Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has lashed out at Russia, saying it's about time it got tough with the Syrian government.
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He said Russia has used its position as a member of the United Nations Security Council to veto resolutions designed to ensure that Syria's crime of using chemical weapons is thoroughly investigated and cannot be repeated.
"It is time that Russia played a responsible role," Mr Turnbull told reporters in Sydney on Sunday after the joint air strikes on Syrian chemical weapon sites by the US, UK and France on Saturday
"It has all of the influence and authority over the Syrian government that it needs to ensure that these crimes are not committed."
He said he had also spoken to UK Prime Minister Theresa May on Saturday night about Russian operatives poisoning a former Russian spy and his daughter with a nerve gas in Salisbury last month.
This resulted in an internationally co-ordinated response of expelling Russian diplomats.
"There will be no tolerance of this type of criminal activity," Mr Turnbull said.
US President Donald Trump hailed Saturday's strike targeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons capabilities as mission accomplished.
The strikes were in response to a suspected poison gas attack by Assad in the Damascus suburb of Douma last weekend.
Australia has backed the mission, with Mr Turnbull calling it "a calibrated, proportionate and targeted response".
"It is very crucial that regimes understand that if they cross that red line there will be consequences," Trade Minister Steve Ciobo told Sky News.
Labor's foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong agreed and said Saturday's air strike was the right response.
"The world has drawn a red line into the use of chemical weapons and an appropriate response to the breaching of that needs to be put in place," she said.
Liberal senator and former general Jim Molan expects Russia to retaliate.
"There's no way in the world this is the end of the activity because that's up to the Russians," Senator Molan told the Nine network.
"(There's) been threats made by the Russians, by the Iranians, they are mixed up in the Syrian activity."
He expected Russian President Vladimir Putin to counter, possibly with a cyber attack, and release a lot of disinformation.
"The limited nature of what the Americans have done removes a lot of options from him," Senator Molan said.
Senator Wong said the opposition, like the Australian government, disagreed with many of the actions taken by Russia.
"We continue to be critical of them, in a great many respects, including in their actions in relation to Syria."
Mr Ciobo told the ABC that Russia had a choice to make.
"Do they want to be alongside murderous regimes that use chemical weapons against their own people?" he said.
"Or would they rather be aligned with those countries that are motivated to protect the innocent and to try to bring a successful peaceful resolution."
Overnight, the UN Security Council rejected a Russian resolution calling for condemnation of the "aggression" by the US and its allies against Syria.
Russia got support from only two other countries on the 15-member council - China and Bolivia.
Australian Associated Press
