Penny Wong must be wondering why anybody ever said life wasn't meant to be easy.
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For some time now the brutal reality of that has been regularly belting her in the face. In the middle of January a further Australian aid commitment was announced which included $6 million to UNRWA.
It is the UN body charged with aiding education, healthcare and social services in Gaza. It might have seemed like a good idea at the time. Within days of the announcement there were credible allegations that UNRWA people were directly involved on the October 7 atrocities.
Now we've suspended funding. It's a you-know-what sandwich and that's what Wong has to deal with.
UNRWA isn't some cleanskin unit about which there have been no concerns. That is why it is not just the allegations that are alarming.
What's equally alarming is the apparent surprise expressed by UN leadership. Antonio Guterres, once short-term prime minister of Portugal, thereafter international bureaucrat, says we shouldn't worry because the bad guys have been sacked.
Imagine if our local police had people who were collaborating and involved with drug runners. Would we accept our commissioner saying "Oh, it's OK, they've been sacked." Wouldn't we ask, "Why the hell you didn't know?"
Wouldn't we expect protocols to be in place to check involvement with drug runners? And so it should be with UNRWA. If you wanted to be a Hamas activist you shouldn't be on the UN payroll.
Are we to believe that with decades of working in Hamas-infested Gaza, side-by-side with Palestinians helping deliver health, education and food, nobody queried the organisation's independence from Hamas?
Are we to believe there was no advice to the UN or our government about Hamas infiltration of UNRWA? Tell someone who believes it.
Worse, are we expected to swallow that the UN had no protocols in place to detect, deter and deal with Hamas infiltration. The credibility and trust that neutrality brings has to be protected.
It doesn't just exist because the words United Nations are in your logo. Given UNRWA has been involved in the delivery of health, education and food aid for years, it's reasonable to ask what they knew about Hamas' activities.
What did they know about schools indoctrinating Palestinian kids with vile anti-Semitic views, about Hamas tunnels under schools and hospitals and about aid being diverted on the ground away from needy Palestinians to the Hamas cause.
If all that experience in Gaza makes them ideal to deliver our aid, it surely means they have insight into those questions. Was this sort of thing going on and the UNRWA just didn't know? Pull the other one.
So what did our government know about the infiltration of UNRWA by Hamas supporters? What questions did we ask and when? Clearly our government, if it did consider the risk, thought it one worth taking.
The press statement made it clear we wanted the aid to go to those who needed it. How brave and thoughtful to cover your back by slipping a few words into a press release. Honestly, that's like leaving matches on the coffee table and going out for a few hours telling the kids not to play with them.
Yeah. Sure. Where was the grunt behind our concern? What steps were taken to ensure the money went where it should?
Is aid needed? Yes. Is UNRWA the only body that could deliver it? No.
It's a joke to think that only one organisation could do it. What about the UN World Food Program?
They are very experienced at delivering food in horrific and varied circumstances around the world. Food and water they'd be good at. Healthcare is another issue but no one sensibly believes it's UNRWA or nothing. What about something akin to a UN Peacekeeping force? Yes there's no peace to keep but the world had shown it can bring in and "blue beret" people from around the globe to do a job without arms.
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It could be done. You just have to say to the UN the UNRWA is at risk of compromise (whilst keeping a straight face because your understatement looks ridiculous) and say you have to use another method. No new method, no money. Suddenly the gargantuan bureaucracy that is the UN will find another way. You may say that's too tough a call. But now we're just in limbo because what we stupidly hoped wasn't the case appears to have been staring us in the face.
Even worse the UN and UNRWA are now saying they'll have to stop food deliveries if the money from us and others isn't restored.
That's the kind of people we want running the UN? Blackmailers. Give our finance department, any former minister who's had to make tough decisions, any small business owner or any tradie the UN books and a red pencil, you'll find that money in New York within a few hours.
Oh, didn't I mention, all these save-the-world bureaucrats have offices in New York, Geneva, Rome, Paris. And they have allowances that go with big-city living. The UN could find the money.
Amanda Vanstone is a former senator for South Australia, a former Howard government minister, and a former ambassador to Italy. She hosts Counterpoint on ABC Radio National and writes fortnightly for ACM.
Amanda Vanstone is a former senator for South Australia, a former Howard government minister, and a former ambassador to Italy. She hosts Counterpoint on ABC Radio National and writes fortnightly for ACM.
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