US alliance is the cornerstone of Australian security

Former Defence secretary Dennis Richardson’s warning of anti-Trump sentiment being used to undermine Australia’s US alliance is significant, particularly in light of ongoing questioning within the ALP about our relationship with Washington. After 40 years as a distinguished public servant at the heart of government, Mr Richardson, who retired recently, knows the value of the alliance, which dates back to long before the ANZUS Treaty was signed in 1951. Mr Richardson’s years heading ASIO, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Defence Department, and as ambassador to Washington, give him strong insights into the relationship and the challenges it has overcome under 12 US presidents and 13 Australian prime ministers.

His observation, at a Centre for Strategic and International Studies forum in Washington, that former Labor leaders and senior ALP figures were using Donald Trump’s unpopularity to “strip away credibility and confidence” in an alliance that is the bedrock of our national security, raises serious issues. “Those same people,’’ he said, were “aware that the alliance has never been dependent on personality, so there is a certain degree of intellectual dishonesty there”. Mr Richardson did not mention names. But after Mr Trump’s election, Paul Keating, Bob Carr and Gareth Evans raised questions about the alliance. Mr Carr said Australia should keep its distance from the Trump presidency. Mr Keating said it was “time to cut the tag, time to get out of it ... what we need to do is make our way in Asia ourselves with an independent foreign policy”. Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong spoke of Mr Trump’s election as “a change point” opening up broader scenarios.

They would do well to heed Mr Richardson’s trenchant defence of the alliance and the access it provides to the Five Eyes strategic intelligence network. The value of the alliance is evident every day in our close relationship with the US over the North Korean crisis, Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and Islamic State’s advance in Mindanao.