By The Diplomat
Do you think the Australian government has been giving enough attention to its more immediate neighborhood?
I think Australia has long looked to the north, and seen the potential that’s currently being realized in Southeast Asia. A key focus of the Howard government was building and maintaining the relationship with Indonesia, for example. Australia also became a member of the East Asia Forum, which I think was one of the key achievements of the government, with the support of countries like Japan. We also have strong free trade agreements with some Southeast Asian nations, and we support the free trade agenda of some countries in the region.
I don’t think Australia is widely recognized as the multicultural nation that it really is. We’ve welcomed migrants from around the world to our shores, and we certainly have many migrants from Southeast Asia, living in Australia and contributing to one of the most ethnically diverse nations on earth.
Why don’t you think Australia has been seen as culturally diverse? Is there anything the government could do to address that perception?
I think we should make more of it in our public diplomacy. We should be making a great deal of the fact that Australia is a nation of immigrants, and that we have people from every corner of the globe here. Not every nation can lay claim to that. This is a positive thing – it’s one of Australia’s strengths as a nation, and we’ve been able to do that in a relatively cohesive way. It’s a remarkable achievement, and I would say it’s the most successful multicultural experiment on earth.
Is there any aspect of Australia’s foreign policy you think has been neglected?
I think the greatest foreign policy challenges occur when there are significant shifts in strategic power. That’s been the case since the Peloponnesian War. We are seeing a shift from a unipolar world to a bipolar world. But I think that strong economic growth in India, in particular, offers potential for another leader in the region. I think that India certainly deserves more attention from Australia generally.
And I think most definitely from an Australian perspective, Papua New Guinea deserves much more attention. The events of recent weeks have proven that the Australian government should have been paying much more attention to the country. Papua New Guinea remains one of the poorest nations on earth, despite having enormous potential through a mining and resources boom that’s currently under way. However, it has been politically unstable in recent times, with the ill health of the long standing prime minister, Sir Michael Somare. He was essentially sacked from his prime ministership in his absence, and a new prime minister and cabinet took over.
Sir Michael challenged this in court, and the court overturned the decision to install Peter O’Neill as prime minister. There was a stand-off as the country essentially had two prime ministers, each of whom appointed their own governor general and cabinet.
So the country was in chaos. Fortunately, the military stayed out of it, and there will be a political solution. But the fact that our neighbor was on the brink of considerable conflict was quite troubling, and I feel that the Australian government didn’t have its focus on what was happening there.
Julie Bishop is Deputy Leader of Australia's Liberal Party and Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Shadow Minister for Trade.
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Carl
I think the important point about this article is that people in Asia think the military alliance is a new thing whereas it isn’t at all. Australia and New Zealand worked closely with the US to defeat the Japanese in World War 2.After the war the alliance continued in the form of ANZUS which NZ was later kicked out of for daring to tell the US that it wouldn’t allow nuclear armed ships in its ports. Apart from ANZUS joint military exercises over the years since the end of WW2 though, the US has pretty much kept out of the Pacific.Asian countries which are worried about this should get out their history books. It was amusing to read that Australia still hasn’t worked out a free trade agreement with China. The pariah NZ did this almost 10 years ago and was the first western country to do so. NZ knows which side its bread is buttered on.
Ross
It was only four years ago that the FTA was signed between China and the US. Far from being a pariah, New Zealand has always had a strong relationship with Australia and after decades of engagement the US and NZ have signed the Wellington Declaration.
Mike
that aussie ‘dirt’ has a per capita gdp about 7 times higher than china… and it isnt as polluted as a toilet like china
CJSkinner
I regret that The Diplomat attracts so much comment that is ignorant personal attack on an author or commentator and so little on the issues per se.
For example the comments made by the Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister are moderate and reasonable on the issues even if the opportunity was also taken to attack the incumbent government.
A more fruitful avenue of discussion for The Diplomat would be to examine how the threatened closure of the Straits of Hormuz by Iran might affect China as a major importer of petroleum from the Gulf and what the USA might do to leverage its power in that area to broker a new Chinese position on the South China Sea
Michael
Australia is a slave state governed by the offspring of British criminals!
