23rd September 2014
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
British and Australian leaders will no doubt be seeing each other around New York this week, amidst the frenzied activity which comprises the annual UN General Assembly (UNGA) Ministerial Week. Tony Abbott, David Cameron, Julie Bishop and Philip Hammond will be there, together with ministerial colleagues and around 130 Heads of State or Government. Inevitably countering extremism and the threat […]
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19th September 2014
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With all the trouble spots flaring up around the world at the moment, our annual Strategic Dialogue talks with DFAT could not have been more timely. FCO Director General Sir Julian King was in town together with his Ministry of Defence counterpart Peter Watkins for an intensive series of meetings. They discussed developments in the […]
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11th September 2014
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G20 brought another minister to Australia this week. Esther McVey MP, Minister of State for Employment, is in Melbourne attending the G20 Employment Ministers Meeting. As an MP on Merseyside, which has had its share of employment challenges, she is passionate about helping to give people the opportunity to work. Immediately before the meeting she […]
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7th September 2014
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When I was a kid our local MP in the beautiful constituency of East Devon was a remote figure, very distant from our lives. Last week his successor stayed at my Residence in Canberra. Hugo Swire, the FCO Minister of State whose responsibilities include Asia, was here for a very busy couple of days. In […]
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3rd September 2014
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I called on Foreign Minister Julie Bishop this morning to touch base before she headed off to the NATO Summit in Newport, Wales, later this week. Australia has worked very closely with NATO and played an important role as the largest non-NATO contributor in the Afghanistan campaign. This relationship will not end with the campaign […]
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1st September 2014
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HE Dame Marie Bashir, New South Wales’ 37th Governor, reflected warmly on her first predecessor, Admiral Arthur Philip, when she hosted a glittering reception at Government House in Sydney on the 200th anniversary of his death on 31 August. She spoke of the debt that modern Australia owes its founding father. She also commended his personal qualities: […]
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29th August 2014
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“Even the stones seem to speak to you,” said Tony Abbott, describing Oxford’s ancient college buildings to this year’s Charlie Perkins/Chevening scholars. This sense of place would be very familiar to indigenous people. The Prime Minister takes a very close interest in indigenous matters. And Oxford, where he spent two very happy years as a […]
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18th August 2014
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“You know, in the end, we are all worms, but I do believe I am a glow worm” Winston Churchill once told a friend. Paul Keating, speaking in 2008 agreed “He was a glow worm and he lit up the most miserable epoch of the miserable twentieth century like no one before or after him.” […]
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13th August 2014
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I no longer cower behind the sofa at the opening bars of the Dr Who theme tune, but it still summons up something of the frisson I remember from Saturday nights in my childhood. Interestingly, I just learned that the melody was composed by an Australian, Ron Grainer, for the first series back in 1963. […]
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12th August 2014
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Sydney’s arts and cultural community gathered at our Consul General’s Residence last week to say farewell to outgoing British Council Director Nick Marchand. The British Council do a fantastic job as the UK’s organization for international cultural relations. They support the third pillar of our relationship with Australia – people to people links – alongside […]
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