Cost of Anthony Albanese’s UN Security Council bid: millions for Africa and Trump’s ire
Anthony Albanese has defied Donald Trump’s UN criticism with a Security Council bid that will require hundreds of millions of dollars in new aid to Africa to succeed.
Anthony Albanese will captain a three-year Australian bid for a seat on the UN Security Council that will require him to commit hundreds of millions of dollars in new aid to Africa and champion the multilateral body that Donald Trump despises.
The Prime Minister used his first speech to the UN General Assembly to resurrect a decade-old bid by former foreign minister Julie Bishop for Australia to take a temporary Security Council seat in 2029 and 2030, vowing to use the position to reform the global institution and shine a spotlight on unseen suffering.
The move came a day after the US President questioned the purpose of the global body, labelled climate change a “con job”, and warned UN member states were “going to hell” for failing to crack down on illegal migration.
Australia and Finland are competing for two available seats in the UN’s “Western European and Others Groups” category, but experts warned the prospect of a late entrant would require a major lobbying campaign to win over African nations that hold nearly a third of UN votes.
Australia last held a temporary Security Council seat in 2013 and 2014, following a hard-fought campaign in which the nation’s aid to Africa surged to more than $300m a year. That support, mostly in scholarships to study at Australian universities, has since plunged to about $15m a year.
The Prime Minister, who defied Mr Trump this week by declaring Australia recognised a Palestinian state, delivered a veiled slap to the US over the use of its Security Council veto as one of the body’s “permanent five” members.
“The United Nations is much more than an arena for the great powers to veto each other’s ambitions,” he told the 192-nation General Assembly in New York.
“This is a platform for middle powers and small nations to voice – and achieve – our aspirations. This is a place for the global spotlight to shine on suffering and struggles that might otherwise be forgotten.”
He said if any nation imagined it was not subject to the UN’s rules, “then the sovereignty of every nation is eroded”.
Sussan Ley backed the government’s UN bid, declaring Australia was a “force for good in the world”, and pursuing a Security Council seat “a worthy objective”.
But the Opposition Leader said Australia’s candidacy “cannot detract from addressing the very real pressures Australians are facing at home on cost of living and access to services”.
“Australia has suffered the largest collapse in living standards in the developed world,” Ms Ley said. “Electricity prices are up 39 per cent, rents up 21 per cent and food up 16 per cent. At a time of rising costs, Australians deserve a Prime Minister focused on their future. Instead, too often his focus is overseas, leaving families at home disappointed.”
Former Australian diplomat Kate O’Shaughnessy said African votes could prove decisive in the 2028 ballot for the position, and warned Australia could face disinformation campaigns by Russia and China seeking to undermine its bid.
“The challenge for us is, if it is contested, we’re really going to have to think about how we engage with the 54 African members of the UN,” said the Perth USAsia Centre research director. “Our aid program was a really key part in our successful campaign more than a decade ago, and that aid is now really greatly reduced.”
Dr O’Shaughnessy said African officials still asked Australian diplomats in the region, “why can’t we have that support that was available in 2011?”
She said Australia typically argued in its dealings with African nations. “We don’t carry the baggage into Africa that former colonial powers do,” she said.
But she added that pitch “only gets us so far” in the “much trickier” geostrategic environment the world now faced.
“We’re not necessarily going into an environment where (African) elites and the community will be well disposed to the international system and to any Western powers,” Dr O’Shaughnessy said.
“Russia and China also run disinformation campaigns about us on all sorts of things, and I would expect they wouldn’t welcome Australia being on the UN Security Council.”
ANU international law expert Don Rothwell said African support for Australia’s bid would be “absolutely critical”, requiring major bilateral and regional engagement by the Albanese government. “This is a very, very significant diplomatic campaign that Australia will need to commit to, and that campaign will be run out of both Canberra and New York,” Professor Rothwell said.
Mr Albanese, in his speech to the UN, called for the global body to be reformed “so that it can serve us better in the present”.
He offered no further details, leading Professor Rothwell to speculate that Australia’s reform plan would require a dilution of the veto rights of the “P5” security council members: the US, Russia, China, Britain and France.
India, Japan, Brazil and Germany have expressed interest in taking a permanent security council seat, and there has been significant debate on whether an African country should be added to the list, as the majority of security council rulings concern the continent.
Professor Rothwell said there was an obvious reluctance on the part of the current P5 to grant any new states a coveted veto.
During Australia’s last UN Security Council tenure, Ms Bishop used the seat to argue forcefully for the international community to gain access to the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine. Russia, which was later found to have been responsible for the attack, could have used its veto to block the bid, but refrained from doing so.
“That was one of Julie Bishop’s shining moments,” Professor Rothwell said. “The fact that Australia was on the Security Council at that time gave it the ability to shape that agenda and allow Bishop to make a very strong intervention and ultimately win over the Security Council.”
Ms Ley said Australia should use its diplomacy to seek an end to the war in Ukraine, call out Chinese and Russian foreign interference in the Indo-Pacific, and seek a “constructive peace” in Gaza that frees Palestinians from Hamas rule and maintains Israel’s security.
Mr Albanese spruiked both Australia’s support for climate action and its recognition of Palestine as key selling points for Australia’s security council bid.
He said clean energy could carry the world “beyond the false choice between economic growth and environmental responsibility” while allowing the rapidly growing economies of the Indo-Pacific to “industrialise and decarbonise at the same time”.
Mr Albanese said Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian state this week reflected the UN’s determination to “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and to “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights”.
His speech presented a stark contrast with that of Mr Trump, who warned nations which recognised Palestine were rewarding Hamas for its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Mr Trump also attacked European nations for their permeable borders and commitment to shift to clean energy sources.
“I love the people of Europe, and I hate to see it being devastated by energy and immigration. This double-tailed monster destroys everything in its wake, and they cannot let that happen any longer,” the President said.
Mr Albanese capped off his day in New York by pouring beers at the city’s Old Mates Pub, which is backed by Australian icons including Andy Lee, Hamish Blake, Hugh Jackman and Ash Barty.
He said “Australians know how to have fun” before ringing the bell on the bar and beginning to pour beers to The Angels’ Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again.
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