Diary of a Foreign Minister: more matter, less art

Bob Carr's Diary of a Foreign Minister: more matter, less art

J R Nethercote

As the Rudd government approached its Gotterdammerung, the foreign minister, Bob Carr, confided to his diary, while trying to memorise one of Hamlet's soliloquies, that his ''aim is to know everything about'' Hamlet. But, as the various prepublication reviews of this Diary suggest, the role for Carr is not the Prince but Polonius. And, in working through the 500 pages, there will be a few readers who will regret that this Polonius did not heed Gertrude's advice, ''more matter, less art'', more frequently.

The publicity boasted ''an intimate glimpse into the day-to-day workings of a foreign minister and canny politician, who happens to be a fine writer as well''. Much attention given to the book before publication concentrated on Carr's preoccupations with his diet and his travel and accommodation arrangements, as well as his endless battle with jet-lag and his punishing fitness routines.

But the ''glimpses'' provided are, on occasion, highly instructive, especially where they concern the routines of government.

In the last days of Julia Gillard's prime ministership, Carr spends a day in estimates hearings: ''The estimates committee starts at 9am and drags on until 11pm. The questions to public servants (and occasionally to me) drone on and I read Michael Fullilove's Rendezvous with Destiny … And I read cables.''

Carr has no love for the new Parliament House, now a quarter of a century old: ''A sad dysfunctional building … Does all ambitious contemporary architecture end up with unhappiness institutionalised? Why such a vast hall separating the two chambers? When I'm striding across it … there's often nobody there. A handful at most. A bad attempt at a Mughal mausoleum. More wasted space in the Senate chamber itself … There is a mismatch between the grand ecclesiastical scale of the chamber and the aldermanic tone of the exchanges.

''I want the cosy, conversational, Westminster feel, the red leather and wood-panelling of the chamber in the old Parliament House. In my mind, it had an atmosphere redolent of pipe smoke, waistcoats and afternoon newspapers.''

Another more substantial feature of modernity in government comes in the light he sheds on how technology has affected the conduct of cabinet. Australia now has virtual cabinets as well as, previously, community cabinets!

Barely a week before the 2013 election, the national security committee has a meeting. Carr describes it as ''as serious a discussion as I've ever had at cabinet level: what is the legal basis for a military strike [against Syria] in the absence of a Security Council decision?'' But neither Carr nor most of his colleagues are in Canberra, or anywhere else in particular. They are spread around the country, ''with ministers plugged in from around Australia''.

This happens internationally as well as nationally. Early in his term, Carr flies to New York: ''having just arrived from Sydney, I had gone straight into a videoconference with Canberra, at the [UN] mission's Midtown offices''. ''The subject was my budget, the prospect of cuts in the rate of growth in spending on overseas aid. A week ago, there was a hint from the prime minister's foreign policy adviser, Richard Maude, that the prime minister might be open to revisiting this. Reversing the decision to cut growth and settling on a softer option previously considered and rejected. So I took this up over the conference line. Penny Wong (finance) was in the chair. She and the others listened.''

The culture shock for Carr, the former long-serving premier of NSW, is considerable: ''After 10½ years running my own government, with the final say on money, here I am cast as a mendicant minister. Wong may have been receptive. No decision taken. A relief if the prime minister sides with me. I'm booked in to talk to her on Friday.'' Whatever happens on Friday, and however the matter is resolved, is a mystery that the reader must, unless I missed something, solve alone.

By the time Friday comes around, the foreign minister is so deeply absorbed in New York's A-list that mere distant mortals, such as the Australian prime minister, are off the radar. The night before, Carr went to a dinner in his honour hosted by his ''favourite world-historical figure'', Henry Kissinger, the foreign policy colossus of the Nixon administration.

'' 'The celebration in the Kissinger family on the news of your [Carr's] appointment was indecent,' [Kissinger] said - so generous, so gracious - at the circular table in the wood-panelled dining room, Dutch flower painting on the wall behind him.''

Other guests included Rupert Murdoch, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the US's permanent representative at the United Nations and now National Security Adviser, Susan Rice.

