Asked if the Iran ambassador expulsion was to ‘get back in Israel’s good books’, Tony Burke says:

This decision that we have taken is about one thing and about one thing only, and that is a safety and sovereignty of Australia. It’s about the safety of Australians, it’s about the sovereignty of Australians. And anyone who wants to try to find some other reason here or there, it’s just wrong. You don’t need that. What you start with is the absolute principle that the first role of any government is keeping its people safe. And when you have an attack that has been initiated by Iran in this way, you know, you can
deal with the cutouts, you can deal with the proxies, you can deal with the intermediaries, where you have a nation state behaving in that way, you have to act immediately to protect the safety of Australians and protect the sovereignty of Australians. That’s what we’ve done.