Thanks to Trump administration, Mathias Cormann on top of the world
With the Trump administration's support, Mathias Cormann has had his mandate as secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development extended for a second five-year term. Cigars all round!
As finance minister in the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments, the Belgian-born Liberal senator for Western Australia had to shrug off global concerns about the Coalition's recalcitrant approach to emissions reduction and climate policy to land the top gig in 2021. Those concerns were given weight by Cormann's former boss Malcolm Turnbull, who tried, unsuccessfully, to lobby against him.
Despite being a rank outsider initially, Cormann managed to beat a field of 10 candidates, scraping past Swede Cecilia Malmstrom, who had all the right sort of European credentials, in the final round.
Spurred by a frenetic burst of global lobbying by the then-Morrison government, Cormann went one better than one-time wannabe United Nations boss Kevin Rudd to become the first Australian politician to lead a major international organisation.
There was no such dissent against Cormann getting a second term, with member states reaching a consensus and the Trump administration firmly backing him.
Looking back over the yearbook of former high-profile Liberals from the last term, Cormann, a steady backroom operator who loved Senate estimates and won a degree of begrudging respect from the other side of the political aisle, wasn't who we'd have picked to land the biggest global profile after politics.
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Julie Bishop, with the red shoes and the rizz, is merely a UN special envoy to Myanmar. Turnbull spends plenty of time in New York, but his biggest recent stepping out on the world stage was joining adult entertainment star Stormy Daniels for the US presidential election night coverage on UK network Channel 4.
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