Launch of Documents on Foreign Policy volume 'Australia and the Suez Crisis 1950-1957'

I am delighted to be here today to launch Australia and the Suez Crisis 1950-1957, by Robert Bowker and Matthew Jordan.

Let me begin by congratulating the co-editors of this volume, Bob Bowker and Matthew Jordan.

This is a significant contribution to the historical scholarship of Australian policy making.

I’m not ashamed to say that I love receiving the new, very hefty volumes of the Documents on Australian Foreign Policy series in my Parliamentary Office.

We all have our hobbies.

It’s an utterly trite cliché to say that it’s important to learn from the past.

But some cliches are a cliché because they are true.

We can always learn something of relevance to the present moment by looking to the past with a critical eye. 

Indeed, it’s timely in the present moment, when the international community is again grappling with conflict in the Middle East, to reflect on the lessons to be taken from this latest volume in the Documents on Australian Foreign Policy series, Australia and the Suez Crisis.

The events described in this volume were momentous and had long term consequences for the region, and the world at large.  

It began in dramatic circumstances.

On 26 July 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser opened a speech with a curious anecdote about meeting an international banker, Mr. Black.

This Mr. Black, Nasser said, brought to mind the 19th century French builder of the Suez Canal, ‘Ferdinand de Lesseps’.

Unbeknownst to his audience, the president had just uttered a codeword – ‘de Lesseps’ – a signal for Egyptian forces to move in and seize the canal.

Nasser said he had serious misgivings about the canal.

It paid Egypt a pittance, yet its foreign owners collected ‘$100 million’ a year.

120,000 Egyptian labourers had died digging it up.

By the time Nasser got to the thunderous conclusion of his speech – that he was nationalising the canal – his troops were in control and he had set in train a chain of events that would shape the history of the Middle East, the Cold War and the emerging world order.

How Australian foreign policy responded to those events is the subject of the book we’re launching tonight.

This volume of official documents – Cabinet records, diplomatic cables, official memos and records of conversations – offers us an invaluable insight into Australian foreign policy making in the Middle East at the time.

But it also does much more than that.

The documents reveal what our political leaders of the time thought about Australia’s place in the world.

They reveal what they saw as the purpose of our foreign policy and how Australian agency could be exercised beyond our borders.

It was a very narrow vision indeed.

It’s an oft-repeated narrative of Australian history is that after the fall of Singapore and the bombing of Darwin, Australia turned away from Great Britain and looked towards the United States as our new primary security partner.

Curtin’s turn to the United States was an act of agency, an exercise of sovereignty.

It recognised the changing realities of Australia’s strategic environment and chose the path that maximised Australian influence over these dynamics.

Curtin turned towards the United States as an expression of the Australian national interest.

We remember this today as a decisive turning point in Australian foreign policy, but these documents reveal that old habits die hard.

The conclusion of the Second World War demonstrated obvious and fundamental changes in the global power dynamics that underpinned international relations - changes that were exacerbated by the bracing economic aftermath of the conflict.

These changes in dynamics were accompanied by new ways of thinking.

They encouraged new ideas and ideologies of decolonisation that inspired independence movements throughout what we’d now refer to as the global south.

In the wake of the Second World War, the Chifley government had recognised and engaged with the changing realities of the time, including supporting independence movements in Indonesia and India.

In parallel, the Chifley government, working alongside governments from around the world, invested enormous intellectual and political effort into building the United Nations – the institutional foundation of a new international order that learnt from the failures that led to the Second World War.

Doc Evatt played a famous role in the establishment of the United Nations and Australia’s voice and priorities, particularly our view on the importance of an international system where all countries had a voice, were front and centre at the San Francisco conference.

But under Menzies’ leadership, the Liberal government that followed Chifley retained a deep commitment to Australia’s British-Australian identity and Australia’s role as a part of empire.

During Suez, Menzies’ Liberal government was willing to prioritise his view of Australia’s role as a part of Empire above all other ends – above our commitment to the United Nations and above our relationship with the United States.

As the authors note:

'Australia’s role on key issues in the Middle East was not only seen, essentially, as being best directed toward supporting Britain but also understood in the same imperial framework articulated by Menzies in the early 1950s.'

This volume shows how Menzies’ refusal to recognise the fundamental material and intellectual changes sweeping the post war era led Australia into international isolation, with disastrous consequences for Australian influence.

