Days after having accepted the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa from The University of Notre Dame, the Honourable Kim Beazley, who has been serving as Ambassador to the United States since 2009, returned to Notre Dame in Fremantle to deliver an insightful lecture on Australia’s alliance with the United States of America. The lecture, entitled The Power of Proximity, focused on the strengthening of ties between the two nations in the context of significant changes to geopolitics over the past 25 years.
Among those present were the Notre Dame Vice Chancellor, Professor Celia Hammond, Fremantle MP Melissa Park, former Labor MP Tom Stephens, members from the US Consulate, Perth and a number of other distinguished guests from the government, business and educational disciplines.
In his opening statements, Dr Beazley praised The University of Notre Dame’s prosperity, emphasising that “to say I have boundless affection for this university is a massive understatement”. He specifically acknowledged the founders of the university, praising their efforts in creating an extraordinary Australian learning environment
Dr Beazley began his lecture by reminding his audience that, although the term “proximity” was used to title his lecture, it is “distance” that has often characterised Australian-American relations. To prove his point, he jokingly remarked that if a hole was to be drilled from the garden of his residence in Washington DC through the core of the earth, it would end up approximately 3km south of Rottnest Island. “We are as far from the United States as a country pair than any country can be from another,” he said.
It is within this concept of distance that Dr Beazley recounted the difficult relationship between Australia and America during his time as defence minister in the 1980s. Speaking of the global security concerns during the Cold War, Dr Beazley referred to “a subliminal and sometimes overt Australian desire to try to get the United States as our principal ally… and, generally speaking, we haven’t done terribly well. We did OK in 1942, thankfully, but since that time it’s been extraordinarily difficult to get that priority from the Americans.”
From this point on, Dr Beazley focused on the geopolitical, security and economic changes that have significantly shaped Australian-American relations since the Cold War. He stated that the engagement of Australia and America in security terms has gradually become a fundamental aspect of their relationship and that the “engagement of military forces is today much deeper than ever”. On a financial level, he said, “our economics are being entwined in their most sensitive areas”.
Yet it was Dr Beazley’s analysis of Australia’s crucial position in a growing and highly relevant Asia-Pacific region that gave his discussion a heightened sense of relevance and contemporary value.
“We were a backwater in the cold war,” he said “and we are now in the southern tier of the focal point of global politics. The Asia-Pacific region, as everybody understands, is the most important zone on earth. That is where global prosperity is being generated, where the best and newest ideas in terms of new products and future global capitalism is being generated. You prosper if you have access to the zone, you are compromised in your opportunities if you don’t. We are situated in the southern tier of that zone.”
Dr Beazley added that “now what we stand for, the things we argue and the perspectives we hold, are very important to the United States and the nations around us. So, on proximity, its relevance, and the relevance of our proximity not so much to the United States but to the zone we inhabit, is now critical to the American views of us and what we’re up to”.
From the perspective of Australian security, Dr Beazley claimed, there is a continued interest in an alliance with the United States as the economy and power of Asian countries grow at a staggering rate.
“You would have to say that power relativities have shifted against Australia,” he said. In case of a threat, Dr Beazley explained that America would be fundamental to the strengthening of Australia’s defence force.
“All of a sudden, the United States, which was a useful optional extra, has become quite critical to us,” he stated.
Dr Beazley concluded that in order to draw the attention of America to our security, Australia must look to what is concerning the United States and ask the fundamental question: “how much do we need to help them at this point?”
The non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, monitoring the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, and the threat of militant Islamic fundamentalism, were listed by Dr Beazley as some of the global issues that the United States seek help with.
In the context of much contemporary speculation over the importance or value of the alliance with the United States, Dr Beazley insists that it remains the most important relationship we have and that keeping the Americans engaged should be one of Australia’s top priorities.