UK High Commissioner steps up for Australia Day ballroom blitz
And all because our top man in London believes commemorating our national day is a celebration of bogan vulgarity.
You would think the organisers of the Australia Day gala dinner had got the message a year ago when Smith ended the tradition of holding the charity ball at Australia House in London, saying January 26 “touches on sensitivities for some Australians”.
They naively believed Smith’s sensitivities could be ameliorated by shifting the venue to London’s Peninsula Hotel and holding the event on January 25.
That was inconsiderate of them. That date falls on a weekend, and it would be most unreasonable to prevail upon Smith, whose base salary is about $450K, to work unpaid overtime.
The importunate types of the Australia Day Foundation also expected Smith to do terribly taxing things like give a speech, as well as nod and smile while making small talk with fellow ticketholders, many of whom are prominent business and industry leaders. These conditions would be insufferable. As any bloke Smith’s age will tell you, a packed and humid ballroom will play havoc with one’s beautifully coiffed bouffant.
Smith rebuffed this invitation with characteristic insouciance, claiming he did not know whether he would be in London on the date.
Following the predictable backlash, he has now reconsidered his decision, saying he is “able to rearrange his official travel plans”. There goes a prince of a man, I say.
Despite the very real risk of busting a gut in the process, he will not only attend the function but also deliver a “personal message” from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Having treated his fellow expatriates so, he can regard himself as fortunate should he complete his speech without them throwing Jaffas at the stage.
Smith does not realise he has already sent a message of his own. It is one thing to have contempt for your country. It is another to be a head of mission and to make your loathing officially known. And it is ignorant in the extreme not to realise that doing so will weaken your standing both at post and in the wider diplomatic community.
Perception is everything in diplomacy, and Smith’s host country will consider this a calculated insult. The occasion does not just celebrate the modern founding of Australia but also our relationship with Britain. For an Australian high commissioner to snub this is to show contempt for our heritage.
Smith has form for this. Ignoring convention in 1993, the then federal Labor MP used the occasion of his maiden speech to take pot shots at the Coalition and our institutions, including the High Court and the Governor-General over the dismissal of the Whitlam government. Neither did he spare the head of state. He was looking forward, he said, to the day when he could “swear an affirmation of allegiance to the people of Australia rather than the House of Windsor”.
But in Smith’s defence, he does not despise everything about Australia. For instance, he loves living off the public teat, having done so for over 30 years. He loves being a member of the pre-2004 parliamentary superannuation scheme, which provides him with a lucrative indexed pension for life.
He loves living in Stoke Lodge, a $100 million taxpayer-funded London mansion. He loves his formal title and the deference to his person. And lastly, as Smith has demonstrated in his current position, he loves a sinecure. The only time he takes umbrage is when the public demand he pull his finger out.
It reflects poorly on Albanese that he appointed Smith in the first place. As anyone even remotely familiar with the latter’s judgment could have told you at the time, it meant endorsing a plenipotentiary plonker. Far from being a shrewd observer and player, he is devoid of nous and people skills.
Take for example Smith’s farcical political comeback in 2016, three years after his departure from federal politics. Claiming state Labor MPs had told him they were “not confident” then WA state opposition leader Mark McGowan could win the upcoming election, Smith declared he would consider challenging for the party leadership if caucus supported him.
Never mind Smith was not even a member of the WA Legislative Assembly. Less than 24 hours after this announcement, caucus responded by opting unanimously to retain McGowan as leader, who subsequently won a landslide election in 2017. To add to Smith’s ignominy, he failed even to secure preselection.
The red flags have long been evident. When he held the defence portfolio in the Rudd and Gillard governments, Smith had a reputation as minister without personality. On a visit to Afghanistan in that role, his indifference to the troops and lack of interest in their mission were obvious.
“I cast around in my mind for the element that seemed to be missing in his (Smith’s) dealings with the men and women of the ADF who I led,” wrote retired major-general John Cantwell in 2012. “Then I had it: respect. Smith had no respect for those who chose to serve in uniform for their country.”
Cantwell was spot on. As to why Smith behaved so, the answer is simple. No one is more contemptuous of those who serve their country than he who devotes his life to serving himself.
At least no one can accuse Smith of inconsistency. As former Liberal minister and Australian high commissioner to the UK Richard Alston observed last week, Smith “clearly doesn’t enjoy the job and hates the socialising”. Instead, continued Alston, he treats Stoke Lodge, as his “private home”, and “effectively refuses” to make the manor house available for functions.
Smith has claimed that by acting so, he was ending a culture of “parties without purpose”. But as the high commissioner has unwittingly demonstrated, the real issue in his case is postings without purpose.
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No one has been more unfairly maligned in the past week than Australian High Commissioner to the UK, His Excellency the Honourable Stephen Francis Smith.