- The Strategist - https://www.aspistrategist.org.au -
Fifty years of Foreign Affairs: the scrooge effect
Posted By Graeme Dobell on December 21, 2020 @ 06:00
Australian diplomacy has had a low priority throughout the last quarter century. The proportion of total Commonwealth expenditure allocated to diplomacy fell from 0.38 percent in 1995–96 to 0.22 percent in 2018–19, a decline of 42 percent. The budget announced on 6 October 2020 included forward estimates for diplomacy which will reduce their share of Commonwealth outlays even further to 0.18 percent in 2023–24. This means that by 2023–24, Australian outlays on diplomacy will have been cut by 53 percent during the previous 28 years.
Halving the proportion of spending on diplomacy at a time of rising tension is shockingly irresponsible and ensures Australia’s diplomatic service is so inadequately funded and staffed that it cannot be fully effective.
To any Canberra insider, especially those in Coalition circles, the fact most of our diplomats are leftish is a given ... The spirit of Gough Whitlam continues to hover over DFAT’s R.G. Casey Building in Canberra. Most of our diplomats dream of an Australia less aligned with the US and have an often unqualified enthusiasm for the UN.
Most officers just want sensible workable policies and to get on with the job. They accept politics as a fact of life, not as the force driving them. That force is the national interest. A few are lefties. Some are conservative. Most are in the middle somewhere. Five I know in the past couple of decades became secretaries of defence. Many at the top of the intelligence community—not the soft side of politics—spent their early careers in DFAT.
In significant part, this has been down to a failure of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the Canberra bureaucratic struggle for budget and resources. It has failed to sell its value to the political class, to cultivate champions within the cabinet, or position itself with solutions to the government’s challenges.
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URL to article: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/fifty-years-of-foreign-affairs-the-scrooge-effect/
[1] Joe Biden rule: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuLwjFmESrg
[2] Tania Miletic and John Langmore: https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/australian-threadbare-diplomacy-in-conflict/
[3] ‘scrooge-like’: https://www.tai.org.au/content/australias-diplomatic-approach-needs-major-revamp
[4] six forces: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/fifty-years-of-foreign-affairs-friends-and-foes-in-canberra/
[5] Bureaucratic: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-8500.1993.tb00263.x
[6] public service: https://www.jstor.org/stable/977475?seq=1
[7] managerialism: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14719037.2018.1473475
[8] ministerial minders: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-canberra-minder/
[9] minder: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-birth-of-the-canberra-minder/
[10] mentality: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-growth-of-the-canberra-minder/
[11] deep: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/reader-response-straddling-the-divide/
[12] Minders: https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/rp/2008-09/09rp26.pdf
[13] public service ‘efficiency: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/BudgetReview201617/PublicSector
[14] dividend: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6545000/govt-to-bank-extra-savings-from-efficiency-dividend/
[15] Public Service Act 1999: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00057
[16] culture of DFAT: https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/diplomatic-compliance/
[17] staff in overseas posts: https://www.dfat.gov.au/news/speeches/Pages/institute-of-public-administration-australia-secretarys-series
[18] attacks: https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks
[19] Bali bombings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Bali_bombings
[20] ‘weaponised’: https://www.mup.com.au/books/chinas-grand-strategy-and-australias-future-in-the-new-global-order-paperback-softback
[21] ‘national security cowboys’: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/china-relations-national-security-cowboys-put-nations-interests-at-unnecessary-risk/news-story/54eaac6914356341f54936eb401abca3
[22] ‘more cowboy and less kow-tow’: https://www.aspi.org.au/opinion/better-safe-sorry-china
[23] ‘negative globalism’: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/2019-lowy-lecture-prime-minister-scott-morrison
[24] ‘golden consensus on aid’: https://archive.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/new-golden-consensus-aid
[25] aid superpower: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-and-aid-from-superpower-to-superwimp/
[26] cracked: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10357718.2016.1220493
[27] Merging AusAID: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/of-aid-and-wombats/
[28] marriage with Trade: https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/94323
[29] ‘burdensome boutique business’: https://devpolicy.org/publications/reports/DFAT-AusAIDIntegrationReview-FullVersion.pdf
[30] Mark Higgie: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/political-bias-leftist-dfat-holds-our-foreign-policy-hostage/news-story/10629dc45374f4b20e841e092ecb6beb
[31] John McCarthy: https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/dfat-diplomats-reliable/
[32] Sharma writes: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/diplomatic-step-match-our-military-step
[33] solutions to government: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/diplomatic-deficit-calls-for-more-money-to-be-spent-on-dfat-20200714-p55bu1.html
[34] great department: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/fifty-years-of-foreign-affairs-as-a-great-department/
[35] anaemia problem: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/fifty-years-of-foreign-affairs-the-anaemia-problem/