The next day, the day of the booked phone call, Carr and his wife are at Nancy Kissinger's birthday party. ''[Henry] Kissinger lauded me, again proving my greatest friend and supporter. He told the table I was an historian who knew all about American presidents and their history and Rome.'' At the end of the evening, Kissinger invites him to Bohemian Grove, ''the exclusive retreat for business-political leaders in the redwoods north of San Francisco. Again, so thoughtful, so generous, he was asking me to be there as his guest. As his guest.'' (Carr's emphasis.)

The prime minister is, however, back centre stage at the end of the year during one of Carr's occasional pit stops in Australia. The topic is a vote in the UN about observer status for Palestine. Gillard wants to vote ''no'', explaining, as Carr puts it, ''the Jewish community remains very important and they won't settle for anything other than a 'no' vote, that they figure prominently in fund-raising and they're big in Victoria.''

The event has a prelude in a vote on a Lebanon oil spill. Carr, on the basis that the question has nothing to do with Palestinian status nor the security of Israel, tells the Lebanese that Australia will abstain. Gillard overrules him, telling him her ''jurisdiction on UN resolutions isn't confined to ones on Palestine and Israel. Any shift of significance needs to be checked with me.'' On this matter, 152 members of the UN voted yes. There were some abstentions and seven in the negative: ''the US, Canada, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Micronesia, Israel and - disgracefully, shamefully - us. The shame.'' (Carr's emphasis.)

A few days later, Gillard and Carr are very seriously at odds over Palestinian status at the UN. Carr is heavily backed by Labor's foreign minister from 1988 to 1996, Gareth Evans, who tells him ''a 'no' vote by us would be the worst Australian foreign policy decision in a generation''. ''He told me to fight all the way'' and later advised Carr that ''getting overruled on this would warrant me resigning''.

The decision weaves its way around cabinet, informally and formally, and the caucus. A complication is that junior ministers and parliamentary secretaries are not bound by a cabinet decision (an Australian Labor variant on Westminster practice, and maybe an Australian variant?). Carr is discouraged from speaking in the cabinet ''because there would certainly be a leak that would have the foreign minister at odds with the prime minister''.

Gillard is immovable: ''UN votes were things that she determined.'' The cabinet discussion concludes with 10 ministers opposed to her and only two, both fellow Victorians, in support. She ''repeated that it was her right to decide and she would adhere to her previous position''. Carr's lament: ''All these repetitions of 'it's the prime minister's call' and 'it's the prime minister's prerogative' are a reminder that what we have is not cabinet government but prime ministerial government.'' (Carr's emphasis.)

Carr decides he will need to speak in a subsequent caucus debate ''defying cabinet discipline''. The treasurer (Wayne Swan) and defence minister (Stephen Smith) tell him: ''You can't do it.'' In the end, the prime minister relents to the extent of agreeing that Australia should abstain: cabinet government after all! In the epilogue, Gillard solicits Carr's aid in ''seeing that the story wasn't pitched in terms of her being done over''. As a ''very chuffed'' Evans observes, ''he simply could not believe a prime minister would get away with cabinet conceding she had the right to do something a big majority opposed''.

Another glimpse into the power plays of the period comes when the prime minister complains about a list of proposed diplomatic appointments on which, as she puts it, ''I am supposed to be consulted''. Carr has no problem with putting them on hold. ''They were submitted by Dennis [Richardson] before his departure [for the Defence Department]'' and he ''certainly did not tell me that any were to be submitted to you''!

Richardson's shift from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to Defence gives a glimpse of the present workings of departmental secretary appointments. ''Down to Canberra yesterday for cabinet, and Ian Watt, secretary of the Prime Minister's Department, tells me - just as the meeting convenes - 'they' want to shift Dennis Richardson from DFAT to head Defence and elevate Peter Varghese as head of DFAT. They. Who is this 'they'?

''Julia had been after me to talk about a 'personnel' matter. And this is it! Dennis is something of the distant mandarin (tolerating a neophyte minister in a struggling minority government). Varghese is highly regarded, an intellectual. It's the choice I would have made. But it's made for me. By this mysterious 'they'.''

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J. R. Nethercote is an adjunct professor at the Australian Catholic University's Canberra campus. john.nethercote@acu.edu.au

Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/bob-carrs-diary-of-a-foreign-minister-more-matter-less-art-20140504-37q4z.html#ixzz314BA4m7D