SYDNEY, Australia — Like many Australians, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, 56, is crazy about sports. He is a passionate cyclist, an Ironman triathlete and a former boxer. The zeal that Mr. Abbott has shown on the track and in the ring is now on display as he directs Australia’s efforts against the militants of the Islamic State, abroad and at home.
Though he has been in office only a year and has had meager experience in foreign affairs, Mr. Abbott moved quickly to send a squadron of fighter jets and 600 military personnel to the Middle East to be ready to join the fight against the militants in Iraq and Syria, even before President Obama formally rallied American allies.
Mr. Abbott followed up with sweeping counterterrorism raids in two cities, aimed at followers of the Islamic State. The raids resulted in just two arrests, but they helped the government look tough in confronting homegrown Muslim radicals.
Australian Federal Police officers stood guard outside Parliament House Friday in Canberra.After Sweep, Australia Adds Security at ParliamentSEPT. 19, 2014
And in response to Mr. Obama’s call for action to deter recruitment by the extremists, legislation was passed in the lower house of Parliament on Wednesday expanding police powers to detain suspects, increasing surveillance of telecommunications and making the unauthorized reporting on intelligence matters by journalists punishable by a prison term of up to 10 years.
Relatively isolated and sparsely populated, Australia has long seen value in being one of America’s closest allies, fighting alongside the United States in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. In times of crisis, Australia has kept in step with the United States, on whom it relies heavily for security guarantees.
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For Mr. Abbott, the emergence of the Islamic State has offered an opportunity to lift his popularity at home. Political commentators say they believe the prime minister’s standing has vastly improved since May, when he introduced an unpopular first budget that cut spending on schools, hospitals and older adults. Afterward, polls showed the opposition Labor Party ahead of Mr. Abbott’s conservative Liberal Party.
Now, with the encouragement of the country’s brash news media, dominated by Rupert Murdoch, and talk radio hosts who rail against the 500,000 Muslims living in Australia, Mr. Abbott is now widely seen as a scrappy prizefighter ready to take on the world. And the Labor opposition, afraid of appearing soft, has backed his policy moves, including the tough new laws.
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In July, Mr. Abbott gave Shinzo Abe, the conservative prime minister of Japan, the opportunity to address Parliament during his visit to Australia, welcoming him more warmly than Mr. Obama did in Washington.
In his introduction of Mr. Abe to Parliament, Mr. Abbott praised the “skill and sense of honor” of the Japanese sailors who attacked Sydney Harbor in 1942, killing 21 sailors.
The Australian writer Richard Flanagan, who recently published a harrowing novel about Japan’s brutal treatment of Australian prisoners of war, many of whom died, in what was then Burma, called Mr. Abbott’s praise of the Japanese submarine crews “a strange perversity.”
“Many Australians were offended,” Mr. Flanagan said, “as many were puzzled why Abe was allowed to use the Australian Parliament to broadcast what was widely understood internationally as a message of Japanese belligerence to China.”
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• Ross Tapsell, Lecturer in Asian Studies at Australian National University: Q&A: Australia’s reaction to arrest of French journalists in West Papua: The Australian Senate passed a motion last week, with explicit support from the Foreign Minister’s office, expressing concern over the imprisonment of two French journalists for reporting in Indonesia’s restive province using tourist visas. Read the interview here
