CHALLENGES 2007-2008: ‘Rudd’s Policies Won’t Hurt US-Australia Ties’

By Stephen de Tarczynski Reprint | | Print |

Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, Dec 16 2007 (IPS) - Analysts argue that while the new Australian government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will charter a more independent course from the United States, the bilateral relationship is likely to remain strong in the coming year.

”The U.S. has gone to some lengths to signal its embrace of the new government in Australia, the fact is that the relationship is a robust relationship that can withstand disagreement within it,” says political scientist and international relations expert at the Australian National University, Prof. Norman Abjorensen.

Kevin Rudd, whose Labor Party (ALP) swept to power after November’s election, has already made good on Labor’s pledge to ratify the Kyoto Protocol by signing the treaty’s official documents and personally handing them to United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon last week at the UN climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia.

While Rudd has acknowledged the importance to Australia of the alliance between the two nations, he says that this does not necessarily result in his government’s automatic compliance with U.S. policies.

At the Bali conference, Rudd called on the U.S. to tackle what he called “its share of the global burden of climate change.”

Although Australia’s move to begin the ratification process leaves the U.S. as the only industrialised country that has not ratified the treaty, Abjorensen argues that the bilateral relationship will not be adversely affected.

“On climate change I think there’s a recognition that Australia has its own interests to protect and signals we’ve seen from Washington and from their representatives in Canberra all point to the fact that they have prepared for and embraced the change of government in Australia,” he told IPS.

The U.S. undersecretary for political affairs, Nicholas Burns, told ABC TV’s ‘Lateline’ programme earlier this month that the U.S. respects the Rudd government’s right to make its own decisions.

According to Ralph Pettman, associate professor in international relations at the University of Melbourne, Australian foreign policy since the World War II has always looked to the U.S. for “insurance”.

“I think the experience of the Second World War was pretty traumatic for Australia,” says Pettman, referring to the Japanese bombing of the northern Australian city of Darwin and submarine attacks on Sydney and Newcastle.

He argues that Australia has been fearful of attack from Asia since then – a fear that Pettman regards as “a radical misreading of the political realities of the region” – and that under the leadership of the previous prime minister, John Howard, the Australia-U.S. relationship “became altogether too close.”

Howard was a staunch supporter of the U.S. over the course of his 11 years in office, committing Australian troops to both Afghanistan and Iraq and siding with Washington on climate change issues.

But, says Pettman, Australian foreign policy will be more independent under the Rudd Government, with the Prime Minister stating that Australia’s contingent of combat troops in Iraq – some 550 soldiers based mainly in the south of the war-torn country – will be withdrawn “by around the middle of next year.”

Rudd’s experience enables him to navigate Australia’s foreign policies away from its focus on the U.S., says Pettman. “He’s a diplomat and he knows world affairs personally. He knows it much better than most of the post-war prime ministers,” he told IPS.

Pettman argues that Rudd’s ability to speak Mandarin is a “tremendous asset”. Apart from not having to rely on translators to converse with Chinese officials, Rudd is better placed than Howard was to understand Chinese strategy in the region.

“He’s in a position to mediate between the Americans and the Chinese in a way that I think is unique,” adds Pettman.

But while Australian moves to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and withdraw troops from Iraq signal a shift on foreign policies, Abjorensen says that Australia’s relationship with the U.S. is not under threat.

“Traditionally, the Labor Party in Australia has pursued a more nationalistic line. It’s always been a strong supporter of the United Nations, a strong supporter of multinational agreements around the world,” says Abjorensen.

Using the metaphor of a swinging pendulum to describe the shift in policy between Labor and the Liberal-National coalition, Abjorensen says that “Australia’s foreign policy across the whole spectrum doesn’t change all that much.”

“It’s really a swing in a very short arc because it (only) changes the focus slightly,” he told IPS. “It’s more a change of tactic rather than a change of strategy.”

The Rudd government has also signalled changes in domestic policies which, combined with its policies on climate change and Iraq, may go some way in improving Australia’s reputation around the world.

The new government has said it will apologise to indigenous Australians for past injustices committed against them and has already begun dismantling the Howard government’s so-called “Pacific Solution”, under which people seeking asylum in Australia were detained offshore while their claims were processed.

Abjorensen says that “there has been some fairly adverse criticism of the hard line taken (by the Howard government) on asylum seekers.”

“I think the images overseas of immigration detention camps in the Australian desert have not exactly embellished Australia’s prestige or enhanced its reputation as a humanitarian country,” he argues.

“I think the signal so far from Mr Rudd and his government are that some of those hard lines will be softened. At the same time they’ve signalled that national security remains absolutely paramount,” Abjorensen told IPS.

In terms of foreign policy issues, Rudd’s path has, to some extent, been cleared by the tide of world opinion.

The combination of the growing awareness around the world of the importance to address climate change and the opposition to the continuing presence of foreign troops on Iraqi soil makes the policies of the Rudd government more acceptable, says Pettman.

“Don’t forget (U.S. President) Bush is on the way out,” opines Pettman. “The Americans have had enough of him and they’re going to elect somebody a bit more reasonable too because they realise the dangers of global warming and climate change.”