NATO
‘I think we should make more of it in our public diplomacy. We should be making a great deal of the fact that Australia is a nation of immigrants, and that we have people from every corner of the globe here. Not every nation can lay claim to that. This is a positive thing – it’s one of Australia’s strengths as a nation, and we’ve been able to do that in a relatively cohesive way. It’s a remarkable achievement, and I would say it’s the most successful multicultural experiment on earth.’
- You’ve got to be joking.. Tapping into Australia’s unfortunate pre-disposition for xenophobia towards our northern neighbours is the Liberals election trump card.
If Bishop and the Liberals feel so strongly about our immigrant heritage, why must they demonize asylum seekers and refugees in the manner they do? Why argue that our border security has failed because of a surge in boat arrivals, but never mention the many more thousands of (white) visa over-stayers who continue to silently invade our communities? The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Sure, Australians are proud of their immigrant heritage, as long as those immigrants happen to be of Anglo descent, bugger the rest.
With denialist leaders such as Bishop, its no wonder the rest of Asia loathes us.
Dave D
Hmm. If the opposition do take government at the next election, I’d be very surprised if Julie Bishop remained in the foreign affairs portfolio.
She’s botched quite a number of issues, which is rather impressive for an opposition spokesperson who usually don’t manage to do much damage.
She was silly enough to comment on the operations of the Australian intelligence agencies, going as far as to say that forged Australian passports were used by agents.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/05/26/greg-sheridan-was-right-about-julie-bishop-that-is/
I’d be very surprised if she was ever installed in the role.
JohnX
I am sorry that Julie Bishop cant spell China let alone even know where the country is.
She is a politician and would buy goose grease if it meant her ideas held.
Julie Bishop said:
“Kevin Rudd has been hectoring China on certain occasions, and I think some of the things that the government has done haven’t helped the relationship at all. There has been no progress on the free trade agreement, although the relationship between individuals remains strong across many parts of the economy. We do have different political systems, which does lead to some tensions over issues such as human rights. But we’ve always believed that these issues can be resolved by adopting a position of mutual respect. We do have a ministerial-level dialogue with China, although I think more could and should be made of that.”
Maybe if the Chinese Govt. actually listened to Australia then I would consider her words acceptable. Though, when they have arrested and incarcerated Chinese Australians before notifying the Aussie Government that they did so.
John Chan
China should listen to Australia, but does Australia present itself as a trustworthy and neutral party that China can rely on? This is the question Australia has to ask itself; probably the nation needs a deep soul searching for the future of its next century.
Does Australia want to be a respectable member of Asia, or does it want to be the remaining outpost of the Anglo-Saxon empire?
JohnX
I am not sure that you really understand Australia.
But, lets begin. Australia is made up of many ethnicities nowdays and has been for at least the last 20 odd years that I have dealt with it.
I have had Australian Vietnamese friends, Chinese friends, Japanese friends, Candian friends, Indian friends etc. They all make up what is Australia today.
Australia acts in its own interests just like any other nation. I am not sure what you think a respectable member of Asia is? If its one that kowtows to China then I think you dont even know Asia.
Maybe your understanding of a nation is taken from a book and not from understanding that a nation changes. If Australia dealt with China today as it was the China of the 1950s who attacked and killed Australian troops who under a UN mandate went to defend South Korea then it would be stupid of them.
They deal fairly with China and accept that China will deal fairly with them, but Kowtowing is not in Australias interests. So dont think that deep soul searching will occur.
SCdad07
“Australia acts in its own interests just like any other nation” – How true then and now.
Take an example – Beaches in Australia were once opened to whites only. Then, Japanese was classified as white so they could swim in the beaches.
The Racial Discrimination Act was passed in 1975.
donny
Australia is not perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot less racist than it’s asian neighbors.
As far as being a multicultural nation, Australia is number 3.
Argentina
Australia
United States
United Kingdom
Continental Europe
Netherlands
Russia
Belgium
For some reason Australia continues to have a bad reputation on racism. I think it’s our blunt honesty, yeah we’re racist. But we have no race riots, no racist violence, no evidence of ghettos, only a small amount of racial segregation 40 years ago.
Tim
The reality John is China is politically very anti-western at this point in time and we in Australia can see that we are being excluded and what is worse is when Chinese state run businesses play games like this in our country.
There is no future here just further collapse of our Manufacturing Industry for China’s gain . This is
just a rerun of Japan and the manipulation of Coal prices in the 1980′s .
I think our Prime Minister needs to say this is not on.