Kevin Rudd on shortlist to become next ambassador to Washington
The former prime minister is the lead name in speculation on who will become the next US ambassador, with support from key American foreign policy figures.
In the growing speculation around who will be Australia’s next ambassador to Washington, DC, one name keeps coming up: Kevin Rudd.
The Saturday Paper understands the federal government has made no formal decision about who will replace incumbent Arthur Sinodinos – a former senator and chief of staff to prime minister John Howard – when his term expires in February.
But Rudd is in the mix. If the list contains more than one name, his is high up. On qualifications alone, it is not clear whose would be higher.
This week, visiting American foreign policy expert Richard Fontaine, from the influential Washington think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS), added his voice to those advocating for the former prime minister as Australia’s next chief diplomat in the United States.
“He’s well known, has many close relationships, is seen as an expert on the countries and issues that would be most important in the relationship, and I think is well liked by many people in Washington,” Fontaine told The Saturday Paper on Tuesday.
A former foreign policy adviser to the late US senator and 2008 Republican presidential candidate John Mccain, Fontaine says Rudd’s superior China expertise is “of course” core to that appeal.
“Given how much China has become relevant to the Australia–us relationship, that would be a major plus given that he’s lived there, speaks the language and is an expert in his own right,” Fontaine says.
The recent announcement of former Foreign Affairs and Defence minister Stephen Smith as the next high commissioner to London has seen the odds shorten in security circles on Rudd going to Washington. Smith is known to have been keen on the Washington position, having served on the board of the Perth Usasia Centre in his home city. He was sounded out about a possible Us-based position during the Turnbull government, but the timing was wrong.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong asked Smith to serve in London instead, citing his
The respect for Rudd’s expertise, especially on China, would also likely deliver him – and therefore Australia – a seat at the biggest tables in town.
past and current credentials – he is co-chairing the new government’s defence strategic view – for a job increasingly focused on security.
His appointment is seen to suggest that while Smith was the best candidate for the London job, there was somebody else – senior to Smith – who was a better fit for the US.
Smith’s appointment, somewhat ahead of his availability from February, came after the ceremonial events around the death of Queen Elizabeth II highlighted that former high commissioner George Brandis had not yet been replaced.
Confirming Smith’s diplomatic appointment on September 30, alongside six others, Wong said the government would “strengthen Australia’s diplomatic capability and match people with the right qualifications and expertise to senior postings”.
In a statement, she said: “... our Government is reversing the previous Government’s approach and we are rebalancing appointments towards more qualified senior officials consistent with community expectations and position requirements.”
She vowed to select “experienced public servants” to fill the posts in Singapore, New Delhi, Tokyo and at the United Nations in New York, all of which have been held most recently by prominent Liberals – former premiers Will Hodgman, Barry O’farrell and Richard Court, and former federal Communications minister Mitch Fifield.
But, significantly, Wong also emphasised the value in appointing political figures to key diplomatic posts: “In certain circumstances there is a clear advantage for Australia to be represented by people who have had distinguished careers beyond the public service, such as businesspeople and former parliamentarians.”
Her phrasing suggests Smith will not be the last such appointment. Should Rudd be confirmed, The Saturday Paper understands he may not be the last either.
Rudd lives between Australia and New York and travels constantly. Asked about the speculation, he said through a spokesman that he had “zero plans to leave his position as global president of the Asia Society”.
“Mr Rudd is very happy in New York, where he runs what has become a premier US think tank focusing on Asia and China,” the spokesman said. “He’s also an established scholar and author on Chinese politics and foreign policy, and engages with governments and corporations around the world on China policy questions.”
In Washington, DC, there is another prime ministerial name circulating: Julia Gillard. While Gillard is also highly qualified, should she be asked to take on a diplomatic post, it would be in a different role.
Former Labor senator and New South Wales premier Kristina Keneally has featured in speculation, too. Had Bill Shorten won the 2019 federal election for Labor, Americanborn Keneally was set to be appointed.
But instead, in 2022, Keneally found herself facing political oblivion, when a uniondriven factional deal elevated colleague Deborah O’neill above her on the senate ticket. Keneally insisted on contesting the assumed-safe lower house seat of Fowler – against Albanese’s advice – and lost both her career and the previously Labor-held seat. Given the loss came close to costing him government, the prime minister seems unlikely to reward it.
With Caroline Kennedy representing Joe Biden in Canberra, whoever goes to Washington will be a high-status appointee backed by both Wong and Albanese.
Richard Fontaine does not know who Australia will send. “But if it’s Kevin Rudd, I think he would be greeted with open arms,” he says.
Some Americans are less enthusiastic. One says attitudes differ between those who deal with Rudd occasionally and those who work with him regularly, the former being more enthusiastic than the latter. Another Washington-based observer suggests Australians tend to express more reservations than Americans do and that Washington is well apprised of why. “Americans like Kevin,” they said. “They also know his reputation.”
Some of Rudd’s own cabinet colleagues ventilated uncomfortable temperament issues in 2013, trying unsuccessfully to stop him returning to the prime ministership. A staunch Rudd ally, Albanese became deputy prime minister when he did. The two remain close.
Three years after Labor aired internal criticism of Rudd, those complaints were used to justify the Turnbull government’s refusal to endorse him as Australia’s candidate to become secretary-general of the United Nations.
