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5 March 2012

Foreign Minister Carr’s world view

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Thom Woodroofe

Most Australians were shocked to learn Friday that the worst kept secret of the week was actually true despite repeated rejections from the Prime Minister.

Bob Carr, the longest serving premier of New South Wales, will now become Australia’s Foreign Minister.

Undoubtedly, Carr is well credentialed for the role he has always dreamed of.

And the self-confessed 64-year-old bookworm and civil-war buff will not only bring an extensive address book of international contacts to the job, but also a methodical and thoughtful approach forged through a compelling knowledge of history.

While Carr likened himself Friday to the late US senator Robert Byrd who died in office at 92, it is well known he holds close courtship with over a dozen current senators across the Pacific. He counts Henry Kissinger amongst his best friends.

Even Liberal Premier and adversary Barry O’Farrell paid tribute to Carr’s appointment on Twitter saying “no-one can deny his depth of knowledge of the portfolio”.

At the end of the day, Labor needed a heavyweight like Carr to fill the vacancy created by Kevin Rudd.

While Stephen Smith never got the opportunity to blossom as foreign minister under Rudd, he would have been perceived as safe hands running from a complex portfolio; but more importantly a capitulation by a supposedly reinvigorated Prime Minister. Craig Emerson was also a contender but only if Smith did not want the job and Simon Crean was never a chance given the huge backhand to Rudd it would have signified no matter how much he fancied himself.

But what views will Australia’s new chief diplomat bring to the table?

In recent years, Carr has been critical of the United States’ role in the world and our close bilateral relationship. A board member of the United States Studies Centre in Sydney and a regular participant in the Australian American Leadership Dialogue, he widely criticised the choreography of president Obama’s visit to Australia last November as projecting a step too far in our relations.

Carr also said in an interview with the Australian Financial Review in December that, “I think we should draw the line at signing up for the American campaign against China’s currency policies”.

In the same interview he likened the Republican presidential candidates’ views on foreign policy to xenophobia, labelling their contest as “some sort of psychodrama staged in a group home for the developmentally disabled”. He has also gone so far as to call the frontrunner Mitt Romney “bloodless” and Newt Gingrich a “mad professor” which could make for awkward encounters in the future.

On the matter of an American military presence in Australia Carr recently said, “We should be cautioning America to plan for a peaceful accommodation of the inevitability of a greater Chinese strategic presence in the Pacific” and warning Australia against becoming America’s “aircraft carrier”.

But perhaps most strikingly, Carr has also been one of the most vocal critics of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Labelling them “dumb” in a blog post following a report by The Lowy Institute last year. He went on to write:

…the Western response to September 11 was fundamentally wrong: that is, the launch of two wars, costing a trillion dollars and thousands of lives and causing refugee flows, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the Prime Minister has committed Australian troops to Afghanistan until at least 2020, Carr’s appointment perhaps provides hope that finally our political debate will catch-up to public sentiment on this conflict.

Carr’s high-achieving Malaysian born wife is often credited with spurring his fascination with South East Asia and introducing him to a wealth of contacts. And while comments likening the Dalai Lama to a “cunning monk rather than a holy man”, which have been deleted from his blog, will go down well in Beijing, another post suggesting we should not be buying food from China until their standards improve will not.

Last week, the Age’s Michelle Grattan also reported that Carr’s elevation to the Foreign Affairs gig would likely see a reduction of Australia’s diplomatic presence in Africa in favour of an increased presence in China, India and the Gulf.

Such a move would put Carr out of step with a move by Smith in 2009, and continued by Rudd, to refocus Australia’s engagement in Africa.

Currently Australia only has eight posts and a further two consulates across the continent that is home to one billion people and shortly four of the 10 largest growing economies. In contrast, the United States has 47 missions in Africa and China now has 41. Meanwhile more comparable countries such as Canada have 18, South Korea 16 and Malaysia 13. But Australia’s representation in China and India is also lacking with only two offices outside each of Beijing and New Delhi.

Finally, it is widely understood that Carr was intent on dropping Australia’s bid for a two-year term on the United Nations Security Council. While the campaign is widely seen as a hallmark of Rudd’s passion for foreign affairs, dropping it with six months to go would have looked weak, small-minded and risked trashing his predecessor’s legacy.

While Carr has enthusiastically embraced the campaign in recent days, his views risk undermining the legitimacy of the entire bid if they do not go unchanged behind closed doors. Given Australia’s absence from the Security Council for a quarter of a century a victory in October could be seen as Carr’s first triumph. He would be well advised to instead refocus the campaign with a strong focus on minimising opposition from across the aisle. Engaging Rudd in an informal capacity could help dramatically with these efforts.

Ultimately, Carr should continue to celebrate the accomplishments of his predecessor as he did Friday paying tribute to Australia’s membership of the G20 and an expanded East Asian Summit, our place now as the world’s seventh largest aid donor, and our activism over Libya and Syria. But he should also learn from Rudd’s shortcomings, most importantly never to forget about our own backyard. His announcement over the weekend that he intends to make his first trip to New Zealand to meet with Pacific leaders even before being sworn in is therefore welcome news.

Given the constitution allows Carr to take up his portfolio up to three months before formally entering parliament expect him to make a big splash when he does so.

Thom Woodroofe is an associate fellow of The Asia Society. Follow on Twitter @thomwoodroofe. View his full profile here.