Australia as a good international citizen

The lesson from the schools is clear: development education should be done throughout all levels of schooling. This is proper education – and not just the glossy public relations material that AusAid produces (and which is hardly read).

Therefore, attention needs to be given to the creation of a stream of "international citizenship" education (which would be broader than "development education") to run throughout all years at school. It should also be examinable and so it would not just be seen as an optional extra. This should be done via the co-operation of the Commonwealth and State/Territory departments of education.

Third, education is vital but not sufficient. You do not think your way through to a new way of living – you live your way through to a new way of thinking. Ideally, there should be a scheme to enable all young Australians to see something of the world (especially the developing world). That will broaden their horizons and help them put Australian issues in context. (For example, the Indian or Pakistani leaders could serve as the Australian prime minister on their days off for a bit of light relief).

This scheme would require some form of Commonwealth travel fund. Rotary and other service clubs already have some trips and so they could tap into this fund if required. Other organizations could be created specifically to cater for this scheme. The intention should be, via a variety of organizations, to have Australian teenagers spend at least three months overseas in some form of "exposure" trip before they left school.

Fourth, adult education is also very important. I suggest that the Government create a central fund to which non-governmental organizations (Rotary, religious bodies, aid organizations etc) and for-profit companies could make application for them to carry out their own community education programmes on why Australia should become a good international citizen. NGOs and companies are far more innovative than government bureaucrats at producing informative material.

To conclude, there is a need for a bottom-up approach to a new foreign policy. Instead of elite policy-makers talking among themselves, there needs to be a campaign to involve ordinary Australians. If they are not involved, then there will be recurrences of Pauline Hanson (or, more worryingly, her articulate successors) tapping into the "politics of anger": people who feel excluded from the corridors of power and suspicious of what deals are being done.