Pacific failings continue to plague Morrison as Labor unveils regional strategy

Capitalising on Scott Morrison’s persistent problems over his Solomon Islands debacle, Labor maintained the unusual foreign policy theme of the campaign so far by unveiling its Asia-Pacific strategy this morning, with Penny Wong standing in for Anthony Albanese. A half billion dollars in extra aid over four years, an expanded Pacific labour scheme under which participants can bring family members, and a new class of permanent migration visa — these form the core of the policy, along with an unspecified “Pacific Climate Infrastructure Financing Partnership”.

That’s the limit of Labor’s willingness to seriously address the existential threat of climate change for Pacific Island states, the opposition having already made clear that the mere fact that we’re a global laggard on a crisis that threatens the very existence of our Pacific neighbours won’t be enough to change its support for fossil fuels. The only difference between the major parties on climate, it seems, is that Labor doesn’t joke about the wiping out of Pacific states. At least, not publicly.

Also on Labor’s Pacific agenda is a possible restoration of shortwave radio services to the region via the ABC. Long an icon for advocates of “soft power”, Radio Australia even had supporters within the Howard government. In 2000, Alexander Downer — said to have been appalled that Kerry Stokes’ Australian television was running ’80s-era episodes of A Country Practice to regional audiences — secured the partial reversal of previous cuts to the RA budget and established an ABC-operated television service. How useful shortwave radio is in a non-emergency media environment dominated by the internet isn’t clear, but the Chinese thought enough of it to take over RA’s old frequencies after the Guthrie-era ABC ditched them.

The possible restoration of RA drew mockery from Morrison, who offered a line sent fresh in from the hard-working kitchen of the prime ministerial brains trust: “I sent in the AFP, the Labor Party wants to send in the ABC when it comes to their Pacific solution. They have a Q+A solution in the Pacific.” A tad harsh, one might think — at least given the current cowed state of ABC News, he could be sure the peoples of the Pacific would be getting a suitably pro-Coalition perspective on regional events.

But Morrison, who presumably thinks “soft power” comes from a wind turbine, is still stranded, Tom Hanks-like, in the Pacific himself, with journalists — perhaps in between Morrison yelling “Wilson!” at Peter Dutton’s head — continuing to ask pesky questions about the biggest foreign policy failure since Iraq. In particular, Morrison’s claims of a “red line” around a Chinese base in the Solomons continue to prompt questions about what, exactly, Morrison meant — especially given the United States, via the splendidly named Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink, declined to rule out military force if China established any kind of force projection potential in the Solomons.

“It would not be responsible for me to speculate in public about what Australia, United States and others would be doing in circumstances such as that,” Morrison said, leaving open the possibility of the RAAF bombing Honiara, another diplomatic triumph in a region of unalloyed success for Australia in recent times — one can almost feel a new Kerry Stokes-funded hall at the Australian War Memorial and Military Theme Park coming on.

For good measure, Morrison is still haunted by his lying to, and leaking of texts from, re-elected French president Emmanuel Macron, who holds far more sway in the Pacific than Morrison. Had he congratulated Macron on his reelection? He’d sent a message “directly”, Morrison said, as well as “formally”. He didn’t say whether his direct message got a bounce from monsieur le président’s téléphone portable.

Oh, and we shouldn’t forget Morrison also had to clean up an LNP candidate, backed by Barnaby Joyce, claiming that the famous net zero by 2050 commitment — that figleaf for climate inaction much beloved of the press gallery — in fact was no longer locked in and had some wriggle room. The candidate was in fact referring to how to get to net zero, Morrison insisted, not the actual figure.

Given Morrison literally has no plan to get to net zero beyond hoping some tech thing will show up, it might have been one of the first truthful things he’s said on the campaign trail.