Australia is an open, tolerant democracy, and that is worth defending. But openness should never mean blindness.
Currently in the country, events are being organized to honor the memory of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 86-year-old theocratic dictator slain on Feb. 28 in the joint U.S.-Israel war on Iran, who ruled the Islamic Republic for nearly four decades through one of the most repressive regimes in the modern world. The disturbing part is not only that these memorials are being planned. It is that they are proceeding openly, including in venues that are public, council-owned or connected to government-funded institutions.
Let that sink in. In a liberal democracy, spaces maintained by Australian taxpayers are being used to memorialize a leader synonymous with repression at home, ideological aggression abroad, and the sponsorship of terrorism through networks and proxies that have destabilized entire regions and increasingly reach into Western societies, including Australia.
Some government leaders have condemned these memorials as inappropriate. But condemnation without action is little more than theater. And while the statements are made, the events proceed. That gap between words and consequences is where radicals thrive. They learn that Australia will express outrage, then move on. They learn there is no real boundary, only commentary.
And that is the core reality Australia must confront: We have radicals here. Not hypothetically. Not as a political slogan. As an observable fact.
We have seen it in the symbolism that has been normalized at rallies and protests, including imagery tied to Iran’s revolutionary regime. We have watched extremist actors operate inside mass movements that are marketed as humanitarian causes. This is how ideology spreads in an open society: It borrows the language of compassion, wraps itself in moral urgency and then smuggles in its heroes.
The venues matter because venues represent legitimacy.
A memorial held in a private home is one thing. A memorial held in a publicly owned or government-supported facility is something else entirely. It signals belonging, acceptance and normalization. It suggests, implicitly, that venerating a foreign theocratic ruler is simply another view within the broad Australian tent.
It is not.
Australia can protect freedom of speech without subsidising propaganda. We can uphold religious freedom without pretending political veneration of authoritarian leaders is merely a spiritual act. We can be inclusive without being naive.
If a council or publicly funded institution is offering its venue for events that glorify or memorialise a theocratic dictator, then it is not acting as a neutral facilitator of community life. It is providing infrastructure to a political project that stands in direct opposition to the democratic values those institutions exist to serve.
Some will argue that refusing such bookings is censorship. It is not. Nobody is entitled to the public purse. Nobody has an automatic right to use taxpayer-funded infrastructure to elevate authoritarian ideologues. Councils and publicly supported venues have rules and codes of conduct for a reason. Those rules exist to protect the community, including social cohesion and public confidence in shared spaces.
The deeper issue, though, is not only government. It is the role of moderates.
This problem does not exist because most Australians support Iran’s regime. They do not. It exists because radicals understand something that moderates too often forget: You do not need to be the majority to set the tone. You just need to be present, organized and unchallenged.
Moderates are the firewall. If mainstream voices do not call this out loudly and immediately, radicals will keep claiming public space by default. Silence will be mistaken for acceptance. Each unchallenged event will embolden the next.
Australia needs to decide what it stands for in practice, not just in speeches.
If leaders believe that these memorials are inappropriate, it is time to act accordingly. That means clearer guidance for publicly owned venues. It means councils applying their policies with backbone. It means ensuring taxpayer-funded infrastructure is not being used to legitimise admiration for authoritarian theocracy.
And it means community leaders, especially moderates, drawing a bright line. This is not a small community-relations issue. It is a test of whether an open society can defend its norms without compromising its freedoms.
The radicals are here.
They are testing the edges. They are probing what Australia will tolerate. And each time they are allowed to proceed, they push a little further.
First, it is the slogans. Then the symbols. Then come the portraits of a foreign theocratic dictator appear in the crowd. Now, memorials are being organized in publicly owned venues.
This is how boundaries move in open societies—not in dramatic leaps but in small increments that become normalized if not challenged.
Draw the line now, or accept that the line will keep moving until we no longer recognize the country we are defending.
