to improve the relations with the Jewish state, toughen the government’s approach toward terorist organisations and end financial support for organizations connected to the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against Israel.
‘’If elected, we are firmly committed to restoring the Australia-Israeli friendship to the strength it enjoyed under (Prime Minister) John Howard,’’ Abott wrote in a message published in the Australian Jewish News weekly.
Howard had been hailed as one of Israel’s best friends in the world.
In an address to the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce in July, Abbott stressed ''the extraordinary contribution to Australia that Jewish people have made.'
''Australia is the only country in the world, outside of Israel, where Jewish people have been Chief Justice, Commander in Chief of the Army, and Head of State,'' he added.
The decline in relations between Australia and Israel was particularly clear after Bob Carr was appointed as Foreign Minister in March 2012.
He disappointed the Australian Jewish community a few weeks ago when he told Moslems at a Sydney mosque, “I’ve been to Ramallah, I’ve spoken to the Palestinian leadership, and we support their aspirations to have a Palestinian state in the context of a Middle East peace…we say unequivocally, all settlements on Palestinian land are illegal under international law and should cease.”
‘’No previous Australian Foreign Minister has said that “all” the settlements are illegal. Such dogmatic generalizations are unworthy of a respected middle power like Australia,’’ said Peter Wertheim, Director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the 120,000 member community’s representative organization.
In 2012, Carr pressed then Prime Minister Julia Gillard to reverse her decision to vote against upgrading the Palestinian Authority status as a non-member observer at the UN General Assembly.
In May 2010, Australia under Kevin Rudd expelled a Mossad agent after reports that Australian passports had been forged in the framework of the assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai. And earlier this year, tensions between the two countries developed further following the reported suicide in prison of ex-Mossad agent and Australian-Israeli citizen Ben Zygier.