Alexander Downer

The Honourable  Alexander Downer  BA (Hons)
38th Foreign Minister of Australia
In office 11 March 1996 – 3 December 2007
Preceded by	Gareth Evans
Succeeded by	Stephen Smith
Constituency	Mayo
Born	9 September 1951 (1951-09-09) (age 58) Adelaide, South Australia
Political party	Liberal Party of Australia
Spouse	Nicola (née Robinson)

Alexander John Gosse Downer (born 9 September 1951) is an Australian Liberal politician who was Foreign Minister of Australia from March 1996 to December 2007, the longest serving in Australian history. He was also the leader of the federal Opposition for eight months from 1994 to 1995, the shortest serving in Liberal Party history.

Early history and career

Downer was born in Adelaide, South Australia, into one of the state's prominent established political families. His father, Sir Alec Downer, also reached cabinet rank in federal politics, then was High Commissioner in London from 1964 to 1972. His grandfather, Sir John Downer, was twice Premier of South Australia and a Senator in the first federal Parliament in 1901. His mother, Lady Downer (née Mary Gosse), is descended from early immigrants to South Australia. Downer is married to Nicky (née Nicola Robinson) who is a leading identity in the arts community and received an Order of Australia for her service to the arts in 2005. They have four children, Georgina, Olivia, Edward, and Henrietta. Downer is related via the Gosse family to Edmund Gosse a famed English literary critic.^[1]

Downer was educated at Geelong Grammar School in Australia, then in England (while his father was High Commissioner) at Radley College between 1964 and 1970,^[2] and the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. From 1975 to 1976, he worked as an economist for the Bank of New South Wales,^[3] before entering the Australian Diplomatic Service, where he served until 1982.^[3] During Downer's time in the foreign service, some of it was spent at a diplomatic posting in Brussels, where he undertook a French language training course. He then worked as an advisor to the then Liberal Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser and subsequent Leader of the Federal Opposition Andrew Peacock.^[3] From 1983 to 1984, he also served as the Executive Director of the Australian Chamber of Commerce.^[3] In 1984, he was elected to the federal Parliament as Liberal member for Mayo, in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. He held this seat until his resignation from Parliament in 2008.

The Liberals were in opposition from 1983 to 1996, and Downer held a number of positions on the Opposition front bench from 1987 onwards. In 1993, he became Shadow Treasurer. When the Liberals unexpectedly lost the 1993 elections to Paul Keating, Downer began to be talked of as a possible leader, and in May 1994 he succeeded Dr John Hewson as leader of the Liberal party after defeating him in a leadership ballot.

Opposition Leader

As Liberal leader, Downer initially attracted record levels of public support. Then aged 43, he was perceived as a fresh-faced alternative to a government in its twelfth year of power. His support base was quickly eroded, however, by a series of embarrassing public blunders, the most famous of which occurred at a formal dinner. Promoting the Liberal party slogan "The Things That Matter", Downer then joked that the party's domestic violence policy would accordingly be named the "things that batter", referring to abusive husbands.

He was rarely comfortable in the leadership position, a problem he spoke of later when he admitted he would probably have to relinquish the leadership:

The moment when I wanted to [leave] was just about the first day I started in the job. There was many a time from the first day onwards when I thought to myself, 'How the hell can I get out of this?'^[4]

In January 1995 he resigned as Liberal Leader, and John Howard was elected to replace him. With a tenure of just over eight months, Downer is to date the shortest-serving leader of the federal Liberal Party. He is also, with Brendan Nelson, one of only two federal Liberal leader never to lead the party into an election.

Minister for Foreign Affairs

Alexander Downer (second from right) in 1998 during a joint press conference at the conclusion of the annual Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations

Downer with former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer at Parliament House, Canberra, February 2005

Downer with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2006.

Downer was given the choice of cabinet position^[5] in the incoming Howard government elected in March 1996, choosing Minister for Foreign Affairs, a position he held until December 3, 2007. He became the longest serving Foreign Minister of Australia on 20 December 2004.

One of Downer's earliest initiatives as foreign minister was to work with New Zealand to broker a peace agreement in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, which ended a long running civil conflict.

In 1996 Downer took the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to the United Nations General Assembly where it was embraced by most members of the world body. Pakistan, India and North Korea were among those who failed to ratify the treaty and went ahead in developing nuclear weapons capability. In 1999, the US Senate rejected ratification of the treaty. Downer stated

It's pretty hard to say on the one hand that we feel very strongly about Pakistani and Indian nuclear testing and on the other hand the US Senate won't ratify the...treaty... The last thing the United States wants to see is a resumption of nuclear testing or the proliferation of nuclear weapons - and it is the last thing Australia wants to see. By refusing to ratify this treaty, the United States Senate has done a lot to undermine the arms control agenda that the international community, including Australia, has been working on.^[6] However, subsequent policies of the Howard government, including export of uranium to India, and general support for the unilateralist approach of the Bush Administration have been seen as undermining the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.^[7]

In 1999, Downer played a key role in assisting the United Nations to hold a referendum in East Timor and in negotiating the entry of the INTERFET peace keeping force into East Timor. ^[8] This intervention has been attributed by Osama Bin Laden as provoking a fatwā on Australia and Australian interests. ^{[9] [10] [11] [12]}

In 2003, Downer has signed an agreement over the gas and oil reserves in the Timor Gap.^[13] An agreement which has been criticised by some opposition parties and other critics, including a bipartisan letter of reproach from 50 members of the United States Congress, as being unfair to East Timor ^{[14][15][16][17]} as the gas reserves are closer to East Timor than Australia but are claimed by Australia on the basis of a treaty with General Suharto, in 1989.^[18]

As Minister for Foreign Affairs, Downer played a role in the diplomatic dispute known as the Tampa affair in 2001 in which Australia denied permission for the MV Tampa to dock at Christmas Island having picked up a number of asylum seekers trying to get to Australia by boat. Downer also played a role in the subsequent negotiation of the "Pacific Solution" in which Australia held asylum seekers off-shore in foreign jurisdictions.

