Abbott Coalition Government
journal or
publication title
Kwansei Gakuin University social sciences
review
volume
19
page range
51-74
year
2015-03-31
Kwansei Gakuin University Social Sciences Review
Vol.19, 2014 Nishinomiya, Japan
Australian Foreign Policy: Challenges for the Abbott Coalition Government
Craig MARK
I. Introduction
Australian foreign policy has generally been considered to be bipartisan, and Australia has broadly enjoyed a positive image among its neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region, and more widely as an active ‘middle power’ in the international community. However, the Liberal-National Coalition government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, elected on September 7, 2013, has already engendered a considerable degree of dispute over its foreign policy priorities. These range across a number of issues and areas, including a sudden deterioration in relations with Australia’s largest neighbour Indonesia, over espionage revelations. This could undermine a core campaign promise of the Abbott government, to ‘stop the boats’, halting asylum seekers arriving by boat via Indonesia. Difficulties may further arise with Overseas Development Aid (ODA) cuts, which will principally affect the poorer nations of the South Pacific.
Australia also appears to be taking sides among its major trading partners, openly declaring its support for Japan over China, in the ongoing territorial disputes in the East China Sea. Australia remains a loyal ally of the USA, deploying troops to Afghanistan, hosting US forces as part of their strategic ‘pivot’ to the Pacific, and has again joined a US-led coalition undertaking military action in Iraq. On the wider international stage, Australia has taken up its rotating seat on the UN Security Council, is part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations, and was host for the 2014 G20 leaders’ summit. However, the Abbott government is weakening Australia’s commitment to international action on climate change. The foreign policy direction of the Abbott government therefore seems set to continue to court controversy.
II. The Overall Foreign Policy Approach of the Abbott Coalition Government 1. Conservative Ideology and Defence/Security Policy
The ideological motivations of the conservative Liberal-National Party Coalition traditionally stem from its allegiance to the British Commonwealth, and being strongly pro-American. The Menzies Coalition government sought Australia’s participation in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Malayan ‘Emergency’ and the Borneo ‘Confrontation’.1 The Fraser Coalition government was firmly anti-Soviet during the Cold War, and the Howard government backed the US in its invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2003. The Coalition has also long promoted a neoliberal free trade economic agenda, and a pro-Israeli position at the United Nations (UN). The Howard government was reluctant to take action against climate change, refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol.2
Foreign policy is generally a bipartisan issue in Australian politics; both major parties – the Liberal-National Party Coalition, and the social-democratic Labor Party, share similar policies of being strongly supportive of the military alliance with the USA, promoting free trade, and encouraging engagement with the Asia-Pacific region, through involvement in International Government Organisations.3 However, elements of foreign policy were hotly contested in the 2013 federal election, primarily over the issue of asylum seekers arriving by boat; the Coalition advocated measures to deter asylum seekers, campaigning with the slogan to ‘stop the boats’, subsequently implemented following its election victory.4
A bipartisan policy position continuing under the Abbott Coalition government is Australia remaining firmly part of the strategic ‘pivot’ of the USA, its closest military ally, towards the Pacific region. US Marines and other US forces have been ‘based’ in the Northern Territory since 2012, in rotating deployments. US long-range surveillance drones may also be deployed from the Australian territory of the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean. Australia is also likely to continue its low-scale military advisory role in Afghanistan, after the withdrawal of NATO/ISAF combat forces by the end of 2014. Australia had the largest non-NATO presence in Afghanistan, primarily to reinforce the
1 James Cotton, The Australian School of International Relations, (New York, Palgrave Macmillan,
2013), pp.191-192.
2 Geoffrey Barker, ‘The Howard-Downer Legacy: Global Deputy, Regional Sheriff ’, in James Cotton
and John Ravenhill (eds), Middle Power Dreaming: Australia in World Affairs 2006-2010, (South Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 2012) pp.29-31.
3 Andrew O’Neil, ‘Regional, Alliance and Global Priorities of the Rudd-Gillard Governments’, in
Cotton and Ravenhill, Middle Power Dreaming: Australia in World Affairs 2006-2010, p.274.
4 Liberal Party of Australia, ‘Our Plan: Real Solutions For All Australians’, Policy Booklet, 2013,
commitment to the US alliance.5
Abbott has pledged to increase defence spending from 1.6% of GDP, to an aspirational target of 2%; purchases of US military equipment, including up to $24 billion on 72 of the controversial F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters, will most likely comprise a large part of this projected increase. A new Defence White Paper due for release in 2015 is likely to confirm this direction towards increasing defence expenditure. Australia will therefore make its own contribution to the arms race under way in the Asia-Pacific region, with no real diplomatic action being taken to reduce the extensive rise in regional conventional weapons expenditure.6
Meanwhile, preparations for the ANZAC centenary in 2015 are underway, with Australia set to spend up to $325 million on First World War commemorations, more than any other country. Critics have accused successive governments of effectively deepening a ‘cult’ of ANZAC jingoism, while ignoring any sensible discussion or analysis of the long-running drift in strategic doctrine and defence spending of recent decades.7 Australian intelligence services, including the Australian Signals Directorate, have also been implicated in the USA’s global surveillance network PRISMS, as revealed by whistle-blower Edward Snowden, including possible involvement in the USA’s secretive lethal drone strikes.8
2. The Deepening Australian National Security State
The Abbott government has continued the trend of the previous Howard Coalition government of increasing surveillance powers of the security services, supposedly justified by at least 60 Australians fighting overseas for radical jihadists in Syria and Iraq, with 15 having been killed. To counter these concerning developments, new legislation, the Counter-terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill, is expected to pass with bipartisan support9. These new counter-terrorism measures have included proposals to: potentially collect the online metadata of all Australians; reverse the onus of proof of people
5 Andrew Carr, ‘The Asian Century’, in Chris Aulich (ed.), The Gillard Governments, (Carlton,
Melbourne University Press, 2014), pp.227-233.
