Australia in the World

The Australian government’s announcement today that it will contribute assets to a maritime coalition force in the Persian Gulf comes as no surprise, given the very public way the US request was delivered in Sydney at the recent AUSMIN meeting. Washington doesn’t make those type of requests

This week in the Australian parliament, the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security held the first public hearing for its inquiry into press freedom. The inquiry follows raids in June by the Australian Federal Police on the home of a News Corporation journalist and the offices of the national

Australia is known as a great export nation, but one of its least successful and most tenacious exports has again surfaced this week. In a video that appears to have “gone viral”, an Australian tourist in Bali terrorises locals – fly-kicking a motorcyclist off his bike, assaulting a man in his

For all the back-and-forth Hugh White has generated with his latest book, How to Defend Australia, in a national preoccupation with the China question, little serious discussion has been devoted to how to defend Australia’s southern front and cope with China’s increasing Antarctic footprint.

If only a minister of the Morrison government would be as forthright in identifying climate change as a massive destabilising force in Australia’s region as the Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell has been. In a private speech in Bowral in June, General Campbell is reported to have sounded

Separation anxiety A new call to split trade negotiation from diplomacy in Australia has once again underlined how the rise of China has unsettled traditional frameworks for making policy about economic and security interests. The divide between neo-liberal economic policy approaches

Over the past few months, sugar has featured prominently in India’s political and economic discussion. Countries such as Australia, Brazil and Guatemala are upset with the Indian government’s subsidies to its sugarcane farmers, alleging in a claim to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that the

One evening every June for more than 20 years, a “Pacific Night” reception has featured as a mainstay of the diplomatic circuit in Washington DC. It is organised largely through the New Zealand embassy, and also sponsored by the Australian embassy and other Pacific island countries. This year,

Analysis of the Lowy Institute Poll of Australians’ international perspectives reveals a remarkable resilience in the level of support for Australia’s alliance with the United States. This year, 72% of Australians considered the alliance either “very” or “fairly” important for Australia

“I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best”, wrote Benjamin Disraeli in the 19th century. Maya Angelou improved on that in the last century: “Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between”. Hugh White in his latest book How to Defend Australia

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has a longstanding commitment to achieving gender equality. We have made great progress supporting women in leadership and it is a point of pride that many high performing women have served in key positions, including as ambassadors to three of

It may be distasteful to some, but there is no escaping the need for political elites. The trick, particularly in a democracy, is for those elites to carry a sense of legitimacy. Australians are disconnected from politics, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they differ from politicians in their

When it comes to “stepping-up” in the Pacific, Australians get the what, they get the who, and they get the why. But they still have a long way to go before they’re convinced that spending more on foreign aid is in the national interest.  Attitudes towards the Pacific revealed in the

The latest Lowy Institute poll indicates that Australians are increasingly concerned about climate change and its implications. Three figures are particularly telling. First, and perhaps most striking, Australians have identified climate change as the most critical threat to Australia’

Ambiguity in foreign policy is no bad thing, and on Iran, the only certainty Donald Trump has displayed after a week of heightened tension was his weekend declaration that “the only one that matters is me”. So the debate is on, hawks versus doves, over messages and intentions. Was

China has dominated Australian media over the past week. Warships, baby milk formula, Hong Kong protests, the US China trade war, the list goes on. Politicians, academics, commentators and journalists are all weighing in. Confusing at the least, damaging at the worst, the result is chaotic

The recent federal police raids against the ABC and News Corp raised the issue of state control, not only of the free press, but of public institutions. The Australian Army was the object of stories at the centre of investigations into the ABC, but the army can also be the subject of discussions of

Later this month, Prime Minister Scott Morrison will travel to Osaka for the annual G20 Leaders’ summit, and he will no doubt want to make his mark following his election triumph. Advocating for the reform of the international energy architecture would be a good place to start, given the rapidly

When the Australian Defence Force first dispatched its flotilla known as the “Indo-Pacific Endeavour”, the then Defence minister Christopher Pyne touted the regional drills as Australia’s “premier international engagement activity” designed to “enhance partnerships”. But what lies

On Sunday Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that Marise Payne will be Minister for Foreign Affairs in his post-election cabinet. Selected to take over the portfolio last year after Julie Bishop’s resignation (and reportedly at her recommendation), Marise Payne had just eight months in the

The Bhartiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Narendra Modi has secured his second term as India’s Prime Minister with a landslide victory in the 2019 general elections. He spearheaded the long drawn out election campaign by labelling himself as India’s watchman, while the opposition criticised him for

Ninety per cent free Australia’s election campaign might have been largely devoid of international affairs debate, but the Liberal Party did release a low-key trade policy which provides some insights into where the new government will take what it calls commercial diplomacy. It is worth

Not everyone who was hoping for a Labor victory took the loss well. But if, as the sore losers claimed, the unexpected return of the centre-right Morrison Government shows that Australians are racist, greedy, mean-spirited and stupid, then it must have come over the electorate rather quickly.

Australia has never had a prime minister quite so convinced of the power of human agency as Bob Hawke. Hawke never doubted his own capacity to persuade. And the secret of persuasion, and of any good negotiation, was to identify the interests of the various players and bring them together in search