Campbell: Australia has no one else to blame for how little we do for the people of Ukraine

History is going to judge Albo, Wong and Marles for what Australia does or does not do for Ukraine – and we are doing as little as we can get away with. We should feel ashamed, writes James Campbell.

In hindsight, there have been plenty of times since 1945 when Australian governments have made the wrong call on foreign policy.

For example, if we had our time again, we probably would think twice about joining George Bush’s Coalition of the Willing that invaded Iraq. As errors go, this was clearly a biggie, but in our government’s defence, it could be argued that, as with our contribution to the ill-fated Vietnam War, the real errors that led to the disasters were not ours but Washington’s.

There’s no such excuse for the way the Whitlam government gave full legal recognition to the Soviet Union’s annexation of the Baltic States and the way the Hawke government did the same with Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor. In both of these cases, the shame is ours alone.

Likewise, there is no one else to blame for the way we as a nation have decided to do as little as we can for the people of Ukraine in their fight against tyrant Vladimir Putin. Again, the shame is ours alone.

Svitlana Zavaly, 67, walks over the rubble of her house destroyed by a Russian bomb in the village of Velyka Pysarivka, just five kilometres from the Russian border. Australia could do more to help the Ukranians. Picture: Genya Savilov/AFP

And make no mistake – shameful is what it is. It would be shameful how little we are doing and have done for the Ukranians even if we hadn’t made money from their suffering.

But the fact is this war has enriched us, all of us. Not just in the billions in taxes that have flowed to our government from higher prices our exports have earned, but from the way the value of those exports has supported the value of our dollar.

For the past two years the price of filling your tank has been subsidised in part by the Ukrainian war. Picture: Andy Tyndall

Remember that next time you are at the bowser – for the past two years the price of filling your tank has been subsidised in part by the Ukrainian war. According to the Kiel Institute, which is monitoring countries’ aid to Ukraine, we have contributed 0.04 per cent of our GDP to helping it stay out of Vlad’s clutches.

Of the 41-odd countries that have given it money, only New Zealand, Taiwan and Turkey have given less. Canada, the most obviously comparable new-world middle power, has given Ukraine roughly 10 times as much in humanitarian financial and military aid.

It’s embarrassing. Even more embarrassing is the refusal of our government to reopen our embassy in Kyiv. The ostensible reason is that it’s too dangerous.

But the Canadians have reopened theirs that operates from the same building. Indeed, by midway through last year, 67 of the 81 countries that had decamped from Kyiv when the war started had returned.

If our diplomats are too scared to go, then sorry, we need to get ourselves some new diplomats.

Imagine if the Australian government had declared London too scary for our officials in 1941 and relocated them to Dublin.

How would we feel about that today? What more could we be doing? Well, aside from reopening our embassy, we could start funding a military attache for the Ukrainian embassy in Canberra.

We could also pledge more money – a lot more. Japan is setting a good example here, having just pledged $160m. Military sources also say we could step up procurement of Australian-made drones.

Ukraine is a democracy fighting for its life. In international affairs, things don’t get more black and white than this. Last year I accompanied Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong on their trip to Beijing in which the Chinese government hosts made sure they walked in the shoes of Labor foreign policy hero Whitlam.

Labor people love to gloat about how Whitlam got China right. For obvious reasons, they are less keen to remember the way he gave our tick to Joseph Stalin’s annexation of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. They mightn’t like it, but history is going to judge Albo, Wong and Richard Marles for what they do or don’t do for Ukraine.

And at the moment, what we are doing is basically as little as we can get away with.

We should feel ashamed.

Originally published as Campbell: Australia has no one else to blame for how little we do for the people of Ukraine