6 Steven L. Jones, ‘The Joint Strike Fighter: is it the right aircraft for Australia?’, The Conversation,
April 28, 2014.
7 James Brown, Anzac’s Long Shadow: The Cost of Our National Obsession, (Collingwood, Black
Inc., 2014), p.12.
8 Mark Corcoran, ‘Drone strikes based on work at Pine Gap could see Australians charged, Malcolm
Fraser says’, ABC News, April 28, 2014.
9 The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment
returning from travel to Syria and Iraq that they are not engaged in terrorism; proscribe Australians from visiting certain areas in those countries which are under control of radical Islamists; and increase penalties for journalists, public servants and other whistleblowers found guilty of revealing ‘special’ intelligence operations.10
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) are also to get expanded powers, with new anti-terror legislation, the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill, again passed with bipartisan support from the Opposition Labor Party.11 Australia’s counter-terror laws, which have been recently used to detain suspects in recent police raids, are already among the most severe of the Western democracies, with no Bill of Rights to secure against potential abuses by security authorities. Prime Minister Abbott has warned that Australians will have to sacrifice some freedoms for security, into the indeterminate future. However, such measures have been criticised by civil liberties groups, lawyers and commentators as an unnecessary overreach, and possibly unconstitutional, with these policies poorly presented by the Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis. Espousing patriotic rhetoric of protecting national security – such as Abbott encouraging migrants, citizens and the media to belong to ‘Team Australia’ – plays to the Coalition’s conservative electoral support base, but risks alienating the Muslim community in Australia. The heightened focus on counter-terrorism (encouraged by extensive media coverage) has assisted in diverting public attention from the Abbott government’s generally unpopular domestic policies; particularly its first harsh Federal budget brought down in May 2014, which broke numerous election campaign promises to
not cut funding to health, education, welfare, and public broadcasting.12 3. Cuts to Overseas Development Aid
Another early controversy in the foreign policy of the Abbott Coalition government was the announcement soon after the election by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop of cuts to the ODA budget, of up to $4.5 billion over the next five years. These cuts, which break a 2013 election campaign promise by the Coalition, are largely in the form of deferred budget increases previously pledged by the previous Labor government, which had also made similar deferments in 2012. AusAID, Australia’s ODA delivery arm, has been abolished as a separate agency,
10 Jessie Blackbourn, ‘Real Threats to the Life of the Nation’, Inside Story, October 2, 2014.
11 The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, National Security Legislation Amendment
Bill (No.1) 2014.
12 Terrence McCoy, ‘How Australia just became a ‘national security state’¸The Washington Post,
with its services subsumed directly within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).13
Bishop has argued the cuts will ensure the ‘sustainability’ of the overall aid program, which will be directed more towards promoting trade and infrastructure development. This approach is criticized by human rights and aid/development NGOs as continuing the practice of ‘tied aid’, benefitting Australian corporate contractors, rather than the ostensible ODA recipients in developing countries. Critics are concerned the ODA changes will adversely impact development in South Pacific countries in particular, as traditional poverty alleviation and humanitarian programs are defunded. In preparing for the Coalition’s first Federal Budget in May 2014, Treasurer Joe Hockey indicated though that the government aims to finally meet Australia’s Millennium Development Goals commitment of a foreign aid target of 0.5% of Gross National Income, once the budget is returned to surplus – for which the earliest projection is after 2017.14
Budget cuts have also led to the closing of the Australia Network and Radio Australia, the public broadcasting services of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to the Asia-Pacific region; a measure widely derided by aid groups as a self-defeating, penny-pinching reduction in Australia’s regional ‘soft power’ diplomacy.15 In its stead, Bishop announced an ‘economic diplomacy initiative’, where DFAT’s 96 diplomatic missions will concentrate on promoting Australian trade and business, with creation of ‘market intelligence’ services.16 Overall, DFAT’s 2014-15 budget of $1,404.8 million will be cut by around $397 million over the next four years, including a reduction of over 500 staff, out of 4,200 Australian and 2,400 local overseas personnel. This perpetuates a worrying long-term trend of reducing government spending on Australian foreign affairs and diplomacy, while defence and security spending increases. This prompts subsequent concern that DFAT’s traditional role in foreign policy formation is being steadily sidelined, as the defence establishment, including the intelligence services, and the Prime Minister’s Office gain disproportionate influence.17
III. Asylum Seekers and Human Rights
1. The Return of the ‘Pacific Solution’, and Relations with Indonesia and East Timor
13 Susan Harris Rimmer, ‘Australia’s die-hard diplomacy’, East Asia Forum, January 21, 2014. 14 Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer, ‘Fiscal fools: give us a break on the budget BS, Joe’, Crikey, April
1, 2014.
15 Nic Maclellan, ‘The Gutting of Radio Australia’, Inside Story, July 22, 2014. 16 Kevin Placek, ‘Australia’s Economic Diplomacy’, The Diplomat, August 29, 2014. 17 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Budget Highlights, June 18, 2014.
