ASIO finds Iran behind synagogue bombing but Sussan Ley directs political fallout to Albanese and Labor

It didn't take long after Melbourne's Adass Israel Synagogue was firebombed in December for the politics to kick in and snap judgements to be made.

The Australian Federal Police and ASIO were just starting to piece together clues when some were already laying ultimate blame at the feet of the Albanese government.

Then opposition leader Peter Dutton said the attack was a "sadly predictable outcome of Labor's failure to heed the warnings of the Australian Jewish community and the Coalition".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also quick to point the finger at the Australian government. "Unfortunately, it is impossible to separate this reprehensible act from the extreme anti-Israeli position of the Labor government in Australia," he posted on X.

Eight months on, a very different conclusion was reached this week.

ASIO's painstaking investigation found Iran was ultimately responsible for the synagogue attack, as well as an earlier arson attack on the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney, and potentially many other violent acts of antisemitism in Australia.

There was no suggestion the Albanese government's position on Israel played any role in influencing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard one way or another.

But if the government hoped this bombshell ASIO finding would deliver some political respite, it was mistaken.

Dialling the outrage up to 11

The Coalition backed the decision to expel Iran's ambassador and list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. It then quickly resumed the attack.

The government had been "dragged kicking and screaming" to list the IRGC, said shadow foreign minister Michaelia Cash. "We demanded action two and a half years ago", the senator remonstrated on Sunrise. "This government did nothing."

The outrage was dialled up to 11.

Across the corridor from Channel 7 in an ABC studio, Cash's Western Australian colleague Andrew Hastie was striking a very different tone.

The shadow home affairs minister agreed the IRGC should have been listed long ago, but acknowledged the former Coalition government was just as reluctant to act.

"I was chair of the intelligence committee, I was keen to list it," Hastie told Radio National. "We put it through the right channels but nonetheless here we are now." He wasn't interested in joining a political attack.

Hastie has frequently and noticeably been willing to take his own stance on a range of fronts since the Coalition's election wipe-out.

Earlier this month he contradicted Cash by calling on Israel to state its "end game" when it announced plans to take over Gaza City.

In July, Hastie took issue with shadow defence minister Angus Taylor's short-lived suggestion Australia and the United States should make a joint commitment to protect Taiwan's security.

And in June, Hastie was the first in the Coalition to shift course from the Dutton-era position on Ukraine. He told Insiders he strongly believed Australia "should consider an offer and respond to an offer" to send peacekeepers if such a force was ever put together.

Perhaps the former special forces troop commander genuinely prioritises the national interest over the Coalition's political interest. Perhaps he's positioning for an eventual leadership tilt as a voice of reason. Perhaps a bit of both.

The Coalition keeps blaming Labor

Either way, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley chose to follow Michaelia Cash on this one. By Question Time she was joining the political attack on Labor's failure to list the IRGC earlier.

"Why didn't you act sooner when the warnings were so clear and the risks so grave?" Ley asked the prime minister in parliament.

He replied by implying ASIO had not recommended listing the Revolutionary Guard until now.

"We listen to intelligence agencies, we don't try to second guess them," Albanese said. "We act by taking the advice of ASIO."

That didn't satisfy shadow attorney general Julian Leeser, a prominent Jewish MP, who argued "sometimes the government needs to exercise its own judgement".

Leeser went even further, suggesting the Iranian-orchestrated attacks in Australia could have been "stopped" had the IRGC been listed as a terrorist organisation earlier.

"The authorities could have had additional powers," he told Afternoon Briefing, "such as dealing with people who are associated with terrorist organisations."

The only problem is the lower level "cut outs" who carried out the attacks may have been in the dark about who was ultimately paying the bill. This was the whole point of the "complex web of proxies" described by ASIO boss Mike Burgess.

"We have no reason to believe that the people who were actually conducting the actions had any idea who had started it," Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said.

Had the IRGC been listed as a terrorist group at the time, it would have made no difference, was the implication.

There is bipartisan support for expelling the Iranian ambassador and listing the IRGC, but no end to the political brawl over antisemitic attacks in Australia.

Many, if not all, in the Coalition remain determined to pin at least some blame on Labor, even if ASIO says Iran was ultimately responsible.

David Speers is national political lead and host of Insiders, which airs on ABC TV at 9am on Sunday or on iview.