Kim Beazley: I remember being nervous before Tony Abbott’s first meeting with Obama

I wrote former opposition leader Kim Beazley’s biography 25 years ago. After retiring from politics, he has since served as a professor, Australia’s ambassador to the US and Western Australia’s governor. He has just taken up his post as chair of the Australian War Memorial. We chatted on Friday morning.

Fitz: Kim, great to chat. Now, 16 years on from your retirement from politics, the repeated refrain I often hear about you is “Beazley is the best PM we never had.” Are you haunted by what might have been?

Kim BeazleyCredit:

KB: No. Never look back. Hardly anybody makes it, and I didn’t make it. I was very keen to do the job. But that’s the end of that. And you focus on the jobs that you are given. And I’ve been lucky to be given in that period of time, some serious work to do.

Fitz: Sure. But don’t you ever wake in the silent watch of the night, and think that “in the 1998 election I got the popular vote by 51 per cent; in 2001 I was well ahead in the polls, before the Tampa and 9/11 arrived in quick succession, just before the election. I woulda/coulda/shoulda won!”

KB: No. [Laughing.] And I would say it was nowhere near as frustrating as it must have been for Hillary Clinton who received 3 million more votes than Donald Trump in 2016 and didn’t become president.

Fitz: Fair enough, but a few years ago I remember hearing that when you briefly flew back to Canberra from the US as our man in Washington coming to report to the PM and foreign minister. I heard you had tears in your eyes, realising just how much you missed Canberra and parliament, that it was in your bones and your blood, and you’d never get over missing it.

KB: I’m not sure about tears in my eyes, but yes, I miss it, and I always find it a joy to land in Canberra. So many of the things I’ve done in my life that I have enjoyed enormously and thought worthwhile, happened in Canberra. And as a matter of fact, I first started coming to the Australian War Memorial as a baby with my father when, as a family, we would come over once a year to be with him as a federal parliamentarian from WA. As I got older, I would always visit and found it ever more fascinating.

Kim Beazley with his mentor Bob Hawke.Credit: Kate Callas

Fitz: And on the day we met in Canberra to talk about me doing the biography, you handed me a copy of Paul Keating’s speech at the War Memorial on the enshrinement of the Unknown Soldier. It struck me at the time you had absolute reverence for the War Memorial and our military past. Is it one of the honours of your life to be the chair?

KB: Absolutely. It has always been for me, my idea of a sacred place.

Fitz: And yet, the $500 million building program currently underway to expand it has been bitterly criticised, including the accusation that it is being turned into a kind of “war Disneyland”.

KB: [Scathingly.] That is laughable. I have been to Disneyland, and it will be nothing like that. The purpose of the War Memorial is to honour, commemorate and recognise the service of the people who have defended the country. And this transformation of the War Memorial will help us to ensure that it is done better than ever. After it is completed, those who have been familiar with the memorial in the past will see that the spirit is there, just displayed better.

Fitz: Which brings us to the coming display of Frontier Wars, the idea that if we are to have an institution to honour those who fought for Australia, it must include the people of the First Nations who fought against the white colonisers.

KB: Yes, the memorial has become the portrayal of the experience of Australians at war. So if we do not have an understanding of the conflict during colonial times prior to Federation, it’s not complete. The thing I hope the Frontier Wars display can give the Aboriginal people is the dignity of resistance. That has been important in the collective respect for Native Americans. We now know much more about the massacres. We know much less about a number of very successful guerrilla campaigns that kept the whites at bay in a number of places, and the superb Aboriginal generalship. The War Memorial is the most effective venue to display that.

Fitz: Would a display likely include details of, say, the Myall Creek Massacre in 1838, where 11 stockmen killed 28 Aboriginal women, children and babies?

KB: That’s not a matter for me. All those matters will be questions that will be between the curators of the Frontier War and the Aboriginal advisory committee. We might have views, we might have advice, but the council does not supervise that.