In 2008, the previous Rudd Labor government ended the Howard Coalition government’s ‘Pacific Solution’, of the offshore detention in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Nauru of asylum seekers arriving by boat (mostly to the Australian Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island). Asylum seekers have been a highly contested political issue, exploited relentlessly as a matter of national security by the Coalition while in Opposition during 2007-2013, with up to 300 asylum seekers likely to have drowned at sea. After Tony Abbott became Opposition Leader in December 2009, the Coalition’s slogan to ‘stop the boats!’ was prominently used in the 2010 election campaign (which resulted in a rare minority Labor government, in a ‘hung’ parliament’), and repeated in 2013, following the steady increase in the number of boat arrivals; from 2008 to 2013, 742 boats arrived, carrying 43,198 asylum seekers.18
Perpetuating the ongoing drama over the Labor Party’s unstable leadership during this period, Kevin Rudd made a temporary return as Prime Minister in June 2013, overthrowing Julia Gillard in a party room spill, as desperate Labor MPs hoped to reverse the government’s dire position in the opinion polls. In an attempt to blunt Opposition criticism over Labor’s record on asylum seeker boat arrivals, Rudd effectively restored the Pacific Solution, making a deal with PNG to re-open a detention centre on Manus Island to hold asylum seekers (Gillard had already began to send them again to Nauru). Asylum seekers arriving by boat were denied any right of settlement in Australia. The number of boat arrivals began to fall following this measure, and have continued to do so following the election of the Abbott Coalition government, with none arriving since February 2014; both major political parties claim credit for restoring this deterrent approach.19
Abbott made his first overseas visit as Prime Minister in October 2013, to Indonesia, making good a Coalition promise that its foreign policy approach would be focused on ‘Jakarta, not Geneva’. The visit was ostensibly to emphasise business, trade, investment, education and people-to-people links. The main underlying motivation for the visit though, was to ensure border security cooperation, in tackling people smuggling networks. Key to the Coalition’s election pledge to ‘stop the boats’ was the policy to turn back asylum seeker boats ‘when safe to do so’, while respecting Indonesian sovereignty.20
18 Mary Walsh, ‘The Gillard Government, the Coalition and Asylum Seekers’, in Aulich, The Gillard
Governments,, pp.137-138.
19 Tony Kevin, ‘Abbott pays a heavy price to stop the boats’, Eureka Street, Vol.24, No.1 (January 27,
2014).
20 Catherine McGrath, ‘Tony Abbott’s Visit to Indonesia: A Real Statesman in the Making?’, Jakarta
However, the Abbott government was not long in office when revelations emerged (via the Edward Snowden leaks) that Australia had spied on Indonesia’s leadership in 2009, and conducted commercial espionage (on behalf of the US) against Indonesia in early 2013. Even though this occurred under the previous Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, Indonesia was understandably still angered, and unsatisfied with Abbott’s fairly weak apology. Amid the revelations of Australian spying on Indonesia, it also emerged that the previous Howard Coalition government had spied on newly independent East Timor in 2006, during negotiations over the Timor Gap Treaty for rights to oil and gas development. East Timor has taken Australia to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to annul the treaty, partly as a result of these revelations. In a further potential break of international law, the Abbott government has attempted to interfere with the Timorese case, by blocking witnesses from leaving Australia to deliver evidence; an ex-Australian Secret Intelligence Service officer’s passport was suspended to prevent him travelling to The Hague to give his testimony, and the lawyers’ office for East Timor in Canberra was subject to raids by ASIO.21
2. Operation Sovereign Borders
Upon coming to office, the Abbott government commenced its border protection policy, termed ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’, under military operational command. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) began its ‘turnbacks’, although Immigration and Border Protection Minister Scott Morrison initially refused to confirm any numbers or details, leading to criticism that the policy lacked transparency. Revelations that the RAN had violated Indonesian territorial sovereignty while doing so saw relations with Indonesia deteriorate to their lowest point since the East Timor crisis of 1999.22 Morrison later revealed that on twelve occasions, boats have been either towed back, or asylum seekers placed onto lifeboats and released into Indonesian waters, returning 1265 asylum seekers; 45 boats were prevented from leaving Indonesian, Malaysian and Sri Lankan ports.23
There has long been ongoing criticism from the UNHCR, Amnesty International and other human rights NGOs of the adverse impact of Australia’s lengthy detention of asylum seekers.24 In January 2014, Nauru saw its senior legal personnel, including the Chief Justice, Chief Magistrate and
21 Mong Palatino, ‘East Timor-Australia Spying Scandal’, The Diplomat, December 16, 2013. 22 ‘Go North Young Man’, The Economist, February 1, 2014.
23 Scott Morrison, ‘A year of stronger borders’, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection
media release, September 18, 2014.
