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‘Did you talk over the woman?’ Caroline Kennedy chides Hugh Riminton
By Matthew Knott
Having only just stepped off the plane at Sydney Airport, Caroline Kennedy had no intention of making any controversial statements on her first day in Australia.
As the new US ambassador pointed out several times to local journalists, she has yet to present her credentials to the governor-general in Canberra. And she is a diplomat, not a foreign affairs polemicist.
But in an introductory press conference that lasted a little over five minutes, Kennedy made clear she can command a room without raising her voice.
When Channel Ten reporter Hugh Riminton tried to ask her a question, Kennedy was taken aback.
“Did you just talk over the woman?” she asked.
Kennedy may have been smiling, but she wasn’t joking. Kennedy took a question from Channel Seven’s Isabelle Mullen, the female reporter who was spoken over, before returning to Riminton, who took the very public call-out in good humour.
US ambassador Caroline Kennedy has arrived in Australia to begin her diplomatic posting. Credit: Brook Mitchell
“It was like being ticked off by the headmistress!” he said afterwards. Adding that he meant Mullen no disrespect, Riminton said: “I think there is no reason for men to wait until all female reporters have asked their questions before they ask theirs. And two reporters speaking at once is an inevitability at every presser.”
While the arrival of a new envoy from Australia’s most important strategic ally is always a significant moment, Kennedy’s entrance came with more fanfare than usual because of her surname - one that instantly evokes American power, romanticism and tragedy.
As former US ambassador Joe Hockey said when her appointment was announced in December: “President Biden is sending someone from Democratic Party royalty to represent him in Australia.”
The 64-year-old is the sole remaining child of John F Kennedy, who was assassinated by a gunman in 1963 just three years into his presidency. Her uncle Bobby was shot dead five years later while campaigning for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
The new ambassador’s father John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.Credit: AP
Her brother John junior died in a plane crash at 38; sister Arabella was stillborn and brother Patrick died at just two days old.
Asked about being a member of a storied political dynasty, Kennedy joked: “You mean you didn’t all come out here for the last person?”
But she knows she arrives in Australia with a star power few diplomats can match. “My family legacy is something I’m really proud of and I try to live up to,” she said. “The fact it means something to people around the world makes me really proud and I want to be worthy of it and continue the values my father lived by.”
Ambassador Caroline Kennedy said she had a special affinity for Australia.Credit: Brook Mitchell
Kennedy served as US ambassador to Japan during the Obama administration, an appointment that initially attracted criticism because of a lack of foreign policy experience.
However, her tenure was later hailed a success; last year she was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, the highest Japanese honour available to foreigners.
Kennedy noted she has a long affinity for Australia: she and husband Edwin came to Australia during their honeymoon 36 years ago. And her father was rescued by an Australian coast watcher and two Solomon Islanders while serving in the Pacific during World War II.
“Personally, this means a great deal to me,” she said of her appointment. The US and Australia, she added, have a “big agenda” to pursue together, pointing to co-operation in the Pacific and the Quad strategic grouping that also includes Japan and India.
As ambassador in Canberra, Kennedy is expected to work largely behind the scenes to advance the bilateral relationship and push back on an increasingly aggressive China.
She’s already made clear, though, that she can be assertive as well as dignified. It’s a lesson for Australian politicians to keep in mind, as well as impatient male journalists at future press conferences.
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