Perspectives on Australian foreign policy - 1997

In comparison with 1996, the government is showing far more assurance in its conduct of Australia's foreign relations. In 1997, it succeeded in placing its own particular stamp on Australian foreign, defence and trade policy. A series of fresh policy assessments, including the first White Paper on Foreign and Trade policy recast Canberra's foreign priorities, effectively widening the rhetorical gap between the government's policy direction and that of its Labor predecessors. Substantively, however, many of the same interests remain central to Australia's international concerns. The new government's focus on Asia, the importance of trade policy, the decline in resources going to the foreign affairs portfolio and a less declamatory approach to human rights, all resonate with the recent past. They also underscore the bipartisanship which has long characterised the conduct of Australian foreign policy. The challenge, as the new government has perceived it, has been to design and conduct a foreign policy with a clearer focus on Australia's immediate national interests and to place them at the forefront of its international agenda.