24 Ben Saul, ‘Dark Justice: Australia’s Indefinite Detention of Refugees on Security Grounds Under
Solicitor-General unlawfully fired by the Nauruan President. This practically ended the rule of law in this Australian-subsidised South Pacific micro-state, being yet another deterioration of human and legal rights in the region linked to Australia’s asylum seeker policy; over 1000 asylum seekers detained on Nauru were left with no effective legal address to review their claims. Restrictions on media and NGO investigation of Nauru, as well as judicial inquiries being impeded on Manus Island, have also compounded the Coalition government’s tendency towards suppressing information and avoiding scrutiny of its treatment of asylum seekers.25 The human rights record of the Abbott Coalition government was also blotted early on by its approach to Sri Lanka – again to secure cooperation against people smuggling. As the co-chair of the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held in Sri Lanka in November 2013, Abbott downplayed widespread concerns over human rights abuses committed by the Rajapaksa government, in the wake of the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009.26
On February 16-17 2014, an Iranian asylum seeker was killed, and over 60 injured in a riot on Manus Island, with local PNG detention centre staff accused of perpetrating most of the violence. This was the most serious incident so far in a long series of claims of poor treatment of asylum seekers, on Nauru and mainland detention centres, as well as on Manus.27 To attempt to improve detention camp conditions on Manus Island, Tony Abbott visited PNG in March 2014, partly to encourage faster processing and resettling of asylum seekers. However, there are doubts they can be successfully integrated into such a clannish developing society, already stricken with high rates of criminal violence. The PNG government has stated it will resettle some, but not all those detained on Manus found to be genuine refugees.28 After another death in detention on Manus Island, of an Iraqi asylum seeker, Australia’s asylum policies were criticised in September 2014 by the new UN Human Rights Commissioner, noting the pressures of lack of space and poor conditions in the present facilities on Manus Island and Nauru. Also of extreme concern are Hazara asylum seekers being returned to Afghanistan, where they are at grave risk from the Taliban, a possible refoulement breach of the UN
25 Radio New Zealand International, Dateline Pacific, January 20, 2014.
26 Emily Howie, ‘Craven for Tony Abbott to attend CHOGM without raising human rights concerns’,
Human Rights Law Centre, Melbourne, November 14, 2013
27 Geoff Thompson and Karen Michelmore, ‘Manus Island riots: Scott Morrison backs down from
guaranteeing safety of asylum seekers in PNG detention’, ABC News, April 28, 2014.
28 Lenore Taylor, ‘Manus Island: barrister visits asylum seekers but inquiry under threat’, The
Refugee Convention.29
This reminds that the great majority of those seeking asylum in Australia (up to 90%) are found to be genuine refugees after processing. Indicating that Operation Sovereign Borders is reaching its effective limits, no asylum seekers have been sent to Manus Island since February 2014, at the request of the PNG government. An asylum seeker boat containing 157 Tamils intercepted in June 2014 was detained for over a month at sea, and then brought to the Curtin detention centre on the mainland for processing, briefly undermining the government’s claims it had ‘stopped the boats’. The Tamils were then interned in Nauru, pending return to India, although this action has been challenged by the UNCHR in the Australian High Court.30 In an effort to relieve the pressure on Nauru and Manus Island, Cambodia has also agreed to accept settlement of asylum seekers detained by Australia, in return for $40 million in ODA, despite concerns over its poor human rights record.31
The Abbott Coalition government has removed the right of asylum seekers to claim permanent residency, and restricted access to work rights, health care, social security and other welfare benefits, further eroding the human rights of already traumatised people. These measures could affect up to 30,000 claimants who have been granted temporary protection visas. However, a recent ruling by the Australian High Court against indefinite detention could make these measures invalid. To get around this ruling, Immigration Minister Morrison secured a deal with the Palmer United Party to pass legislation re-introducing temporary protection visas (TPVs), previously used by the Howard Coalition government. Termed this time as Safe Haven Enterprise Visas (SHEVs), these would allow asylum seekers to remain in Australia and work for up to five years, particularly in regional areas.32 As of September 2014, 2,539 people were in detention on the Australian mainland, 307 on Christmas Island, 1,140 on Nauru, and 1,060 on Manus Island; 24,775 were in the community on bridging visas.33
To restore relations with Indonesia, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop engaged in a series of crisis talks. A joint code of conduct has since been negotiated to restore
29 ‘UN High Commissioner for Human Rights criticizes Australia’s asylum seeker policies’, UNity
News, United Nations Association of Australia, September 17, 2014.
30 Ben Doherty, ‘Tamil asylum seekers detained at sea for four weeks get court hearing’, The
Guardian, October 14, 2014.
31 Anne McNevin, Peter Mares, Damir Mitric, Klaus Neumann and Savitri Taylor, ‘Beyond
Deterrence: Reframing the Asylum Seeker Debate’, Inside Story, October 13, 2014.
32 Emma Griffiths, ‘Government to reintroduce temporary protection visas in deal with PUP to
ensure Senate success’, ABC News, September 25, 2014.
