Cables reveal UK view on Howard's personality, Australia's part in Kyoto ‘awkward squad' and an aborted cricket match

The Guardian

6 days ago

Plus ça change. At the turn of the millennium, Australia was in the throes of 'one of its periodic bouts of angst over its place in the Asia-Pacific and the wider world'. It was doubting the reliability of its ally the US, wrestling with the issue of Indigenous reconciliation, and attracting criticism for its under commitment to addressing the climate crisis.
And it was trying to organise a game of cricket against the English.
Just released papers from Britain's National Archives shed light on intergovernmental correspondence between the governments of Australia and the UK before a prime ministerial visit to London in 2000 to mark Australia Week, and the centenary of the Australian constitution.
Correspondence between the governments of the conservative prime minister John Howard and the UK Labour leader Tony Blair reveal a suite of problems still being grappled with in Australia a quarter of a century later.
'Personality notes' written for Blair describe Howard as a leader who had 'started well' as prime minister, particularly on gun control after the Port Arthur massacre, but who 'appeared to lose his way' during his first term.
Importantly for the UK, it saw Howard as an 'instinctive monarchist … well-disposed towards Britain'. The sketch says Howard was a 'strong family man', significantly influenced by his wife, Janette, that he was a 'fanatical follower' of cricket, and a 'great admirer' of Sir Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi.
In a scene-setting cable dated June 2000 prepared for Blair, the UK high commissioner noted: 'Australia is going through one of its periodic bouts of angst over its place in the Asia-Pacific and the wider world'.
It said Australia took 'enormous national pride' in its intervention in Timor-Leste the year before (despite significant damage to its relationship with Indonesia), saying that the Australian-led peacekeeping mission 'raised Australia's stock in Asia'.
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However, 'critics argue that it simply hardened a view widely held in Asia that Australia is ambivalent, even antagonist, towards Asia'.
Timor-Leste, the cable noted, had also strained Canberra's relations with Washington DC.
'The [US's] perceived reluctance to assist Australia is seen as an indication that the US could not be relied on automatically in circumstances that are of little interest to it.
'More broadly, some are doubting that the US will retain interest in the alliance unless Australia increases its commitment, in terms of defence spending.
'The litmus test is Taiwan: having to choose between the US and China is the nightmare scenario on Australia's strategic and diplomatic horizon. Few doubt Australia would choose the US but the calculations are becoming less clearcut.'
In 2025, the US defense secretary has insisted Australia lift defence spending to 3.5% of its GDP, while Trump administration officials have demanded assurances from Australia it would support the US in any conflict over Taiwan.
On climate, Blair was briefed that although Australia had signed the Kyoto protocol to cut emissions, it had not ratified the treaty.
The British government suspected Howard would not raise the matter during the two leaders' meeting.
'If Howard doesn't mention it, you should raise climate change,' Blair's brief states. 'The Australians are in the awkward squad on Kyoto (alongside eg the Russians and the US): you should tell Howard how important we think the issues are, and encourage Australia to do more.'
In the quarter-century since, Australian governments have been consistently criticised internationally for failing to adequately address the climate crisis. A federal court judge last week found previous Australian governments had 'paid scant, if any, regard to the best available science' in setting emissions reductions targets.
Other files reveal concern within Blair's government about an Indigenous delegation that visited the UK in late 1999.
Leading the delegation was Patrick Dodson, a Yawuru elder and later senator, often referred to as the 'father of reconciliation'. During the same trip, he met Queen Elizabeth II as part of a larger effort to foster reconciliation.
However, a memo written by Blair's foreign affairs adviser, John Sawers, reflects angst within the prime minister's office about a proposed meeting with the delegation, referring to an apparent intervention by the then Australian high commissioner, Philip Flood.
'The Australians are pretty wound up about the idea of you seeing the Aborigines at all,' Sawers wrote to Blair. 'Their high commissioner rang me to press you not to see them: they were troublemakers – it would be like [the then Australian prime minister] John Howard seeing people from Northern Ireland who were trying to stir up problems for the UK.'
The memo suggested: 'Can't we plead diary problems?' The word 'yes' is written in answer to this, in handwriting that resembles Blair's.
A quarter-century later, Dodson was a key advocate for an Indigenous voice to parliament, put to Australians in a referendum in 2023. The voice proposal was ultimately defeated.
Also within the National Archives files is a prescient document from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to the UK High Commission in Canberra. It reflects on a visit from a 'rising star in the Australian Labor party and a useful contact for the FCO'.
The 'rising star' had reflected on Australia's place in its region (and was summarised by an FCO official): 'There were two main problems to Australia being part of Asia: a large slice of the region did not accept them, probably because of a common experience of European occupation – and Australia were too white; and Australians saw themselves as Australians rather than Asian, or indeed Europeans or Americans.'
The visitor's name was Kevin Rudd, the man who in 2007 would replace Howard as the next prime minister of Australia.
As the 2000 Australia Week visit from prime minister Howard approached, a flurry of correspondence between the two governments sought to put the finishing touches to the trip. The files contain flight details, hotel bookings, and to-the-minute travel arrangements. There are discussions of trumpet fanfares and processional routes.
One idea ultimately discarded was a cricket match proposed by Howard, to be played between Australian and English XIs at a ground near Chequers, the British prime ministerial country house.
'The teams could, perhaps, consist of one or two current Test players, a recently retired great cricketer or two, with the balance being young players of promise.'
Blair's private secretary, Philip Barton, wrote in a memo to the UK prime minister: 'I suspect the last thing you will want to do is go to a cricket match on the Saturday. But if we just say no, this would no doubt come out and you would look unsporting.'
Barton proposed getting former Tory prime minister John Major, an avowed cricket fan, to raise an XI on Blair's behalf, 'but it may not be enough to stop the prime minister having to go to at least the start of the match'. A third option was to 'turn it into a charity match'.
The match did not go ahead.