Peter Dutton says Penny Wong ‘most inappropriate person’ to represent Australia on Auschwitz trip

Peter Dutton has issued a brutal takedown of Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s trip to Poland, saying she is the “most inappropriate person” to represent Australia at the 80th anniversary of the Auschwitz concentration camp’s liberation.

Senator Wong, along with Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Australia’s anti-Semitism envoy Jillian Segal, will visits Europe’s most notorious concentration camp on Tuesday, January 27.

Almost a million Jewish people were slaughtered at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, before it was liberated on January 27, 1945.

The Opposition Leader said Australia’s relationship with Israel had been “trashed” by the Albanese Government.

“I think when we’ve got the Jewish community living in fear in our country, and ... when you see the position Penny Wong has taken in conflict with our close allies, including the US in votes at the UN, I think she is the most inappropriate person to go and represent our country,” he said.

“And I think the Prime Minister should be more sensitive, and I think the Prime Minister should show leadership here, so he recognised the sensitivities and the concerns.

“This is a very significant occasion of course, and the sensitivities are very real because people are still held in captivity by Hamas.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was forced to defend his Foreign Minister during an appearance at the National Press Club on Friday.

“Penny Wong is our Foreign Minister. She has stood up against anti-Semitism at each and every opportunity and will always continue to do so,” he said.

“She’s someone for whom a core belief in the dignity of every human being is just a part of her character, as much as any person I have met in my entire life.”

The Albanese Government has copped intense criticism in recent months that it had been slow to respond to a growing anti-Semitic crisis in Australia.

Mr Albanese resisted persistent calls from the Opposition and Ms Segal, his own hand-picked anti-Semitism envoy, to tackle the growing crisis.

Just seven days ago, Mr Albanese said he believed people didn’t want “more meetings, they want to see more action”.

But on Tuesday, after a childcare centre in Sydney was vandalised with anti-Semitic graffiti and set alight, the Prime Minister finally caved to pressure and called the state and territory leaders for an urgent national cabinet meeting.

The cabinet determined that a national database was needed so that states and territories would be able to work better together to fight the alarming scourge.

Australia’s relationship with Israel has been under increased pressure since the Albanese Government supported a UN resolution backing a Palestinian state and demanding Israel withdraw from Occupied Territories.

The backflip, which happened in December 2024, walked back 20 years of support for the Middle East’s only democracy.