Can Australia Remain a Top 20 Nation?

26 Oct 2014

AIIA Fellows responding to the burning question of the week

Expert Panel-Fellows of the AIIA
Hilary Charlesworth FAIIA-Professor, ANU; Director of Centre for International Governance and Justice	Jocelyn Chey AM FAIIA-Visiting Professor, University of Sydney; former Consul-General in Hong Kong	James Cotton FAIIA-Emeritus Professor at the University of NSW	Rawdon Dalrymple AO FAIIA-Former Visiting Professor, University of Sydney; Chairman of ASEAN Focus Group Ltd	Graeme Dobell FAIIA-Journalist Fellow, Australian Strategic Policy Institute	Erika Feller FAIIA-Former UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Protection
Janet Hunt FAIIA-Former Head of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid	James Ingram AO FAIIA-Former Diplomat and Head of the UN World Food Program	John McCarthy AO FAIIA-Former Ambassador to Japan, Indonesia, the United States, Thailand, Mexico and Vietnam	Robert O’Neill FAIIA– Former Chichele Professor of the History of War, Oxford University	Garry Woodard FAIIA-Former Diplomat and Senior Fellow, University of Melbourne	Richard Woolcott FAIIA-Former Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Question: Can Australia Remain a Top 20 Nation?

Robert O’Neill FAIIA

Yes, Australia can remain a top 20 nation. However, from my perspective, international security, much depends on the US and China finding ways to avoid confrontations over the South and East China seas. We need to think clearly about the economic consequences of failure to reach political solutions by diplomacy rather than armed force.Also we need to keep working for a reduction in tensions in the Middle East, as expanding conflict there will powerfully affect both regional and global economies.

Janet Hunt FAIIA

Whether Australia is in the ‘Top 20’ is not the issue for me. What matters is what role we play in the world, and particularly in this region. Of course having some political clout is valuable if we use it towards a more sustainable, peaceful and just world. If that means we need to maintain a strong economy to be taken seriously, then we need to do so. But more importantly we need to play a constructive role, not necessarily tying ourselves to past alliances, but properly analysing our future interests and working with emerging middle powers as the global transformation of power proceeds so that we are not, in time, excluded from the forums that will shape the next 50 years.

Rawdon Dalrymple AO FAIIA

It’s all right in some contexts to say this is the fifteenth (or whatever the current claim is) subject to obvious qualifications such as whether it’s a comparison of gross domestic products (GDPs) at current exchange rates or purchasing power parity (PPP).But using it to claim some desired level of influence or importance is more likely to engender scepticism than respect. It’s a bit like Gareth Evans’ mantra about us “punching above our weight”. Who asked us to punch anyway?It is what we actually do that matters.

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