Prime Minister Rudd and the Pacific

This change in tone may be reflected in some actual policy changes, for example a resurgence in the teaching of Asian languages in Australian schools, and an increase in AusAID scholarships.

Kevin Rudd has spoken of a “Pacific Colombo Plan”, suggesting significant numbers of scholarships. He has also indicated a planned increase in the AusAID budget, from 0.3 per cent to 0.5 per cent of GDP, by 2015-16. Most of this, as we know, will return as “boomerang aid” to the handful of Australian companies who are AusAID’s “preferred con tractors”.

Nevertheless, aid money is clearly a central means by which Rudd hopes to rescue Australian influence. He recognises the damage Howard has done, speaking of a “long term drift in Australia’s strategic standing right across this region” and expressing a desire to control “anti-Australianism” and avoid “costly military interventions”.

What might this mean in practice? It may include increased intervention. Rudd’s party now speaks of a “staged withdrawal” of troops from Iraq, but a build up in Afghanistan and the Pacific, possibly including Timor Leste. The budget of the Australian Federal Police in the Pacific already nearly exceeds its domestic budget, but Rudd has promised them even greater resources.

However he has also repeated Labor’s commitment to “UN and multilateral approaches”. This might have made a difference to the Timor Leste intervention, where Howard (backed by the US) refused to place Australian troops under a UN command. This might signal a less aggressive, unilateral approach.

Education aid will be targeted. Rudd will likely follow Howard in plans to increase scholarships to Timor Leste, now that Australian troops have helped sideline Fretilin. Due to Howard’s chilly relations with the Alkatiri Government, scholarships to Australian universities for East Timorese students had fallen from 20 a year to just eight. That may now increase.

The likely new Foreign Minister, Robert McClelland, has spoken of Labor’s desire to train “a new generation of young leaders” from Timor Leste, PNG, the Solomons and Fiji, with greater Australian loyalties.

This brings us back to the continuities between Howard and Rudd. We can expect Rudd as PM to continue to back Australian mining companies and to work against potential competitors, in the Timor Sea and in PNG. He will be hostile to plans to develop gas processing capacity in Timor Leste and PNG, if Australian companies are not involved.

Rudd will probably continue Howard and Downer’s opposition to Cuban health and health training programs in the region, but the opposition will remain private, because Australia cannot compete. Timor Leste already has one of the fastest growing health systems in the world, largely thanks to Cuban generosity.

Relations with China are in a class apart, due to its economic power. Rudd, who speaks Chinese, has said he will seek greater engagement with China while maintaining a strong alliance with the US.

A further continuity will be Rudd’s backing of the “open market” or export-oriented approach to agriculture. This is dictated by the global ambitions of Australian agribusiness. On this basis, Australia refused to help rebuild Timor Leste’s rice production after 1999, even though it sells no rice to that country. Australia does have substantial rice exports to PNG, and typically does not support staple grain programs.

A Labor government led by Kevin Rudd would not be quick to move on the “migrant worker” issue, because of trade union fears. A possible breakthrough might come for skilled workers in the mining sector. The simplest solution, of course, would be to extend to young Pacific people the backpacker visas now offered to young “working tourists” from wealthier countries such as Britain, Germany and Korea. However residual racism in the Australian immigration system may make this difficult.

As PM Kevin Rudd says he “will listen” to the region. His background as a diplomat and a linguist give him some advantages, in this regard.

However as a technocrat - who quibbles more with Howard’s means than his ends - he can be expected to maintain support for all the important commercial and strategic interests backed by Howard. The pressure and influence is likely to be less crass and less public, but somewhat more “backroom” and cheque-book driven.