33 Department of Immigration and Border Protection, ‘Immigration Detention and Community
security cooperation, which includes a promise by Australia not to spy on Indonesia in future, confirmed and signed in a visit to Bali by Bishop in August 2014.34 It remains to be seen whether this diplomatic reconciliation will continue under the administration of new Indonesian President Jokowi. Long-term regional cooperation is the ultimate answer to solving the asylum seeker issue; the ad hoc ‘Bali Process’ dialogue between regional states began in 2002, but this has made little progress. Any diplomatic renewal towards re-starting the Bali Process has been undermined by Operation Sovereign Borders potentially alienating Australia’s largest neighbour Indonesia, exploiting populist xenophobia for domestic political gain. Opinion polls show harsher treatment of asylum seekers remains popular with the majority of voters, as the most prominent claim of an election promise fulfilled by the Coalition.35
IV. Australia on the Wider International Stage 1. Australia’s Role in International Government Organisations
Abbott attended his first major multilateral overseas meetings at the 2013 APEC leaders’ summit in Indonesia, and the ASEAN/East Asia Summits in Brunei. Apart from conducting multilateral and concurrent bilateral meetings with other Asia-Pacific heads of state, Abbott made a major diplomatic declaration at these summits: the goal of completing Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Australia’s three top trading partners – China, Japan, and South Korea, within a year. The Abbott government has also continued Australia’s bipartisan commitment to the multilateral TPP trade negotiations, as well as the less-noted parallel Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) scheme, aiming for an East Asian multilateral free trade zone. The other major diplomatic declaration by Abbott at the 2013 Brunei summit was his overt support for Japan as Australia’s ‘closest friend in Asia’.36
This follows Abbott’s description in his 2009 book Battlelines of the ‘Anglosphere’, the English-speaking democracies which are Australia’s natural allies, predominantly the US, the UK, New Zealand and Canada.37 Closer relations with Japan indicates that Japan is regarded by the Abbott government as an honorary member of the Anglosphere. At the sidelines of the APEC 2013 summit, Australia, Japan and the US held another meeting of the Trilateral
34 Julie Bishop, ‘Australia-Indonesia’, Minister for Foreign Affairs media release, August 27, 2014. 35 David Corlett, ‘A Dark Underbelly or an Undercurrent of Decency’, in Gwenda Tavan (ed.), State
of the Nation: Essays for Robert Manne, (Collingwood, Black Inc., 2013), pp.190-191.
36 Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPM&C) media release, ‘Press Conference, Brunei’,
October 10, 2013.
Security Dialogue, demonstrating the trend towards deepening security ties among the three countries. Australia could potentially take advantage of Japan recently easing its restrictions on military exports, with particular interest in buying Japanese submarines in future. Australia has sided with Japan in its dispute with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, leading to a public rebuke of Julie Bishop by China’s foreign minister, after China declared its Air Defence Identification Zone in the East China Sea in December 2013.38
The main point of diplomatic contention between Australia and Japan has been over Japan’s discredited ‘scientific’ whaling program. The Abbott government continued the bipartisan policy of opposing whaling; however, Australian surveillance of the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Antarctic Ocean was reduced under the Coalition, with only brief aircraft overflights conducted, rather than sending a customs patrol vessel (otherwise being used in Operation Sovereign Borders against asylum seekers), again breaking an election campaign promise. The case brought by the previous Labor government against Japan in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) went against Japan in March 2014, in a 12-4 ruling. This has subsumed the issue for the near future, until Japan revamps its whaling program to work around the ICJ’s judgement.39
After an intense lobbying effort by the Rudd/Gillard Labor governments, in 2012 Australia won a rotating seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), for 2013-14. This diplomatic bid was opposed at the time by the Coalition, but nevertheless Abbott accepted the win once it was secured, therefore continuing Australia’s long tradition of supporting and participating in the UN and its peace-keeping operations. Australia has already taken its turn holding the Presidency of the Security Council, holding votes on international crises such as the Syrian civil war, and conflicts and interventions in the Central African Republic, South Sudan and the Ukraine.40
Quite prominently, Foreign Minister Bishop in July 2014 led the UNSC to adopt Resolution 2166, to demand international access to the crash site of flight MH17 shot down in contested eastern Ukraine, where 298 passengers and crew died, including 38 Australians.41 An AFP team was sent as part of the international crash investigation, and Bishop visited Kiev to announce the
38 Kiyoshi Takenaka, and Nobuhiro Kubo, ‘Japan relaxes arms export regime to fortify defense’,
Reuters, April 1, 2014.
39 Tim Stephens, ‘Japan could resume whaling – this time with The Hague’s blessing’, The
Conversation, September 9, 2014.
40 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), ‘Australia and the UNSC: Our Approach’, 2014. 41 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), ‘Adoption of Resolution 2166 – Flight MH17’,
establishment of an embassy to demonstrate Australia’s backing for Ukraine, which also included Australia joining the US, the EU, and Japan in imposing economic sanctions against Russia’s seizure of the Crimea, and its support for the insurgency in eastern Ukraine.42
Bishop has also shifted Australia towards a more overtly pro-Israeli position, controversially reversing Australia’s previous recognition of Palestine as an aspirant state at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), and supporting Israel’s illegal settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. The Australian government will also now no longer refer to East Jerusalem as ‘Occupied territory’ – a change to a bipartisan position held since 1967.43 It has also been revealed that in October 2013, under Bishop’s direction, DFAT opposed New Zealand sponsoring a statement at the UNGA (also later sponsored by Japan) pushing for nuclear disarmament, in order to secure Australia’s reliance on US nuclear deterrence.44
Hosting the Brisbane G20 leaders’ summit in November 2014 has been the most prominent diplomatic event for the Abbott government so far; the largest visit of world leaders to Australia since the 2007 APEC summit hosted in Sydney, but also diplomatically fraught, given the complications of having Russian President Vladimir Putin in attendance.45 However, there may be no real progress on the G20’s supposed ‘reform’ agenda, with post-Global Financial Crisis (GFC) regulatory reforms of the international financial system having effectively stalled. Another of Abbott’s first major international diplomatic appearances was at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, where he gave a speech declaring Australia’s aims to use the G20 to promote free trade, and reduce taxes and government spending. Abbott also broke diplomatic convention by attacking the economic record of the previous Labor government, particularly its stimulus spending during the GFC, which prevented a recession.46 At a preliminary G20 finance ministers’ meeting in Sydney, Treasurer Joe Hockey repeated this neoliberal economic rhetoric of the Coalition, of the need for reducing the size and role of government, in order to encourage private sector activity. However, the record of these small-government austerity policies as a policy response to the GFC is
42 Nick Miller, ‘NATO summit: A medal for Julie Bishop and promises of more help for Ukraine’, The
Sydney Morning Herald, September 5, 2014.
