Back in September, Foreign Minister Penny Wong made it painfully clear she would be “rebalancing appointments” to plum international postings “towards more qualified senior officials consistent with community expectations”.

Ironically, she said this while announcing that her former cabinet colleague Stephen Smith would be Australia’s next High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. More broadly, Wong committed to appointing career public servants as replacements for former NSW premier Barry O’Farrell in India, former Tasmanian premier Will Hodgman in Singapore and former federal minister Mitch Fifield at the United Nations in New York.