Foreign blunder looms for Malcolm Turnbull over Frances Adamson

New DFAT secretary Frances Adamson.

The Turnbull government is considering making what would be a disastrous decision not to appoint a replacement for ­Frances Adamson in the Prime Minister’s Office after she was ­appointed the new head of the ­Department of Foreign Affairs.

To fail to replace Adamson would be the most eccentric, unconventional and frankly bizarre decision in the life of the Turnbull government. According to sources, the government has not yet decided whether to replace Adamson more than a month after she departed.

Shortly after Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister in September, Adamson, a ­career diplomat and former ambassador in Beijing, joined his ­office as international adviser overseeing both foreign affairs and national security.

The government decided before the election that she would become the head of DFAT and announced the appointment shortly after the election.

Sources say the Prime Minister is considering doing without a replacement altogether. It would be the first time in many decades that a prime minister’s office has not had a senior veteran foreign affairs or defence professional as its key international adviser.

Occupants of that position in the past have been legendary and powerful figures. Bob Hawke had Dennis Richardson. Paul Keating had Ashton Calvert then Alan Gyn­gell. John Howard had Michael Thawley, Peter Varghese and Andrew Shearer. Kevin Rudd had Gary Quinlan. Tony ­Abbott appointed Andrew Shearer.

Every one went on to major institutional appointments after their time in the respective prime ministers’ offices. Several (Richardson, Calvert and Varghese) became head of DFAT or Defence. Most went on to key diplomatic postings such as Washington (Richardson and Thawley), New Delhi (Varghese), or Tokyo (Calvert). Some (Gyngell and Richardson) became heads of intelligence agencies. All of them were seasoned professionals when they came to the prime minister’s office, with a profound understanding of how the world works, of geo-strategic relationships and equations, with a profound knowledge of how the processes of Australian government work.

Justin Bassi, who has a strong background in cyber security in the Attorney-General’s Department, worked under Adamson in the Prime Minister’s Office before the election and is for the moment its senior person dealing with international affairs.

Peter Anstee, a long-term Turnbull staffer who was with him in communications, also worked for Adamson before the election.

GRAPHIC: Key foreign advisers

Press aide John Garnaut, a former foreign correspondent in Beijing, has moved across to the foreign affairs office within the PMO.

Each is highly capable and entirely worthy to work in a prime minister’s office. What none is remotely able to do is to replicate the quality of advice and execution offered in that long tradition from Richardson through Calvert and Thawley to Adamson herself.

Governing Australia in the ­nat­ional security space is not a job for gifted amateurs. There is no end of people in the bureaucracy who could do the job well.

Greg Moriarty, the Counter Terrorism Co-ordinator, would be an obvious choice. Another might be Peter Baxter, a deputy secretary in the Defence Department, career diplomat and former head of AusAID. Yet it is almost embarrassing to name such individuals because there are so many people at the senior levels of government who could do the job well.

If the PMO decides not to appoint such a person, it will be the most radical departure from conventional government and good practice in many years. It would certainly contradict the idea that Howard is the example for Turnbull to follow, because he made consistently strong appointments to this position. Keating believed the occupant of the post was the third or fourth most important person in foreign policy.

The US president has a formal national security adviser in a roughly analogous position. British and other Western leaders typically have a key foreign policy adviser.

Many leaders don’t like having powerful professionals with vast achievement and long experience around them, even though such people are the most useful staffers a leader can have. Turnbull would be ill-advised to become a leader who spurns the availability of such a person in his own office.