5 members of Iranian women’s soccer team defect, Australia deploys RAAF plane and missiles to Gulf

The Albanese government has given humanitarian visas to five members of the Iranian women’s soccer team, including its captain, to enable them to remain in Australia, and is offering protection to any more of the women who want to defect.

The elaborate operation to give the women protection culminated late Monday night, with the Australian Federal Police moving the women, who were staying at a Gold Coast hotel, to a safe location.

Home Affairs minister Tony Burke, met with the women at the Gold Coast location. He told a Brisbane news conference early Monday that the women were happy to have their names and photographers released. “They want to be described as who they are.[…] they’re not activists, they’re athletes who want to be safe.”

The women, who were pictured with Burke, are Zahra Ghanbari, captain of the Iranian women’s national football team. Fatemeh Pasandideh, Zahra Sarbali, Atefeh Ramazanzadeh and Mona Hamoudi.

Burke stressed if remaining team members wanted to make a similar decision, “the same opportunity is there. Australia has taken the Iranian women’s soccer team into our hearts.

"These women are tremendously popular in Australia, but we realise they are in a terribly difficult situation with the decisions that they’re making. But the opportunity will continue to be there for them to talk to Australian officials if they wish to.”

Prime Minister Albanese briefed United States President Donald Trump in the early hours of Tuesday on the situation. The call lasted reportedly some 40 minutes and ranged beyond the women.

“President Trump rang me this morning just before 2:00 AM. We had a very positive discussion. He was concerned about the Iranian women in the soccer team and their welfare and their safety if they returned home,” Albanese said at a Tuesday news conference.

The women made a gesture of defiance at their first match of the Asian Cup when they declined to sing their national anthem. They were denounced as traitors on Iranian state TV. At their next match they sang and saluted.

Burke described the scene after “everything had been signed off”.

“There were lots of photos, lots of celebrating, and then a spontaneous outcry of ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi’. These women are great athletes, great people, and they’re going to feel very much at home in Australia.”

Deployment of RAAF plane to Gulf

News of the defections came as the government announced the deployment, in response to requests from the region, of an E-7A Wedgetail to the gulf “to help protect and defend Australians and other civilians”.

Albanese said this followed a “conversation that I had with the President Mohammed bin Zayed [of the United Arab Emirates] and other requests”.

The plane – which was recently deployed to Europe as part of assistance to Ukraine – goes with 85 Australian Defence Force personnel, for an initial four weeks. The government is also sending Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles to the UAE.

Albanese stressed that the deployment was purely for defensive purposes. “We’re not taking offensive action against Iran”, he said, and highlighted the large number of Australians in the region.

“The first priority of my government is and always will be to keep Australians safe. There are around 115,000 Australians in the Middle East, around 24,000 of those in the UAE.”

Bowen says don’t panic about fuel

As fuel prices rise sharply the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, told Australians “there is no need for panic buying.

"Now, I do have a great deal of concern and empathy for those farmers in particular who, because of the situation with the supply chain in regional Australia, are having difficulty getting diesel.

"But I do need to emphasise this is managing a huge spike in demand, not an impact on supply at this point.”

Bowen said the government was convening a round table of the National Farmers Federation, the oil companies, the peak groups and Trucking Australia, “to ensure that the flow of communication between those groups is as strong as it could be”.

He said the important thing to know was there was “no need to be concerned at this point about the supply of diesel or petrol […] because our stocks are as high as they were before this crisis began. But we do need to work to ensure that as much as possible is flowing to farmers”.