Issues in Australian Foreign Policy

Abstract

Issues in Australian Foreign Policy July to December 2007 The final six months of 2007 were eventful ones in both Australian domestic politics and foreign policy. Inevitably in an election year foreign policy became intertwined with the contest for political power in Canberra. While some observers have since asserted that foreign policy and “international” issues played no role in the election campaign, the following review of Australian foreign policy will demonstrate that foreign policy issues played a significant role in both the pre-election and election campaign jockeying for position between the incumbent Liberal-National government of Prime Minister John Howard and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) opposition under Kevin Rudd. Over the July to December 2007 period six foreign policy issues dominated both government and Opposition attention and had significant resonance for the domestic political contest: (1) terrorism; (2) Iraq; (3) Afghanistan; (4) instability in the South Pacific; (5) climate change and environmental issues; and (6) the future of the US alliance and great power politics in the Asia-Pacific. These issues largely fall within two broad trends of the contemporary strategic landscape that confronts Australia: the increased importance of non-state, sub-state and trans-national threats for Australian security and the reality of a changing distribution of power in the Asia-Pacific.