Among wealthy countries on the world stage, Australia looks increasingly backward. At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the government’s response to the climate crisis was ranked last out of 60 countries. After fronting up with a net zero pledge — the bare minimum required to get some tepid praise from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson — Australia continued to act as a climate laggard.
The climate story is a telling example of Australia’s abrogation of international leadership. But it’s not the only one. Our history is littered with examples of Australia taking a proactive, positive role on the world stage. Now, Australia leads the world for all the wrong reasons.
The then and the now
Australia wasn’t always like this. In the 1940s, HV “Doc” Evatt, then a former High Court judge and soon to be Labor leader, played an instrumental role in the creation of the United Nations. He served as president of the General Assembly, and helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Fast forward to 2019, and Scott Morrison was hitting out at the UN as an example of “negative globalists” and an unaccountable internationalist bureaucracy.
Gough Whitlam’s trip to China in 1971 as opposition leader was momentous, a turning point in Sino-Australian relations roundly criticised by the government of the day. But US President Richard Nixon’s even more momentous trip a year later made Whitlam’s overture look like a forward-thinking piece of statecraft. In contrast, the Morrison government’s impulsive, unilateral calls for an inquiry into China’s handling of the coronavirus helped accelerate a deterioration of the bilateral relationship.
Through the Hawke-Keating years, Australia had moments of great moral and geostrategic leadership on the world stage. Both, along with foreign minister Gareth Evans, helped deepen Australia’s relationships with Asian neighbours, including driving the creation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.
Bob Hawke once named his opposition to Apartheid one of his greatest achievements, and he played a leading role in the boycott that made South Africa an international pariah, despite stiff opposition from Britain’s Margaret Thatcher. After the Tiananmen Square massacre, Hawke resisted pressure from cabinet to allow some 42,000 Chinese students in Australia to seek asylum.
Recently, the Morrison government had an opportunity to show similar leadership on the world stage in its withdrawal from Afghanistan. Instead, the embassy in Kabul was closed overnight, and for months, calls to evacuate Afghan staff that worked with Australian troops were ignored, until plans began arriving after the Taliban had taken control of the city. The government also relied on arbitrary distinctions to narrow the number of visas offered.
It isn’t just Labor governments who have shown a greater capacity for moral leadership. Morrison’s decision to offer 3000 humanitarian visas to people fleeing Afghanistan was less generous than Liberal predecessors like Malcolm Fraser, who opened the doors to Vietnamese refugees and John Howard, whose government evacuated thousands from Kosovo and Timor-Leste. Even Tony Abbott promised to take 12,000 Syrian refugees in 2015.
A climate laggard
But right now, it’s climate change where Australia drags its feet most. It’s been going on since way back at COP3 in 1997, when Australia signed onto a target where it would increase its emissions by 8% instead of reducing them — the infamous Australia Clause — much to the chagrin of the European Union.
Aside from a brief period of international goodwill during the Rudd-Gillard years (where carbon pricing was tearing domestic politics apart), Australia continues to fall behind on emissions reduction, and anything to do with addressing emissions reduction.
COP26 has been a case in point. This week, the United States and China announced an unexpected joint pledge to lower emissions. Meanwhile, Australia is working behind the scenes to dilute language around 2030 targets and the phasing out of coal in a key declaration. Fossil fuel giant Santos fronted Australia’s pavilion in Glasgow. The government is lobbying UNESCO to remove references to 1.5C warming from a policy document on world heritage sites.
As Crikey reported last week, the Morrison government is unprecedented in its indifference to foreign affairs, tending to view things outside Australia primarily through the prism of domestic political advantage. But when we do show our face on the world stage, our interventions don’t come with leadership or moral weight.
Once upon a time, there were Jokes about third-world dictators. Now we have an Australian PM who is a joke
Who is rapidly turning us by design into a dark ages theocracy.
The time has come to take a serious look at our PM including his past employment and his religious beliefs to establish who is making the decisions
“After the Tiananmen Square massacre, Hawke resisted pressure from cabinet to allow some 42,000 Chinese students in Australia to seek asylum.”
At first sight, I took this to mean Hawke prevented the cabinet from offering asylum to the students.
Rat, I saw it and thought exactly the same thing. I knew the truth, but it just didn’t read well. Be careful of ambiguity, Mr Napier-Raman.
Add me to the list. Had to re-read twice. Would be clearer if it read: … Hawke resisted pressure from cabinet by allowing some 42,000 Chinese students in Australia to seek asylum.
To repeat – the point of good writing is to be clear, unambiguous and lucid.
Not a KPI in the bunker.
Yes, English is a bastard language. I remember in school, when I was about 10 or 11, my English class had a Dutchman as teacher. He had served in the WW2 RAF as a Spitfire pilot shooting down V1 flying bombs. Anyway, he was reading us something when he came upon the word slaughter. He pronounced it like laughter, which of course prompted the class to do just that. He was quite nonplussed. We had to teach him. I guess if he’d heard the word before (and no doubt had) he might have thought it’s spelling would be slawter.
Natives suspicious of Germans pretending to be English or Dutch underground used Scheveningen as a shibboleth.
All is well with MSM reporting of news to their audiences. Truly becoming a dumbed down nation. I’m in my 70’s – can recall fondly discussions on then current news. One might end up saying “that’s rubbish” or “obviously you don’t read enough” but all amicable and with continuing friendship.
Very different now – allegiance to party line (unstated) with no thought of discussion. Plus many oldies have no further interest in politics. Vote for same party – it’s easier.
Liked the poster at beginning of article. Species extinction? What’s that? Local gardeners (seem to be half half) complain of magpies, galahs, blackbirds disturbing their gardens etc etc. I’m sure the roundup sprayed around will aid in depleting bird numbers. As for small mammals – don’t see them, don’t worry.
Getting to a stage in life where nature and animal life more vital to save than human life.
Back to MSM – totally on side with neolib economics. Just watch the anti-Labor slants coming daily now.
No surprise, Australia like the US and UK shares Anglosphere ‘architecture’ quietly built over past generation or so, like a triangle of influence and ‘culture’.
This includes coordination of Koch think tanks promoting radical right libertarian socio-economic policy (with a whiff of eugenics) including climate science denial, trashing unionised workplace etc., based upon ‘public choice theory’ of James Buchanan, and in a parallel universe the old ZPG types with alt right dog whistling ‘immigrants’ or ‘population growth’ as the cause of environmental degradation (avoiding constraints on fossil fuels), stagnant wages etc.; supported by legacy media messaging, corrupted parliaments and autocracy.
Brexit was a clear example of the ‘one two’ tactics, first one Leave campaign of Johnson/Gove did the dodgy economic PR or agitprop (350 million quid back to the NHS, global Britain etc…..), then the other with Farage coming in with the ‘immigration card’, being overrun by Muslim or EU immigrants, then Johnson joins in about Turks pouring in….. more than enough for ageing voters to agree with.
Thank you. After COP26 I can no longer believe that the federal LNP is not bought by coal, gas and oil. Ozgov has been utterly appalling. I will hold them accountable on the next superhot summer, the stronger cyclone, the bushfires.