Senator Russell Trood (Liberal Queensland) has welcomed the comments of the official hand-picked by Kevin Rudd to sell his vision for an Asia Pacific community, acknowledging that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is drastically under funded.
Former secretary of DFAT, Richard Woolcott, said that DFAT has “…been allowed to (be) run down to a dangerously low level,” in an interview on ABC radio yesterday.
Mr Woolcott is a highly distinguished diplomat whose views on DFAT funding reflect a concern that Senator Trood has been expressing for a long period of time.
“To have any chance of succeeding, Rudd’s extraordinarily ambitious agenda will require substantial commitment of foreign policy resources.” said Senator Trood, who is the Deputy Chair of the Senate Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.
Senator Trood warned of the implications of an overcommitted and under funded DFAT in a speech delivered to the Australian Institute of International Affairs in Sydney last week.
“The last budget has left DFAT seriously under-resourced and the Rudd government has compounded the problem with its very ambitious policy agenda and its penny pinching failure to provide any significant increase in funding,” Senator Trood said.
“This is hardly consistent with the Mr Rudd’s aspiration that Australia become an active and creative middle power on the world stage.”
“The foreign policy challenge for the Rudd government today is that the international system is going through a period of profound change. These are often times of considerable instability in international affairs,” Senator Trood said.
Australia faces serious challenges in the international arena and will need increased diplomat resources if it is to be successful in protecting its national interests.
The Rudd government’s foreign policy appears to be big on the creation of new structures and architectures but low on actual problem solving.
“Rudd has chartered an ambitious role for Australia in regional and global affairs, but failed to articulate a coherent narrative on the way this will advance our national interests in an increasingly complex and challenging environment,” Senator Trood said.