Wong’s Keyboard: Faster Than NBN In Wadeye

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed its overseas condemnation pipeline is now operating at peak capacity, producing statements at a rate of one every 12 minutes, even as the National Indigenous Australians Agency continues to deliver Closing the Gap outcomes at the pre-existing tempo of one missed target per reporting cycle.

The acknowledgement followed Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s rapid response to a video posted by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, which the Minister described as “shocking and unacceptable.”

A senior departmental official said the comparison was unfair because the two arms of government were resourced differently.

“The condemnation pipeline is fully automated” the official said. “We have a template, we have a keyboard, we have Twitter. The remote community side of the equation requires roads, housing, water, staff and roads again because we forgot the first lot. It’s just a different workflow.”

Internal department modelling shows that since 2022 DFAT has produced over a thousand condemnations of various international incidents, while four of the 19 Closing the Gap targets remain on track. Officials confirmed this was within forecast.

The official said remote communities should not feel overlooked and pointed to the soon-to-be-released Discussion Paper on Frameworks for Discussions, which is itself the subject of a discussion.

“We are committed to a strongly worded response to overseas events” they said. “We are also committed to thinking very hard about the domestic ones. Those are two completely different commitments.”

Ambassador-calling capacity has also been expanded. Officials confirmed Hillel Newman would attend a meeting on Thursday, three years sooner than any meeting on the Anangu youth diversion proposal first lodged in 2023.

A meeting about that meeting is now being scheduled.