Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

We will come back to the Labor Party in a second. I will be visiting the United States at the invitation of the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. It will be an opportunity to discuss issues such as the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and in Iraq, regional security issues, including the North Korean issue, the issue of climate change—going beyond the failed Kyoto protocol—and, naturally enough, we will talk about the upcoming APEC leaders meeting. It is important to ensure that countries in the region have a coordinated approach to that meeting. This visit underscores the depth and the importance of the relationship between Australia and the United States in our economic ties, our cooperation on regional, military and counterterrorism issues, and so the list goes on.

I noted last month that the Leader of the Opposition made his one trip overseas as Leader of the Opposition. Honourable members mock that I am meeting with Condoleezza Rice, but it was good enough for the Leader of the Opposition to travel 40,000 kilometres to Washington and to New York and to come back again. We all know he met with Rupert Murdoch, which was entirely appropriate, but what interested me about this trip, his only trip overseas as the opposition leader, was that he did not meet a single political leader, Democrat or Republican—not one. He met officials, of course, as you would. He loves the expression: ‘I am the alternative Prime Minister. As the alternative Prime Minister’—and he purses his lips at that—‘I am now travelling to the United States of America.’ We all prick up our ears: how terribly exciting that is going to be. While he is over there he does not meet with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense or the National Security Adviser—he meets none of those people. He does not meet any of the congressional leaders, he does not bother to meet Democratic Party candidates for the presidency such as Hillary Clinton and he does not meet any of the Republican candidates for the presidency. It is an extraordinary thing that the Leader of the Opposition would travel 40,000 kilometres, meet Rupert Murdoch—which is of course entirely appropriate, as I said before—but not have time to see any political leaders in the United States of America. That trip was not a good investment of taxpayers’ money.

This amounts to a demonstration of a point: Labor wants to downgrade the relationship with the United States. It is pretty obvious. You would not travel halfway around the world, as an opposition leader, meet no political leaders and travel all the way back again if you wanted to upgrade the relationship with the United States of America. I think not. The opposition spokesman on foreign affairs—honourable members may be interested to know who that is: it is the member for Barton—did an interview, which was quite a surprise, with the Sunday Age. He said:

Australia cannot risk alienating China as there is no guarantee the United States will remain the dominant power in Asia ...

If that is not an illustration of my point that Labor wants to downgrade the relationship with the United States, I do not know what is.

The fact is that this government has been able to achieve not only a very strong relationship with the United States but a strong relationship with China, with Japan, with Indonesia and with India. We have been able to build strong relationships with all those countries without offsetting one of those relationships against another. I know the member for Barton is no great expert on these issues, but he has let the cat out of the bag: Labor wants to rejiggle those relationships—

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