43 Gareth Narunsky and Nathan Jeffay, ‘Bishop lauded over settlements’, The Australian Jewish
News, January 24, 2014.
44 Philip Dorling, ‘Federal government worked to scuttle New Zealand statement against nuclear
weapons’, The Sydney Morning Herald, March 10, 2014.
45 Andrew Greene, ‘Prime Minister Tony Abbott vows to ‘shirtfront’ Russian president Vladimir
Putin at Brisbane G20 summit’, ABC News, October 14, 2014.
believed by many economists to be a failure, particularly in Europe.47 2. Australia and Climate Change
An even more controversial international policy position of the Abbott government is its weakening of Australia’s commitment to action on global warming, seen in the removal of climate change from the G20 summit’s agenda by host Australia. Some of the first acts of the Coalition in government were to abolish the advisory Climate Change Authority and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and to weaken the renewable energy target of 20% by 2020, with cuts to public science funding, and no separate Ministry for Science in the new Cabinet. Environment Minister Greg Hunt did not attend the November 2013 COP19 UN meeting in Warsaw, with only lower-level bureaucrats being sent to represent Australia. Climate change sceptics are influential in the Coalition, and Abbott’s own record on the subject is rather erratic, having previously described climate science as ‘crap’.48
The Abbott government has repealed Labor’s ‘carbon tax’ legislation – a fixed price on carbon emissions paid by the 300 largest polluters, meant to shift to a floating price from 2014. This was to be replaced with the Coalition’s ‘Direct Action’ policy: subsidising large polluters to reduce emissions, encouraging biosequestration, plus increased regulation and projects such as a ‘Green Army’ to promote reforestation. Hunt’s recent policy White Paper, detailing a $2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund has been widely criticised by economists and climate scientists as inadequate and ultimately unfeasible, doubting that Australia will be able to reach the declared target of 5% emission cuts by 2020, under the Direct Action plan.49 Labor and the Greens initially blocked the repeal of the carbon tax in the Senate, but after July 2014, the balance of power in the Senate has shifted to the populist Palmer United Party (PUP). Although PUP and a fractious group of allied minor party Senators voted to abolish the carbon tax, they refused to support Direct Action; hence, Australia is the first country to remove a price on carbon, and is effectively left without a viable climate policy.50
Compounding this erosion of Australia’s position on climate change, Abbott did not attend the UN Climate Summit held in New York in September 2014, attended by over 120 other world leaders, but was replaced by Julie Bishop. Abbott
47 ‘G20 leaders agree on push to close tax loopholes’, The Irish Times, February 23, 2014.
48 Mark Butler, ‘Fighting climate change will take courage and commitment’, Chifley Research
Centre, March 6, 2014.
49 Lenore Taylor, ‘Direct Action’s moment of truth is imminent’, The Guardian, April 11, 2014. 50 Jamie Smyth and Pilita Clark, ‘Australia abolishes tax on carbon emissions’, The Financial Times,
was in New York at the time, but instead addressed the UNSC on the crisis in Iraq and Syria. His subsequent address to the UNGA highlighted Australia’s historical and ongoing contribution to the UN as a modest, yet practical ‘good global citizen’ in the wider international community, while pointedly ignoring the issue of climate change.51
3. Abbott’s Northeast Asian Tour
One of the most prominent diplomatic acts of the Coalition government so far was Tony Abbott’s visit to northeast Asia in April 2014, which included an especially large entourage of three senior ministers, five State premiers, 30 corporate CEOs, and hundreds of business representatives and advisers. Abbott’s visit to Japan during April 5-7 saw the completion of an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Japan, ending Australian tariffs on Japanese manufacturing imports, in return for greater (but not full) Australian access to Japanese agriculture markets, particularly beef, wine, and horticultural products. This finally concluded negotiations which had been ongoing since 2007, the lack of progress largely due to resistance by Japanese farmers to greater foreign market access.52
Abbott was also the first foreign leader to attend a meeting of Japan’s new National Security Council, and announced negotiations for an agreement to encourage joint development of military technology, equipment and weapons systems. Abbott expressed support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s aim to allow Japan to re-interpret its constitution, to allow participation in collective self-defence with allies, and resume arms exports. Australia and Japan will also deepen security cooperation, including more joint training exercises to improve interoperability between the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and the Japanese Self Defence Forces.53 These ties were consolidated by Abe’s return visit to Australia in July 2014, where he was granted the rare privilege of an address to a joint sitting of Parliament. During the visit, Abe and Abbott formally signed both the EPA, and the rapidly-drafted Agreement on the Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology.54
51 ‘Working together, ‘no limits to what we can achieve’ Australian leader tells UN’, UN News
Centre, September 25, 2014.
52 Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPM&C), ‘A Message From the Prime Minister –
Australia Open For Business’, Press, Release, April 13, 2014.
