16 - Regional, Alliance and Global Priorities of the Rudd–Gillard Governments

Summary

In its annual poll for 2010, the Lowy Institute for International Policy included public opinion data under the heading of the ‘Rudd government’s foreign policy report card’. Asked about its performance across a range of issues, those polled gave their highest mark for the Rudd government’s management of the alliance with the United States (7/10), but only 6/10 for the government’s response to the global economic crisis, a mere 5/10 for combating climate change, and a lowly 4/10 for dealing with Japanese whaling. It must have been slightly unnerving for the government that these issues were precisely those that Kevin Rudd had identified as clear-cut successes in the area of foreign policy. More broadly, the increasingly widespread perception that the Rudd government’s management of foreign policy was indifferent at best posed problems, because it was the one policy area in which Rudd himself could claim particular professional expertise. If the government was unable to point to a record of unequivocal successes in the Prime Minister’s own specialist domain, it raised questions about its capacity to deliver on other fronts as well.