Rebuild bridges with Oz
A fitness-obsessed UK-born Catholic, monarchist and high conservative, Tony Abbott beat a divided Labour Party to Australia’s prime ministership. In promising to do away with the carbon tax, he departs sharply from the previous government’s agenda. While that’s a local issue with emotive strings attached, what India has to do after the change in Canberra is to build bridges all over again with the new leadership. Given the historically friendly ties between the Labour parties in both the UK and Australia, and India, a significant diplomatic breakthrough had been made when Australia’s former PM, Julia Gillard, despite being in a musical chairs situation with her predecessor (and successor) Kevin Rudd, promised to open up uranium supplies. With India set to expand its nuclear power capabilities exponentially over the coming decade, an assured supply is something that the nation has been avidly looking forward to.
There is really no knowing whether Australia under Mr Abbott, a boxer who once trained to be a priest, will change its policy of looking towards Asia, a pragmatic shift that well matches India’s “Look East” policy. It did seem that India and Australia were moving towards a commonality in views on strategic concerns pertaining to the region. Our external affairs ministry would do well to get into overdrive to cope with the change of guard that came after six years when the Australian public, with more than a little bit of help from the Rupert Murdoch-owned media, got disenchanted with a feuding Labour Party.
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