Penny Wong (right) sings a waiata at the powhiri for her in Parliament's Grand Hall, and is accompanied by Australian High Commissioner Harinder Sidhu. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Penny Wong (right) sings a waiata at the powhiri for her in Parliament's Grand Hall, and is accompanied by Australian High Commissioner Harinder Sidhu. Photo / Mark Mitchell
OPINION:
Penny Wong is already half-way to becoming the Pacific's Theodore Roosevelt, the US president who said: "Speak softly and carry and big stick."
Wong, the new Australian Foreign Minister, is quickly rebranding the Australian foreign policy approach in her own image: quiet and attentive but with a steely innercore.
And in her first press conference with New Zealand counterpart Nanaia Mahuta in Wellington today, it was evident that Wong will not be a muscular foreign minister who views all friendships through a security lens. She didn't mention the United States or China at all, overtly, or even in code.
Penny Wong gives a speech in Suva on May 26, five days after the Australian election. Photo Fiji Sun/ AP
Wong amplified the message she gave in her first speech to the Pacific Islands Forum secretariat - five days after the Australian election - in which she said her country was willing to listen and learn from others.
Reporters asked plenty of questions about China and what they had decided to do in response to its recent moves in the Pacific.
"That we can work together, and we do and will," said Wong without wasting a word.
It is a sea change from how Australia has projected itself for many years – mainly through former prime minister Scott Morrison and former defence minister Peter Dutton who was de facto foreign minister.
For too long, Australia's bad relationship with China, the prospect of conflict, and its strong alliance with the United States, have dominated the projection of Australia to the world.
Newly elected Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on election night with Penny Wong (left) and partner Jodie Haydon. Photo / AP
It was still doing excellent and important work in its Pacific Step Up programme, headed by former High Commissioner to Wellington Ewen McDonald.
But it was the big game with the US and against China, not the long game with the Pacific that appeared more important to the political leaders. It has been the lens through which Australia has viewed its relationship with New Zealand as well.
The moves by China to stitch up a regional security deal with Pacific states exacerbated the perception that Australia, and to some extent New Zealand, had neglected the Pacific.
Wong and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are intent on changing the focus and tone of Australia's foreign relations.
Defence Minister Richard Marles broke the ice by meeting his Chinese counterpart at a security conference in Singapore at the weekend, which ended a two-and-half-year freeze by China on ministerial contact with Australia.
Wong's appointment has been almost universally welcomed. She is also very close to Albanese, being No 3 in the Labor line-up.
Despite feigning inexperience in today's press conference, few foreign ministers come with such preparation as she has had – nine years as shadow foreign minister.
She may have a quiet voice, but she is clearly a minister of intelligence and substance and looks set to be an important friend to New Zealand and the Pacific.
