Scott Morrison has heavily promoted his government’s ‘Pacific Step Up’, but it hasn’t invested the requisite funds to support the initiative diplomatically.
Darren England/AAP
New research shows that funding for DFAT has hit a new low of 1.3% of the federal budget. Scaling back has a real effect on Australia’s influence around the world.
Expertise on the inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party is spread dangerously thin across Australia.
Dave Hung/AAP
Attacking Erdoğan’s original comments, Morrison told a news conference they were “highly offensive to Australians and highly reckless in this very sensitive environment”.
Future Australian governments need to work harder at making foreign affairs more accessible to the public, such as better explaining the “Pacific pivot”.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Whoever forms the next government should increase investment in foreign affairs and trade, finding ways to make Australia more prominent in global dispute resolution.
The government briefed Indonesia before the Prime Minister outlined the new Australian policy in a speech in Sydney on Saturday.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Morrison announced a compromise position that recognises West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital but does not move Australia’s embassy there until a peace settlement determines Jerusalem’s final status.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison in question time on Wednesday. He is being treated with less respect.
Mick Tsikis/AAP
Ministers scrapping publicly over whether our embassy should be relocated is adding to the perception of government disunity and fanning the friction the issue has already caused with our neighbours.
Pryke told The Conversation "the desire for a convergence of China into the international liberal order seems like a bit of a fantasy now.”
The free trade agreement with Indonesia, which Australia originally.
hoped would be signed this week when Morrison was in Singapore for the start of the summit season, has become hostage to the embassy
decision.
Mick Tskias/AAP
The fundamental point is that those were desperate days for the Coalition and so are these. “McMahon was in survival mode,” says author Patrick Mullins. The same could be said of Morrison.
Fullilove suggests the time will come when Trump will put the Australian government on the spot.
Christian Hartmann/EPA
In a speech titled “After the Midterms”
Fullilove warns Australia may need to increase its defence spending beyond the present commitment and urges the government to reverse some of its cuts to aid.
Morrison says it is time to “open a new chapter in relations with our.
Pacific family”.
Dan Peled/AAP
Peter Jennings on Morrison’s Jerusalem move
CC BY26.7 MB(download)
Jennings says it would be "silly" to claim there is no connection between this week's announcement about the possible relocation of Australia's embassy to Jerusalem and the Wentworth byelection.
In reality, the chances of Bishop being in the next parliament seem minimal.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Bishop could presumably expect to receive some attractive job offers in the next few months, and if the right one came along, domestic or international, she would be taking it.
Whether New Zealand achieves real change in the way it engages with Pacific nations depends on how the ‘Pacific reset’ funding boost is translated into action on the ground.
Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin greets former South African President Nelson Mandela in 2000.
EPA/Mike Hutchings
NATO leaders meet in Belgium today; many are worried about US President Trump’s habit of breaking diplomatic norms. History is filled with other leaders acting bullishly, often with poor results.
Lindiwe Sisulu, South Africa’s minister of international relations, is reviewing the country’s foreign policy.
Dirco