At the very start of the crisis, we get a peek into the Cabinet deliberations.

As Bob and Matthew write in their editorial notes:

'Neither Menzies nor the overwhelming majority of his Cabinet ministers could at this stage realistically contemplate Australia withholding support from the United Kingdom if war did eventuate.'

As the authors note,

'Fundamentally… Australian policymakers, with few exceptions, understood the problem in emotional terms and could not conceive of a situation where Australia would be at cross purposes with Britain – especially during times of crisis.'

While the United States, and much of the world grappled with the changing post war order, the Menzies government unquestioningly backed-in British Prime Minister Anthony Eden’s attempts to cling to the past during the Suez Crisis.

It left Australia blinkered to the changing reality on the ground.

The documents reveal that Australia never truly interrogated whether Britain’s military escalation was a pretext – as the Americans had believed it was from the very beginning.

This volume sums up the Menzies Government’s response to the crisis as:

'A combination of panic, bitterness over American moralising, distrust of the United Nations … intense fear of a split between its two great power protectors and, more than any other factor, ‘blind loyalty’ to the United Kingdom'

Over and over again the deliberations and decisions contained in the documents made this clear.

There were other voices in this debate.

The Leader of the Opposition, and former Foreign Minister, Doc Evatt, declared the view of the Labor opposition during Parliamentary debate:  

'As we have declared so often in connexion with the Suez dispute and other matters, our firm policy is to give unwavering support to the United Nations.'

Evatt highlighted the extent to which the Menzies Liberal government had isolated itself from the international consensus on the Suez Crisis by reference to a United Nations General Assembly resolution on the matter, noting:

'That resolution was carried, I think, by a majority of 65 to one. That is to say, every person voting voted for it, with one exception...

'The General Assembly of the United Nations may be considered as representing the public opinion of all the world.

'The majority by which the vote on this matter was carried was not that of a small bloc of nations.

'It included practically all members of the United Nations except for seven or eight nations.

'That vote, of course, is morally binding on all members of the United Nations.

From the beginning of this dispute, that has been the issue between those on this side of the House and the Government or, at any rate, the Prime Minister.'

Evatt recognised the way the international order had changed in the wake of the Second World War and understood that Australia could not afford to isolate itself with outdated imperial bromides.

In contrast, looking back at these documents it is clear that Menzies’ foreign policy was heavy on dewy-eyed sentiment instead of clear-eyed analysis.

Menzies refused to see the world changing in front of him and as a result, Australians foreign policy was isolated and ineffective.

Like the period following the Second World War, today Australian foreign policy confronts a world of change.

Conflicts, climate change, economic and technological disruption, shifting demographics, and geostrategic competition are all reshaping our world in fundamental ways.

Amidst this change, the international system and the rules and norms that have underpinned it for decades, are under increasing pressure.

Australia cannot afford to be a mere spectator to these changes.

The current Australian government is actively working to shape these changes in our national interest – to ensure we live in a region that is peaceful, stable and prosperous.

It is why we are investing in all elements of our national power – across diplomatic, economic, strategic and military domains – to bolster our ability to advance Australia’s interests in the world.

But despite these efforts, we can’t do it alone.

For a country of Australia’s size, to effectively shape our international environment we need to work with our international partners.

For Australia – isolation means impotence.

Isolation means giving up on trying to shape Australia’s international environment.

Isolation means the end of Australian influence over the changes to our international environment that will shape our future prosperity and security.

This is the big lesson of Suez.

Menzies clung to the past and as the world moved on and Australia was left isolated, our foreign policy ineffective.

Today, there are a growing number of voices in our political debate effectively arguing for a foreign policy that would leave Australia isolated.

Voices arguing that Australia should, like Menzies, ignore the views of the international community, instead of engaging with it.

To engage in magical thinking rather than clear eyed analysis of our national interest.

Today, as during the Suez Crisis, these voices for isolation are a road to nowhere for our nation.

But we know that working with partners is key to preserving a region, and a world, that we want.

In these complex, challenging and consequential times, our relationships matter, more than ever.

I thank Bob and Matthew for this timely reminder.

Congratulations again for the publication and thank you to DFAT for your ongoing work understanding and promoting Australia’s place in the world, including through this publication.

Thank you.