NZ's plain-speaking ally from Australia

In the second of a series on the ambassadors, assistant editor FRAN O'SULLIVAN talks to Australian High Commissioner Allan Hawke.


Australian High Commissioner Allan Hawke wants to have a transtasman single market by June 2006.

After years of not-too-subtle transtasman mud-slinging on issues ranging from rugby to Iraq, a new coach is on the field, and he wants to get the two sides playing together.

In the nine months Hawke has been in New Zealand, he has cranked up the debate over what sort of relationship the two countries should enjoy in the 21st century, laid out the defence parameters and pushed hard to get New Zealand business to see the opportunities a single market presents.

It is a time that Hawke characterises as a "watershed" in the relationship.

A laconic raconteur, the compact Hawke at times comes across as a colourful, inveterate but public-spirited stirrer.

But his "ocker" style belies a sophisticated and insightful approach to the relationship between New Zealand and Australia and a passionate commitment to ensure tangible results during his period as high commissioner.

Hawke was put through an orientation process by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade when he was appointed.

He had spent 30 years as a career civil servant, but had never been a diplomat. But he is well keyed into the Howard Government, having been Defence Secretary and before that head of Transport.

"When I first became aware this was going to happen, I asked people, 'Give me some stuff about what high commissioners do and how they go about it'," Hawke said.

"I was met with almost blank stares, so I thought I might sit down and write it."

The fruits of his endeavours were revealed to the Wellington branch of the Institute of International Affairs two weeks ago when he laid out tough benchmarks so observers could "gauge progress towards objectives" during his four-year term.

Hawke's speech, which also focused on the transtasman single market, was as much intended for Australian domestic consumption as for his New Zealand audience.

But it was also "for people here in the commission to understand what this bloke's on about as the high commissioner".

We go back to August last year to get some insight into why Hawke felt it necessary to take this step.

One week into his job, he quickly established his presence with a speech to the Australian Defence Strategic Studies course in Auckland.

The speech, "Australia and New Zealand - Quo Vadis" canvassed the "unique relationship" between two proud and sovereign nations.

But Hawke's opening statement that "you might not be aware that we now stand on the cusp - our future relationship is anything but certain" caused a furore.

The literal meaning of "quo vadis" is "where are we heading?".

But some foreign affairs officials, academics and journalists read more into the speech.

"Senior people, academics said, 'This bloke doesn't know what he's talking about'," muses Hawke.

"But somebody then got in touch with the [New Zealand] Prime Minister, who was overseas, and I interpreted her views as saying "I think the high commissioner's got a point ... It's a relationship we've got to work at, we shouldn't take it for granted'."

Some New Zealand foreign affairs officials also took umbrage.

But Hawke says that once they read the speech in full, they "thought maybe he's got a point".

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was not asked for his approval either.

"I thought I'm appointed to do the job here - I've got to do it in the way I see fit.

"If that turns out not to be the way the Government sees it, no doubt I'll hear about it."

After the mild-mannered career diplomat Bob Cotton, this was a clear change of style.

Hawke's speech had a serious purpose. It was an attempt to set out the nature of the defence relationship after September 11, 2001, Bali and Iraq.


But the substance got lost among the atmospherics.

Hawke says he did not realise there would be such a fuss.

"Not long after I got here, somebody said to me, 'The one thing you need to understand about New Zealand is that the slightest criticism by Australia or an Australian runs the risk of being picked up and amplified and magnified on this side of the Tasman'. "I heard that but didn't realise how strong that was."


Hawke says putting the issues out in public was simply part of the role he had adopted as a Canberra chief executive.

The issue he now faces is how to balance "not becoming a public notoriety" with getting on the table some real issues that deserve debate and resolution.

Defence is one of those issues.

New Zealand's image as a "defence bludger" has been well cemented in Australia since defence spending was reduced from 2.3 per cent of gross domestic product to 1.2 per cent in the early 1990s.

But Hawke says "that's a matter for New Zealanders".

"I've made the point that New Zealand's GDP is about the same size as Queensland's, which invites the question what sort of defence force would we expect Queensland to have."

Australia's interest lies in ensuring New Zealand's defence force remains structured in a way that enables it to continue working with Australia's force on operations.

But Hawke believes it's time to "inject a bit of reality" into the debate.


"The Government of the day on both sides is going to decide what spending decisions are. The task of the civil servants and military is to live within the financial envelope they decide.

"You offer the advice - they make the decision.


Hawke is frank about the altercation with Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill which sparked his resignation as defence head and his subsequent appointment as high commissioner.

It harked back to a discussion the pair had after Hill became minister in February 2002 about the "nature and interactions" of their respective roles.

"We had different views about that matter, and in those cases clearly the minister's view prevails," recalls Hawke.

"So I said to him, 'My term's up in October 2002. You deserve a Secretary of your own choosing, and if you want to do that I'd certainly be prepared to stand aside and do something else'."

When the deadline got nearer, Hawke got a call from the head of the Prime Minister's department, Max Moore-Wilton.

"He asked me what I'd like to do," recalls Hawke. "And I said I would like to be High Commissioner in New Zealand.

"Then there was a bit of interplay between him and the PM and the Foreign Minister and eventually the PM decided that, 'Yes, he can go to Wellington for a term'.

"I was offered other overseas appointments but I really had my heart set on New Zealand."

Hawke had been coming to New Zealand on and off since 1990 and had developed good relationships with a number of senior bureaucrats.

He had come to the conclusion - "and this is what got me into trouble, of course" - that while that relationship had served both countries well, it was clear that neither country should assume that same relationship would continue when the current leaders passed on the power, leadership and influence to the next generation.

"That's because a lot of people in Australia are more pre-occupied and look more to Asia and the US than they do towards our cousin across the Tasman.