In July 2016, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull bowed to pressure from his cabinet and withheld the official backing required for Rudd’s nomination to proceed.
“There is a fundamental threshold point, and it is this: does the government believe, do we believe, do I as prime minister believe that Mr Rudd is well suited for that role? My considered judgement is that he is not,” Turnbull said at the time.
Despite Labor having provided the ammunition, in opposition it was outraged on Rudd’s behalf. Then newly appointed shadow Foreign Affairs minister Penny Wong said such decisions should be “about national interest and nation first, party second and certainly petty politics a long way last”.
Rudd has not indicated publicly if he would accept the ambassadorial post. But well-connected figures in the foreign policy community believe he would. Some say he may see it as an opportunity to revive his UN ambitions. Regardless, the respect in Washington for his expertise, especially on China, would also likely deliver him – and therefore Australia – a seat at the biggest tables in town. He would be, one senior Australian figure says, “a highly effective voice for Australia”.
Recently returned high commissioner and former federal Liberal attorney-general George Brandis expressed similar views in The Sydney Morning Herald this week.
Brandis wrote that Albanese and Wong should “put aside carping about political appointees” and choose the person “who is likely to have the most influence”. He said Rudd met the “tests of stature and experience”. “I have no idea if he is interested in the job. But if he were available and willing, he would be a very smart choice.”
Brandis told The Saturday Paper later that nobody asked him to write what he did. “The views expressed are entirely my own and were not discussed with anyone,” he said.
In the opinion piece, Brandis urged his own former colleagues, and particularly Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, not to repeat the “hyper-partisanship” around the UN nomination.
“If Dutton is to make a successful transition from hard-right head-kicker to credible alternative national leader, showing that he has put those days behind him, and is willing to put national interest above pointscoring against a former political opponent ... would send a good signal.”
In a column in The Canberra Times on Thursday, another former Howard minister, Amanda Vanstone, expressed the opposite view: “Please, send almost anybody but him!”
In his piece, Brandis recounted a conversation with Rudd’s Oxford University doctoral thesis supervisor, Rana Mitter, whom he described as “the rockstar of contemporary China scholars”. Mitter’s admiration for Rudd’s China knowledge was “unstinting”.
Recently awarded his PHD, Rudd wrote his thesis on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s approach to international relations. Soon to be published as a book, it will increase his personal currency in global foreign policy circles.
Brandis cited America’s response to China as “the most important question in global politics”.
That was reflected in US President Joe Biden’s new national security policy, released on Thursday morning (Australian time), which names the US’S strategic objectives as outdoing geopolitical competitors, especially China; tackling shared global challenges, including climate change, food insecurity and future pandemics; and shaping “the rules of the road”.
In an address on the strategy to Georgetown University, co-hosted by CNAS, presidential national security adviser Jake Sullivan said it was based on strengthening existing alliances, including with Australia, and also broadening them with nondemocratic countries.
He cited the AUKUS nuclear submarines partnership agreement as key to increasing Indo-pacific stability. “One of the things that we’re doing as we strengthen our alliances is to try to drive more strategic alliances between the Atlantic and the Pacific,” he said.
Sullivan described AUKUS as “innovative and far-reaching” and noted that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had, for the first time, included Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia at its June leaders’ summit in Madrid.
Sullivan also singled out Australia’s supply of weapons to Ukraine as a practical example of those partnerships, saying the US sought to mobilise “the broadest possible coalition of nations” to wield collective influence.
After a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese indicated Australia was also considering a request to send Australian personnel to help train Ukrainian soldiers outside Ukraine.
In an interview, Fontaine said the US would welcome that. “Every country really has a dog in this fight,” he said, adding that the Russian invasion violated a key principle – the prohibition against territorial conquest by force. “And that’s exactly what we’re seeing here … So Australian contributions to that effort I think would be welcomed in significant ways.”
In Australia as a guest of the Lowy Institute, Fontaine said there was “huge support” in Washington for AUKUS, which needed to become an effective vehicle for defence technology exchange and greater allied military capability in the Indo-pacific. China was opposing AUKUS and, if the alliance worked as planned, it would bring “greater allied capability in the region that would help to balance Chinese military power at a time when Chinese military power is augmenting”.
In Australia, support for AUKUS is not universal. On Wednesday night, former prime minister Paul Keating told a La Trobe University event that the nuclear submarine agreement was aimed at China and made Australia too dependent on the US. He said Australia should walk away and build conventional submarines at home, not seek a technology it couldn’t service alone.
“No self-respecting Australian should ever put up their hand for our sovereignty being subjugated in this way,” he said.
Keating represents a pro-china view among expert commentators. By contrast, Kevin Rudd is a China critic, a characteristic welcomed strongly in Washington.
“They love him being a hawk on China,” one foreign policy observer says. “They love it.”
Fontaine believes that in the calculations on Rudd’s likely value as Australia’s next ambassador, his expertise will outweigh other considerations, including temperament, on either side of the Pacific.
“I think all of our experiences of Kevin have been good,” Fontaine told The Saturday Paper. “And you want to have an ambassador who’s hard-charging. Forward-leaning, hardcharging, creative, • driven – I think those are good attributes.”