Fitz: One person on your War Memorial Council is Tony Abbott. In my biography of you, I only ever record you saying one unkind thing in parliament, and it was response to Abbott’s interjections. How do you get on with him these days?

Then Australian prime minister Tony Abbott with US President Barack Obama in the Oval Office in 2014.Credit: Andrew Meares

KB: [Laughs.] Very well! I found him good to work with when he was PM and I was the ambassador to the United States. I remember being nervous for his first meeting with President Obama, as in many ways Tony was the “Obama opposite”. For every view that Obama held, Tony Abbott held the opposite. So I stayed up all night writing essentially weasel words that Abbott could work from in their meeting in the Oval Office, to prevent what I thought might be a very vigorous exchange. I showed him, and he said, lightly, “Don’t worry about that stuff. Forget that.”

Fitz: The scene is set!

KB: And we go to the Oval Office, which is filled with important American officials, a sign that they are ready for Abbott. Obama begins, and he is tremendously erudite and graceful, but you can see in his remarks: hook, hook, hook. They’re waiting for him. And then Obama turns to Abbott and says, “Well, Tony, before we start discussing the substance of these issues, is there anything you’d like to say?” Abbott replies, “Thank you, Barack. Look, most people come here, and they want something from the US. We don’t want anything. Or they have a complaint about something that the United States is doing – but I don’t have any complaints. We’re perfectly happy with the direction of policy. So, I’ve not come here to ask for anything or to make a complaint. But I want you to know one thing, Barack. We think that you are about to get into a lot of trouble in the Middle East. And I want you to know that when you do, we’re going to be with you in numbers.” The air went out of the room. Nobody ever talks to the US president like that! But Barack smiled. Could you sit there and complain about somebody who has just said that to you? So, it was quite a quiet meeting, and we went on to a convivial lunch.

Fitz: Abbott once said to me that one of the few regrets of his life was not having served in the Australian military, and you once said something very similar to me over lunch. Do you feel like that now?

KB: Yes, I do. Yet I also feel deeply privileged in regard to holding the chairmanship of the War Memorial, but more so in regard to being minister for defence for a fairly long time as things turned out, and was able to bring in changes that I am proud of. It was in that role that I got the very deepest appreciation of what service in the Australian armed forces means and what our people do.

Fitz: When I did your biography, I always remember, right at the end, you giving me the quote which I felt explained the north star you steered by, in all of your portfolios. You said “as a trained historian, I know that to peoples of small numbers populating large land masses and surrounded by cultures alien to them, the logic of history is very cruel. I don’t accept that Australia will necessarily be like that. But we have choices. And it is the choices we make now that will determine whether Australia will survive in 2050.” We are 25 years on from those remarks. How are we travelling now? Will Australia, as we know it, survive in 2050?

KB: (Flatly, quickly.) I’m much more worried. I think back then we had a well-constructed defence policy that was tailored to a level of threat that was slightly above the actual level of threat that existed. And our capabilities were determined by two things: by dealing with that low-level threat as we saw it. And by providing an expansion base for when our warning time of great threat – then set at about 15 years – disappeared. Now the warning time itself has disappeared. Unlike when I had that conversation with you, we face no warning time. And that is daunting and challenging.

Fitz: Why no warning time now?

KB: Because the capability that exists in the region at this moment and its state of readiness [means the enemy] could launch a damaging attack immediately. In my day they could only nibble.

Fitz: Thanks, as ever, for your time.

Quote Of the Week

“Politics is brutal. I saw its impact on people, and I live with that impact still. I tried to support Alan through the most stressful of times. I hope he seeks the help he needs for his health, and more time with his family. I wish him peace.” - Rachelle Miller, on her former partner and boss, Alan Tudge, announcing his resignation from federal parliament.

Joke of the week

A guy said to God: “God, is it true that to you a billion years is like a second?” God said yes. The guy said: “God, is it true that to you a billion dollars is like a penny?” God said yes. The guy said: “God, can I have a penny?” God said, “Sure, just a second.”

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