Australian ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Washington last October.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
“It’s very simple. First,obviously,the Australian ambassador is chosen by the Australian government. Second,Trump is a bully and the worst possible thing the Australian government can do is to be seen to give in to bullying.
“The principal reason I had,from my perspective,a successful relationship with Trump is that I stood up to him” on their two items of disagreement,refugee resettlement and the tariffs that the US proposed to put on Australian steel and aluminium.
Apart from this,Turnbull considers that Rudd is “a professional,and he’s doing a good job”. Other expert Washington observers agree and point out Rudd has close relationships with key members of the Trump court including his former secretary of state Mike Pompeo,his former national security adviser Robert O’Brien and his former trade representative Bob Lighthizer.
Turnbull isn’t the only former Liberal prime minister with a positive appraisal of Rudd’s work. In comments not previously reported,Scott Morrison told my colleague James Massola last month that he was “highly commending of what Kevin was able to achieve” in navigating passage of AUKUS-enabling legislation through the US Congress last year.
Said Morrison:“He has fully applied himself in those tasks. And I think those early results are to his credit.”
Even Dutton last month had positive things to say about Rudd’s work as ambassador,until it suited the opposition leader to take the cheap shot on Wednesday,siding with a foreign politician over an Australian ambassador.
Turnbull makes one further point of context. “This is basically a News Ltd stitch-up,” pointing to the fact Trump was asked a leading question about Rudd by the one-time British Brexit activist Nigel Farage on behalf of Sky News Australia. It seems that Rudd and the Albanese government need to stand up to more than one bully.
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“Trump is a pugilist,and he’s completely transactional,” says an Australian who formerly worked closely with the Trump administration. He predicted that Trump,if elected,would stand ready to transact with Rudd,whom he’s only ever met once,for as long as it takes to shake a hand,if he needed to.
And Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said that,if Trump won,Rudd would be standing ready to deal with him. The ambassador was doing an “excellent” job and certainly wouldn’t be replaced,thereby guaranteeing Rudd’s tenure.
Another Oscar Wilde aphorism comes to mind:“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.”
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