Articles by: "Graeme Dobell"
The Oz taxi test in the South Pacific

To see how deeply Australia reaches into the South Pacific, try the taxi test. Hop into a taxi anywhere in the Islands and negotiate to pay the fare in Australian dollars. My random survey over …

Pacific future politics

Inadvertently, Fiji has done Australia a favour in the diplomatic duel over what the South Pacific future should look like. Granted, you have to work hard to find positives in the arid argument that has …

Rethinking Australia’s economic role in the Pacific

Australia’s remaking its relationship with Fiji and promising a rethink of South Pacific regionalism. But there’s another even bigger topic on the regional renewal menu—Australia’s economic role in the South Pacific. Having ticked off Free …

Australia, Fiji and Pacific regionalism

Fiji’s declared starting point for talking to Australia about the future of Pacific regionalism is that Australia should leave the Pacific Islands Forum. Australia’s undeclared position—made clear by its actions—is that the Forum is more …

The delights of summitry

On the evidence of APEC, the East Asia Summit and the G20, anyone who decries summitry as a waste of time, talent and money either has a narrow view of the world or is extremely …

Australia and Fiji go from duel to dance

Q: How do porcupines make love? A: Carefully. The joke sets up the Australia’s ‘new era of partnership and prosperity’ with Fiji. The goal is to avoid being impaled on the points while pursuing the …

Getting to yes for China’s Infrastructure Bank

Australia, South Korea and Indonesia used their status to play coy on joining China’s new development bank. Canberra, Seoul and Jakarta felt they could stand back and await further blandishment while 20 Asian nations joined …

Australia as US satrap

The former diplomatic mandarins of Oz think Australia is so committed to the US alliance it has mislaid its primary focus on Asia. A leading light of the ex-mandarins, John McCarthy, says Asia sees Australia …

Julia on attack and defence

Julia Gillard writes that she inherited ‘unrealistic’ defence settings from Kevin Rudd and hints faintly that she bequeathed the same to the Abbott government. Just as Gillard needed a new defence policy because of Kevin …

Gough’s remaking of foreign policy

Gough Whitlam helped Australia think about finding its security in Asia, not to seek security from Asia. Not least of Whitlam’s achievements was to make Australia colour-blind, in both word and deed. Harold Holt’s government, …

Gough’s remaking of Defence policy

Gough Whitlam was a physical giant with an intellect to match. His flaws were pretty sizeable, too, and the pygmies who beset him were often from his own party. His self-mocking humour was immensely appealing, …

Canberra’s unholy trinity

Here’s Canberra lore—or three rules of an Unholy Trinity—explaining how politicians operate. When nothing makes sense, rely on the Trinity pulsing beneath the surface of party, parliament and government: It’s always personal There’s always a …