"My view was that this has been such an important and strong relationship that maybe I could do something in the time I am here to encourage and foster that."

Hawke's public service career came about by chance.



NZ's plain-speaking

ally from Australia


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He was "happily doing a PhD in science" when he met a friend who had returned to university to do his doctorate after doing the one-year public service Administrative Training Programme.

"He said to me one day, 'Hawkey, you might want want to try that'," Hawke relates.

"I was contemplating whether to become a research scientist in the CSIRO [the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation]."

Hawke did the training programme. But when the time came to make a decision to either stay in the public service or return to the CSIRO, he had other issues to weigh.

"By then I'd met my wife and was thinking about my impecunious state and that if this was going to go anywhere I'd need to make a quid.

" I thought, blow it - I'll have a go at this public service thing. Never looked back."

Hawke was the first member of his family to finish high school let alone go to university. His family on both sides have been in Australia since the 1850s.

"My dad was a printer and my mother was a nurse's aid," says Hawke. "Their focus in life was to provide the home environment and my father, who went through the Recession, was absolutely obsessed with what he called that "piece of paper".

His father was also very strong in the Return Services League, which he credits with influencing him when he became Secretary of Veterans' Affairs.


Hawke is a much more powerful figure in the Canberra circuit than his self-deprecating comments suggest.

Last August, Prime Minister John Howard took the Pacific Islands Forum by storm by pushing for Australian Greg Urwin to run its secretariat.

Howard's clear intention for Australia to assume a lead-nation role in the Pacific raised concerns among those nations clinging to the sentimental "Pacific Way", and with New Zealand.

"What's not well known is my agitation behind the scenes in public servant circles about what we were doing in the Solomons and our policy approach to the Pacific Islands," says Hawke, speaking of his time as Defence head.

"I was arguing we were not succeeding and that we needed to have a quite different approach."

Hawke's lobbying for Australia to take a "more interventionist" role found some acceptance with Moore-Wilton at the Prime Minister's department.

"What happened after that I'm not privy to, nor should I be. But I certainly had a big hand in starting that debate.

"Obviously I knew what was coming down the track at the forum, but one could only be in absolute awe of the way the Prime Minister went about that.

"Even though there was a lot of criticism of him personally and of Australia's approach - being seen almost as bully boys on the block - what's happened since then, and the reaction within the region since then, would seem to suggest he was absolutely on the right track."

While Australia clearly asserted its influence last August, Hawke sees a strong opportunity for Helen Clark, as chairwoman of the forum until this year's meeting in Samoa, to ensure the reform of the secretariat is successful.

Hawke will not venture detailed comment on suggestions that New Zealand rejected the terms of Australia's initial request for military help in the Solomons.

"My guess is there was some debate over whether the magnitude of the Australian military presence was really required.

"My answer to that is that PM Howard would have asked the Chief of the Defence Force, General [Peter] Cosgrove, for his view on what military support was needed to ensure the mission couldn't fail

"Cosgrove would have put it in his professional military judgment, and from everything I've seen of the Prime Minister he would have accepted Cosgrove's judgment.

"No doubt it caused a bit of a hiccup, but I don't see that's had any lasting impact."


Getting New Zealand and Australia closer in an economic sense was not Hawke's top priority when he became high commissioner.

His arrival coincided with the 20th anniversary of the Closer Economic Relations agreement between the two countries.

But he quickly came to the view that "we're into the law of diminishing returns here".

The transtasman trading relationship was well-established. But it needed to move up a notch to a Treasurer/Treasurer platform to ensure it developed further.

Hawke sat in on last month's meeting between Australian Treasurer Peter Costello and Finance Minister Michael Cullen in Melbourne.

"From the moment they saw each other at the dinner Treasurer Costello held for Dr Cullen on the Thursday night, you could see the genuine warmth of the relationship between the two of them," says Hawke. "This wasn't just two ministers meeting.

"I suspect they each have a healthy respect for the intellect and the approach that is being taken to their own economic issues on both sides.

"They probably both like to bask in a bit of reflected and well-earned glory for the performance of the economies, which I must say has been pretty good on both sides.

"But what interested me was their fascination and preoccupation about what are we going to do now to lift the relationship to a new level."

Glowing words. And a sentiment reportedly also shared by Westpac chief executive David Morgan when at a subsequent lunch he heard the two Treasurers give a commitment to a single market.


"What he [Morgan] basically said was, 'When we all agreed to come along to the meeting none of us expected to hear an announcement of this magnitude'."


Hawke says the timeframe for a single market is much tighter than had initially been publicised. The "low hanging fruit" will be picked off quickly and more difficult issues will be worked through.

More movement is expected when Clark meets Howard in Canberra next week.

But Hawke is impatient with the lack of response from New Zealand business to the Cullen-Costello announcement.

"I'd be out there identifying what are the impediments to a genuine single market and bringing those forward to the Treasurer and the Finance Minister with, hopefully, also some solutions."

Issues on a longer rein include whether the two stock exchanges should be amalgamated. A common currency is unlikely. And political union is clearly not on the cards.

New Zealand is unlikely to forge a free trade agreement with the US in the short term, so there have to be other mechanisms, such as a deal with the Southeast Asian bloc, for the two countries to pull together on trade.

Hawke says another big chance for the two nations to combine forces is within the high level group looking at reform of the United Nations.

"The current security environment may provide the impetus for some much-overdue reform there."

His overall concern is that neither side should take the relationship for granted.

"Have a look at the increasing number of young Australians and New Zealanders who make the effort to go to Gallipoli for Anzac Day each year.

"We've got to work at it and make sure the new generation of people on both sides of the Tasman see how important it [the transtasman relationship] is and continue to regard it that way."

* NEXT THURSDAY: Chinese Ambassador Chen Mingming