Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Can I commend the previous speaker, the member for Fenner, on that fine contribution and for his great impersonations of the podcast. They were very accurate! I almost felt like I was listening to the great man.

It is with great sadness that I, too, learned of the passing of Allan Gyngell AO on 3 May after a short illness. As tributes have poured in over recent days, we've all been reminded how much of an enormous contribution Allan made to Australia's understanding of its place in the region and in the world. 'Allan was our finest mind in Australian foreign policy,' said our foreign minister, Penny Wong. Andrew Shearer, the Director-General of National Intelligence, said:

A giant in the policy world, Allan combined a mild manner with a brilliant intellect—

and—

… modesty, fairness and a healthy dose of self-effacing humour.

This quote is from Paul Symon, the former head of ASIS:

The intelligence community was always enriched by the wit, wisdom and analytical prowess of Allan Gyngell. We always learnt by listening to him.

Another quote is:

He is someone whose intelligence crept up on you. As you got to know him, the more you got to respect him.

That was former ambassador Dennis Richardson.

Allan's distinguished career included his roles as national president of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, or AIIA, from 2017 to 2023. He was director-general of the Office of National Assessments from 2009 to 2013, and he was founding executive director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy for six years from 2003. Allan served as senior international adviser to former Prime Minister Paul Keating from 1993 to 1996. What many don't know is that Allan also served as a negotiator, mostly secretly, to help produce that 1995 Australia-Indonesia security agreement. Prior to that, he was at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet including as first assistant secretary international from 1991 to 1993.

He began his foreign policy career as an officer at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, where he served as a diplomat in Rangoon, in Singapore and in Washington DC. He was an influential mentor to many in the foreign policy community in Canberra and nationally. He was always generous with his time and with his advice. I had the great privilege of meeting with him, and I really appreciated his time and counsel during our last term in opposition. And now, looking back, I'd have really wished the division bells hadn't rung if I'd known that it was the last time that I'd get to spend time and ask questions of this giant of foreign policy.

Many, including the foreign minister, have commented on Allan's remarkable intelligence, kindness, wit and warmth. Those are the qualities I also remember. He had a remarkable ability to access and to dissect the most complex policy challenges with a scholar's incisiveness, a practitioner's wisdom and the rigour of an analyst.

A division having been called in th e House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 17:03 to 17:08

In continuation, earlier in my remarks about the remarkable Allan Gyngell I reflected that my last conversation with him was interrupted by the bells. And then I was getting towards my contribution about this incredible man of Australian foreign policy, a very decent man, and the bells took me away. I will return to it now.

In 2020, I engaged with his thought-provoking work by writing a response to his essay titled 'History hasn't ended', which was in the Australian Foreign Affairs journal. Allan's piece was, typically, commendable for its even-keeled policy prescriptions and his level-headed tone in discussing our complex and consequential relationship, particularly, with China. In this work, Allan made the point:

The comforting familiarity of the post-World War II era has ended and the strangeness of our international environment, including China's centrality, is here to stay. Learning how to adjust to the strangeness and operate effectively within it, is this generation's great national test.

Allan was consistent in warning against hyperventilation over Australia's strategic challenges, always offering the hard-nosed and nuanced analysis that you would expect from someone who's such an experienced policymaker, but people with as many years in foreign policy as Allan may not necessarily have had that even-keeled approach, that sensible, pragmatic approach. It's remarkable, the balance that made him so unique and respected in the foreign policy and national security community.

Allan was a noted scholar in his own right, and I think it's also important to pay tribute to this aspect of his career. The 2003 textbook Making Australian Foreign Policy, which he co-wrote with Michael Wesley, remains compulsory reading among Australian students of foreign policy to this day. His 2017 book Fear of Abandonment is another classic of Australian foreign policy. So, for these and for all his intellectual and policy contributions, Australia mourns a giant of Australian foreign policy with Allan's passing. I too offer my deepest condolences to Allan's wife, Catherine, and the family.

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