Forecasting Labor's foreign policy

As usual, a double standard will probably be applied. If you actually want a principled foreign policy on issues like human rights, you will get it neither from Labor nor from the conservatives. You can always vote Green, but rest assured that whatever deals Rudd has to do with the Greens before or after the election, he will not agree to such a foreign policy.

It is hard to predict how well or badly the ALP would manage the national defence effort. Its record – mostly the legacy of Kim (“Bomber”) Beazley as Defence Minister – is not encouraging. The important JORN long-range surveillance radar project and the Collins class submarines were both seriously mishandled at the cost of huge losses and long delays, and there were other smaller-scale failures. It has taken a goodly slice of the Collins class’ expected service life to get the boats up to the originally planned levels of capability.

If elected, Rudd Labor can divest itself of this baggage by imposing higher accountability standards on the Defence Department. The Department was placed under similar pressure early in the Coalition’s reign by its Minister John Moore – unquestionably the best Defence Minister-manager of the modern era – but his successors failed to maintain his standards, leading to more costly procurement disasters, such as the Army’s Bushmaster vehicle and the Navy’s Seasprite helicopter and, in all probability, others in the works.

Plugging the Defence black hole could free-up billions long-term, but the necessary correctives carry enough short-term political disincentives to deter the timid. In particular, there would be dismal wails of protest from a long-coddled Department, from pampered industrial interests and the associated unions and State governments. Whether Rudd will seize the opportunity if he achieves office is hard to predict: cynics will probably think no, and the record would largely support them.

Nevertheless, the gains from curbing Defence’s chronic extravagant incompetence are apparently seriously tempting [http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2007/s2063442.htm] Lindsay Tanner, Labor’s shadow Finance Minister, recently identified it as an area with “ample scope” for substantial efficiency improvements – especially in major materiel procurement projects.

Strong oversight and discipline exerted by a Finance Department under Tanner’s control could indeed free substantial resources for productive aspects of national security spending. Curing this disease demands political will to drive change and accountability over a period long enough for it to stick. Is the incentive worth the short-term political costs? A government really committed to spending money effectively would think so.

There are some ongoing and emerging issues which I think Rudd Labor is better suited intellectually and in value terms to handle than the Coalition. In particular, border protection is an area where much needs to be done. An immigration system capable of “deporting” Australian citizens and admitting foreign professionals whose qualifications only later are found to be questionable is not doing its job.

And I will add this: for simple humanity’s sake, I would expect Rudd Labor to put an end to the hellish treatment handed out to those people detained for years in harsh camps under Howard. If it fails to do so, it will only share in the indelible stain this sad business has left on our national reputation.

Instead of a misplaced focus on some asylum-seeker boat-people, a more credible effort – in terms of maritime and air surveillance – of the approaches to this continent is needed. Already, sensitive fisheries need protection from large scale foreign poaching, and it is clear that we require extra capability for maritime patrol in the Southern Ocean and sub-Antarctic. Protection of our littoral and continental shelf ecology from rapacious exploitation or damage may soon be as important as safeguarding resources in the more traditional sense.

There can hardly be much doubt as to which party is best equipped to manage the new and different security issues likely to come with deepening climate change. This is no small matter: Commissioner Mick Keelty of the Federal Police recently identified [http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22476295-5009760,00.html] climate change, not terrorism, as the most serious threat of this century. While the Labor Party has long understood that climate change is a real issue, Howard, of course, was a “sceptic” and his Government massively derelict, until recently struck on the road to Damascus (not Kyoto) by a blinding light in the shape of opinion polling.

Overall I would expect a greater delicacy of touch, with more (not necessarily enough) sensitivity to Australian interests in relations with great powers; a greater reluctance to engage forces outside our region, and certainly not without UN approval and a renewed emphasis on regional relations based on something other than an absentee landlord mentality. These relations are likely be tarnished, however, by a studious de-emphasis of human rights and similar issues in important neighbours like Indonesia and major trading partners like China.

There will undoubtedly be flaws, some serious, in Labor’s approach. Nevertheless, when one remembers that we are obliged to chose between Rudd’s warts and a party that goes to war by mistake and after four years still cannot find a way out, the choice is easy.

Rudd Labor has shown enough to support the conclusion that it would at worst be competent in its management of key national security issues. On their record, the Howard conservatives demonstrably are not.