Heat on Penny Wong over ‘colonial’ speech

Penny Wong has defended a speech in London in which she challenged the former great colonial power to share ‘uncomfortable’ stories of colonisation with Pacific nations.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong at King’s College in London on Wednesday (AEDT). Picture: Jacquelin Magnay

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has defended a speech in London in which she challenged the former great colonial power to share “uncomfortable” stories of colonisation with Pacific nations, saying she was emphasising Australia’s multifaceted history.

In an important speech to King’s College, London, on Wednesday, Senator Wong said sharing those stories “gives us the opportunity to find more common ground than if we stayed sheltered in narrower versions of our countries’ histories”.

But in answer to questions after the speech about its own position, she said “Australia is not a white colonial power”.

Senator Wong told the audience her father was descended from Hakka and Cantonese Chinese, whose clans laboured for the British North Borneo company in tin mines and plantations for tobacco and timber. Her grandmother worked as a domestic servant for British colonists.

Senator Wong said countries can modernise relationships through “the story we tell the world about who we are, which is, of course, the starting point of our foreign policies”.

But British officials in the room were annoyed Australia did not recognise the soft-power and hands-on work Britain had been doing in the Pacific region for decades, saying Senator Wong’s comments may be seen as unfair.

“Maybe we should be shouting more about what we do in the ­region,’’ one attendee said. Senator Wong later clarified that her speech intended to encourage Britain to talk about its past in a similar way to how Australia is sharing its “multifaceted history” with the world.

“I was making a point about histories and talking about who we are. If we are able to speak about that multifaceted history, that does give us greater capacity to engage with the countries of our region,” she said. “I think the narrative and story of who Australia really is is an enormously powerful part of our foreign policy and I intend to deploy it.”

She bristled at a question on whether countries in the region see two like-minded countries that share values, working together in the region, or perceive two white colonial powers trying to tell Southeast Asia what to do. “We are not a white colonial power,’’ she said, adding “(what) I think is really important is that we engage with countries of our region and recognising where they are … You used a very old stereotype then. It’s no longer who we are. One in two Australians were born overseas or have a parent born overseas. If you walk through our cities and our towns, you will see a very different Australia, and that’s a wonderful thing. It also enables us to find common ground”.

Britain’s colonial past has taken on more prominence in recent years because of the country’s historic slave trade, and moves by Caribbean countries to abandon the monarchy.