It wasn’t all furious agreement, however. Where the foreign policy community has previously fallen into falsely bifurcated arguments over aid in the national interest, this time, there was fresh and lively debate in the room as participants interrogated perspectives other than their own.
Despite the gravitational pull of recent years towards deploying Australia’s development program to counter PRC influence, our Pulse Check participants said this was something Australia should stop doing. And our regional colleagues’ demand was for Australia to be more honest when it comes to our geopolitical interests. Plenty in the room concurred that a clumsy game of short-term transactions to achieve regional access and influence was not in Australia’s interests nor in the developmental interests of the region.
But others urged a rethink, countering that strategic competition has been the kick Australia needed to re-engage with the region. Others still, argued that we should take it as a given that Government will be drawn towards using the program to compete with China, so we may as well use that momentum to generate some positive outcomes from it and not ignore the stark geopolitics facing the region.
Needing to navigate a difficult path was a theme that continued with discussion of whether Australia should double-down on governance support efforts. On one reading, governance support will remain essential to achieving development aspirations — a critical means to an end. If climate adaptation were a priority, for example, Australia could not provide effective support to a country on that without investing in the institutions that will confront the oncoming challenges.
Another perspective aired was that relating to long-term state effectiveness. Attendees warned that a failure to see the challenges governments in our region have in delivering effective services to their people and maintaining safe and stable nations is a failure to serve the long-term interests of the region and Australia.
But attendees were certainly clear-eyed on the dilemma some governance support can pose — pointing out that not all the work Australia does to support open civic space, human rights and accountable governance will be in the elite interests of our near partners. A stark trade-off was put to the room that Australia faces a choice: compromise short-term national interests by ‘demanding’ more accountability from countries in our region versus valuing the partnerships and access Australia enjoys and frankly, not rocking the boat when it comes to democratic principles.
No one in the room subscribed to the idea that Australia should backtrack on its focus on governance.
Navigating through the calm waters of governance would involve rethinking what governance means in the development program. On a practical level, some in the room felt that this should mean not mentioning democracy at all, and putting an emphasis on other angles, such as rule of law and effective service delivery.
