Howard's partial reversal

Whatever the prime minister’s motives, generosity was a master stroke, says Ross Buckley WHAT is going on in Australia? When the Howard government came to power, Australia gave 0.32 per cent of gross national income each year as overseas aid. Over nine years this has fallen to 0.25 per cent, and the real figure is less as funds spent on refugees and security issues are classed as aid. John Howard is a consistent man. He has consistently reduced our aid budget - to the point that among rich countries we are now the second stingiest donor in the world. Yet, after years of this stinginess, he announces a $1 billion package of grants and highly concessional loans to rebuild regions devastated by the tsunami. And after years of elevating the US alliance, and playing down the importance of Asia, Howard handles the tsunami crisis, an Asian crisis, adroitly, almost flawlessly, with a compassion and cultural sensitivity that has been missing in many previous regional dealings. What is going on? In two ways, Howard has remained constant. He has remained the consummate politician, a master of reading the electorate’s mood, and the individual Australian response to the tsunami has been overwhelming generosity. But at the individual level this is not a new development. Donations to overseas aid agencies by individual Australians have increased 15 per cent a year, year on year, since 11 September 2001. It is as if that horror convinced individuals we are not separate or isolated - and the best response to this interconnectedness is caring. Yet, before now, the federal government seemed oblivious to this shift in individual giving. Howard has also remained constant in another sense. He has channelled our aid directly to the regions affected, not through the United Nations - and so, to the small extent he can, disempowered that organisation. He has maintained his distrust of the UN, and his preference for bilateralism in all its forms. John Howard makes his own decisions. The heavy hand of advisers, so apparent in the Bush administration, is not seen here. Indeed, not since perhaps Gough Whitlam have we had a prime minister put his personal stamp so clearly on the government and the country. Being in Washington DC on 11 September 2001 clearly touched our prime minister personally, and has influenced our foreign policy ever since. So is it that John Howard was in a reflective, giving mood on Boxing Day, and the days that followed, as news of the horror to our north unfolded? Was he unusually receptive and open? Or has he seen a strategic economic opportunity? The trade and economic linkages in our region are changing rapidly. China is fast becoming the economic hub with which other economies, including ours, will interact. Last year we were invited to an Association of South-East Asian Nations summit for the first time since 1977, just as China and the ten ASEAN members concluded a far-reaching free trade agreement. East Asian nations have initiated an East Asia Summit and invited Australia to the first later this year. After years of exclusion, at the behest of Malaysia and Indonesia, we have finally been offered a seat at the table. But the invitation was only a one-off. It was clear we had to earn a permanent seat at the table. It was also clear this really mattered. We would be able to participate in the formation of regional policy, not simply respond to what had been decided. As the events of Boxing Day unfolded, did John Howard see a way to earn that seat? I don’t know. Perhaps no one knows. Our prime minister keeps his own counsel. But his statesmanlike choices on this issue have been important for Australia and their consequences will reverberate for decades. Our reputational capital in the region has been severely eroded in recent years by a series of decisions on issues from refugees, to oil and gas with East Timor, to refusing to sign ASEAN’s innocuous Treaty of Amity and Cooperation last year. In one stroke, John Howard has redressed, at least in part, a myriad of wrongs. Respect, generosity and good faith matter in the countries to our north. When extended, they are not forgotten. Memories are long. The generosity of our government’s response to this crisis represents a radical policy shift. This was the right call for Australia and for our neighbours. It was in our interests as much as it was in theirs. Ross Buckley is director of the Tim Fischer Centre for Global Trade & Finance, Bond University. This article first appeared in the Canberra Times Photo: Matthew Scherf/ iStockphoto.co