53 Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPM&C), ‘Japan-Australia Summit Meeting’, Press
Release, April 7, 2014.
54 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, ‘Prime Minister Abe’s Visit to New Zealand, Australia and
After a visit to South Korea to formally sign another recently concluded FTA (which presently remains unratified by the divided South Korean parliament), Abbott’s visit to China during April 9-11 aimed to reassure China over Australia’s closer security ties with Japan, and to also pursue an FTA for greater market access to Australia’s largest trading partner.55 However, this will be one of the greater diplomatic challenges for the Coalition, given Abbott’s overt support for Japan’s more nationalistic assertions of its security policies, and the intention of the US to upgrade its deployment of Marine Corps units to the Northern Territory of Australia, seen by China as part of the USA’s ‘pivot’ strategy of encirclement.56
No doubt hoping to placate his hosts, Abbott welcomed China’s economic rise, declaring that its growing military strength poses no threat to the region, and that Australia comes to trade with China, not just to ‘do a deal, but to be a friend’.57 However, in a speech to the Asia Society made just before his trip, Abbott also implied China will inevitably liberalise its society and political system – which would inevitably raise suspicions among the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Chinese tariffs imposed on Australia coal imports also put an FTA in some doubt.58
Further afield in Asia, Abbott’s visit to India in September 2014, meeting new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, confirmed a deal for Australia to supply uranium for Indian nuclear power plants; a controversial decision, since India remains outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This move sought to further strengthen the growing economic and security ties between Australia and India.59 While Abbott’s tours of Asia can be considered relatively successful, the Coalition government confronts the challenge of managing Australia’s foreign policy interests in a more uncertain, potentially volatile region, with growing strategic competition between China and its hegemonic rivals: the US, Japan and the ASEAN states. While the Australian economy should continue to perform relatively well, assisted by the new regional EPAs, these gains in trade will be threatened if relations with China deteriorate among the Asia-Pacific region. Rather optimistically, Abbott and Bishop hope the mutual self-interest northeast Asian countries have in continuing trade and peaceful relations will trump the
55 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, ‘Xi Jinping Meets With Prime
Minister Tony Abbott of Australia’, Press Release, April 11, 2014.
56 Michael Sainsbury, ‘Death-defying diplomacy when Abbott’s three-ring circus rolls into Asia’,
Crikey, March 27, 2014.
57 Radio Australia, ‘Australian PM continues push to secure China free trade pact’, ABC Australia
Network, April 11, 2014.
58 Sam Roggeveen, ‘Abbott sees a more liberal China ahead’, The Interpreter, The Lowy Institute,
March 27, 2014.
59 Akhilesh Pillalamarri, ‘Australian PM Visits India, Signs Nuclear Deal’, The Diplomat,
present geopolitical tensions, ultimately averting the danger of conflict. Australia’s role is therefore to ‘lead by example’, maintaining positive relations among states in the region. 60
V. Australia Goes Back to War
The response of the US-organised coalition of up to 30 countries to the recently worsening insurgency waged by Da’esh (also known as Islamic State, ISIL, and ISIS) in northern Iraq and Syria, has again highlighted the core foreign relationship for Australia; its military alliance with the US. Following the rout of Iraqi forces inflicted by Da’esh in June-July 2014, including the fall of Mosul, the Abbott government quickly offered in August to join the US, UK and France in the airlift of humanitarian aid to threatened communities in Iraq, particularly Yazidis, Christians, and Kurds. RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) transports also began delivery of weapons to Kurdish peshmerga forces resisting Da’esh. Excoriating
Da’esh as an ‘apocalyptic death cult’, in September Abbott announced that following a decision of the National Security Committee of Cabinet, an ADF task force would be sent to Iraq, comprising six Super Hornet attack fighters, with two support aircraft and 400 ground personnel, and 200 Special Forces troops as military advisers to the Iraqi armed forces. RAAF operational combat flights ‘to degrade and destroy’ Da’esh commenced from October 5, supporting those of the US and at least 13 other countries.61
The almost automatic reaction of the Abbott government to order ADF participation in US-led military operations thus follows the Australian foreign policy tradition of rapidly committing to US military action, even pre-emptively – as in the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War of 2003. While this plays to the traditional political strength of the Coalition, in national security issues, it is doubtful whether this latest military intervention in Iraq serves any clear or specific national security interest for Australia, apart from demonstrating loyalty to its primary ally America. This comes at the expense of focusing on the Asia-Pacific, Australia’s core strategic area of interest, as well as the direct financial cost of these new military operations, expected to be at least around an additional $500 million per annum.62
Unlike the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, this latest US-led intervention is likely to prove legal under international law, given that it is at the invitation of the Iraqi government, and is aimed at protecting civilian populations from an
60 Hugh White, ‘Tony Abbott’s north-east Asia tour could do damage in China’, The Canberra Times,
March 31, 2014.
