Malcolm Fraser was the last Australian Prime Minister who thought the Commonwealth could be a major instrument of Australian foreign policy. Some of Fraser’s successors—Hawke, Howard and even Gillard—believed the Commonwealth could do useful work …
Articles by: "Graeme Dobell"
On 11 September 1980, Malcolm Fraser stood in the House of Representatives to describe the four pillars of Australian foreign policy. The Prime Minister’s statement listed the ‘four essential components of our foreign policy’ in …
Lee Kuan Yew thought he had every right to lecture Australia. After all, he said, Australians were always lecturing Asia. And when LKY gave voice, quite a few amongst the great and good of Oz …
Pinning down great quotes can be an experience as ephemeral and exasperating as hunting the snark. Lee Kuan Yew’s warning that Australia could become ‘the white trash of Asia’ has snark-like qualities. Yet having tracked …
The most remarkable feature of Malcolm Fraser’s lifetime pursuit of Australia’s international interests was his journey from rock-ribbed, alliance-loving realist to green-tinged alliance decrier. Fraser’s eventual rejection of the US alliance as deeply dangerous to …
A useful history of Australia’s actions, apprehensions and aspirations in Southeast Asia over the last 75 years could be written using Lee Kuan Yew as actor and commentator. As a young translator, working for the …
Australian politics has grafted presidential habits onto a system of cabinet government. And recently, the Oz body politic has rejected the graft. The mismatch between presidential aspiration and parliamentary power introduces stutters and stuff-ups into …
Some costs and benefits of Australia’s Foreign Affairs revolution are clear. The revolution was DFAT swallowing AusAID (Pre-FAT eats WasAID, in Casey Building argot), crunching together diplomatic pinstripes and aidies. A benefit for the Abbott …
It’s now possible to do public-opinion surveys in China on everything from pandas to pensions. So why not slip in some questions about the territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas? That’s what …
To write of bureaucratic culture is to venture into fog and quicksand and risk returning with mud and mush. Yet in understanding a power town like Canberra, culture offers answers not delivered by legal tomes …
Smoke clears. Agony and anguish ebb. The fallen depart. The integration of AusAID into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade—the greatest revolution in Australia’s foreign policy bureaucracy since 1987—is done, if not dusted. The …
Trend stories are always about the warmth of the water and the health of the frog. How close to boiling is the water, how much capacity does the frog have to respond? Asia’s darkest trend …