61 Thea Cowie, ‘What will Australia’s role be in Iraq?’, SBS World News, October 9, 2014. 62 Bernard Keane, ‘Iraq intervention part of a war without end’, Crikey, August 14, 2014.
immediate dire threat (potentially even genocide), thus meeting the criteria of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. However, any similar intervention against
Da’esh forces in Syria, thus becoming involved with the bloody civil war that has raged there since 2011, is legally more questionable. Also highly concerning is the prospect this intervention will facilitate atrocities by Iraqi Shi’ite militias (with covert Iranian backing), including ethnic cleansing against Sunni communities, as territory is taken back from Da’esh militants.63 The Opposition Labor Party has given the Abbott government bipartisan support for the ADF deployment to Iraq, not wanting to be seen as ‘weak’ on national security. The minority Greens Party, and a few other minor party and Independent MPs have been more sceptical, decrying the lack of any parliamentary debate on Australia’s latest military engagement; however, these dissident voices have been left sidelined.64
This demonstrates the generally poor quality of debate and lack of government accountability on serious foreign policy issues in Australia. Long-term strategic questions remain unaddressed; in particular, how to effectively defeat
Da’esh, given the past failures of the Iraqi Army, and the reluctance of neighbouring states to take determined action to shape a stable political order in the Middle East. Abbott concedes that the ADF’s latest involvement could be long term, lasting some months – but this intervention is effectively open-ended, and could potentially last for years, with the prospect of escalation to ground combat forces being deployed.65 The Australian public remains conflicted on military action in Iraq, according to opinion polls, as the government has lifted the terror threat level from medium to high. As with the 2003 Iraq War, it is feared that Australian involvement in US-led military operations in the Middle East again makes Australia a more prominent terrorist target.66
VI. Conclusions – The ‘Abbott Doctrine’?
The foreign policy approach of the Abbott Coalition government in its first year has shifted ever more towards its overtly pro-American (and pro-Japanese) ‘neoconservative’ direction, away from the slightly more balanced approach of the previous Labor government. Initially inexperienced in foreign policy, with a lack of
63 Kevin Boreham, ‘Australia’s military involvement in Iraq is legal – for now’, The Conversation,
September 2, 2014.
64 Max Chalmers, ‘ “We Are Practically At War” Greens Warn as Major Parties Shut Down Iraq
Debate’, New Matilda, September 1, 2014.
65 Hugh White, ‘Why the campaign against Islamic State is doomed’, The Sydney Morning Herald,
October 14, 2014.
66 Michael Safi, ‘Voters support Australian action in Iraq, but say ‘it makes us less safe’ ‘, The
appreciation of the complexities of diplomacy, since coming to office Abbott has at least superficially promoted his government’s foreign policy as a political strength, albeit with a lack of subtlety and nuance in his own personal style. He has been assisted by the relatively strong and confident performance of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, now favoured as the most popular member (and the only woman) of the Abbott Cabinet. Trade minister Andrew Robb has been less visible, but generally regarded as reliable, delivering the FTAs with Japan and Korea, and playing an active role in the TPP negotiations. Former Defence Minister David Johnston was considered less capable so far, demonstrating no real strategic vision or particular policy expertise. By contrast, former Immigration Minister Scott Morrison was tough and uncompromising in implementing the more militarised approach to border control; decried by human rights groups, but electorally popular. Nevertheless, suggestions that Morrison might take over an expanded ‘Homeland Security’-style portfolio was quickly and publicly vetoed by Bishop, indicating her ascendance in the Abbott Cabinet.67 However, after more than a year in office, Abbott’s Liberal-National government remains behind the Labor Party in opinion polls; reflecting his general unpopularity as Prime Minister. Despite all his foreign policy efforts, a majority of voters still do not trust Abbott to handle international relations effectively.68
Foreign policy expert Michael Wesley has already suggested the emergence of an ‘Abbott Doctrine’: with a range of emerging challengers to the dominant global order, from Da’esh, to Putin’s Russia in the Ukraine, and China in the East China Sea, Australia’s duty is to be a vocal, active member of the coalition of US allies that respond to these revisionist confrontations.69 There are concerns though that under Abbott, Australia is deepening its militarisation of foreign and domestic security policy, seen in the renewed ADF deployment to Iraq, Operation Sovereign Borders, and more draconian anti-terrorist legislation. Particularly worrying is the traditional ease of Australia’s entry to war on the decision of the executive, with little parliamentary debate (largely due to Labor’s acquiescence in this latest instance) or public oversight.70
As Opposition Leader, Abbott promoted an image of cautious regionalism in the Coalition’s foreign policy, that it would be centred on ‘Jakarta, not Geneva’. However, once in office, his government has embraced a more assertive nationalism. The emphasis on security in Australia’s foreign policy under the
67 Michelle Grattan, ‘Cabinet’s only woman wins the public ratings contest hands down’, The
Conversation, September 9, 2014.
68 Essential Media Communications, The Essential Report, September 9, 2014. 69 ‘Middle power Australia’, Saturday Extra, ABC Radio National, September 6, 2014. 70 Henry Reynolds, ‘Militarisation marches on’, Inside Story, September 22, 2014.
Abbott government is most strongly demonstrated in the reinvolvement of the ADF in Iraq, and the raised concerns over terrorism. This aims to play to the traditional political national security strengths of the Coalition, hoping to detract from the domestic political unpopularity of the government’s budget, and of its social/economic policies overall. In doing so, the Abbott government has committed Australia to an open-ended war yet again in Iraq (and also possibly in Syria). Meanwhile, civil liberties are eroding domestically in the name of counter-terrorism, while engaging in harsh deterrence against asylum seekers, in order to ‘stop the boats’. The reflexive, unquestioning, unconditional support for American military action has long been a traditional trope of Australian foreign policy. While this has the objective of securing the ANZUS alliance, it risks alienating Australia’s wider relations with the region and in the international community, at potential long-term cost to the domestic, regional, and global interests of Australian society.71
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