In 2003 Downer was accused of not passing on intelligence reports he received before the 2002 Bali bombings. He countered that the warnings were not specific enough to warrant their further release to the Australian public.^[19]

Downer supported Australia's participation the Iraq war. He argued that Iraq, the Middle East and the world would be better off without the regime of Saddam Hussein and he defended the claim that weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq. ^{[20] [21] [22]}

In August 2004 he made a provocative claim that North Korea could launch Taepo Dong ballistic missile with a range long enough to hit Sydney, a view disputed by experts.^[23]

In August 2006, it was claimed by a former weapons inspector Dr John Gee, that Downer had in 2004 suppressed information that the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was fundamentally flawed. ^{[24] [25] [26]}

In March 2006 said the Australian Government opposed selling uranium to India. Downer is quoted as saying "Australia had no plans to change a policy which rules out uranium sales to countries like India which have not signed the UN's nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)." Following the conclusion of the US-India nuclear agreement the Australian Government said it would export uranium to civil nuclear facilities in India subject to several conditions one of which was the conclusion of a bilateral safeguards agreement.

In April 2006 he appeared before the Cole Inquiry regarding the Iraq oil for food scandal and testified that he was ignorant of the kickbacks paid to the Iraq government, despite claims by the Opposition Labor Party that several warnings that had been received by his department from various sources.

In July 2006 it was claimed that six months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Downer had argued that participating in the invasion would be commercially beneficial for Australia. Downer expressed concern that the war might lead to America taking all of Australia's wheat market. ^[27]

As Foreign Affairs Minister, Downer supported the United States Government's incarceration of two Australian citizens, David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, in the Guantanamo Bay detention center. ^[28] Habib was eventually released without charge. Following a plea bargain, Hicks was sentenced in 2007, by the military commission, for providing material support for terrorism, and was returned to Australia to serve the remaining nine months of his sentence, which expired in December 2007. As of May 2008, Hicks is the only one of the 517 foreign terror suspects held at Guantanamo to be convicted. ^[29]

A major challenge for Downer was handling relations with Australia's most important neighbour, Indonesia. Downer negotiated the 2006 Lombok Treaty to put security relations between the two countries on a stable footing, built bilateral co-operation to fight terrorism, people smuggling and illegal fishing. One of the recent difficulties which erupted between Australia and Indonesia was when Australia accepted a boatload of asylum seekers from Indonesia's Papua province in March 2006. ^[30]

In September 2007, on the sidelines of the 2007 APEC in Sydney, Downer indicated that Australia plans to launch bilateral ministerial-level security talks with the People's Republic of China. Downer also stated, "China is a good partner of Australia. Whatever the differences there are between us in terms of our political systems, human rights issues, China is a very important part of the strategic architecture, the security architecture of the Asia-Pacific region and it's important we have good forums to discuss any issues of that kind with them."^[31]

In 2005 Australian members of the spiritual group Falun Gong launched action against Downer in the ACT Supreme Court alleging that his department has unfairly limited their freedom of expression.^[32][33]

Post-ministerial career

Following the Howard government's defeat at the 2007 Australian election, Downer declined to serve on the Opposition frontbench, amid widespread speculation that he would resign his seat and seek new employment. However he went to the Opposition backbench. He was criticised for missing a Parliamentary vote to play golf^[34]

A longtime supporter of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy Downer has played a leading role opposing moves to replace the Queen with a president.^[35]

In 2008, Downer discussed the possibility of working as a United Nations envoy to Cyprus with the UN Secretary General to help revive the peace process.^[36] Stephen Smith, the current Australian Foreign Minister, stated that the Rudd government supports the potential appointment.^[37] He also informed colleagues in May that he would considering staying in politics with a view to becoming shadow treasurer under either Brendan Nelson or Malcolm Turnbull.^[38]

Ultimately, Downer announced he would formally retire from Parliament on 14 July 2008.^[39] Downer will take on a part-time role with a new boutique lobbying firm, Bespoke Approach, in partnership with former political adversary Nick Bolkus, and former Liberal advisor Ian Smith (the husband of former Democrats senator Natasha Stott-Despoja).^[40] Downer took a parting shot at current Liberal leader Brendan Nelson, stating:

It is one thing to start barking on about reducing fuel excise by 5c, but what's your point? Why would you want to do that? You need a broader narrative. The Liberal Party does not have a story to tell at the moment. Just a bunch of ad hoc comments.^[41]

Downer will also serve in a part-time position as the United Nations special envoy to Cyprus, commencing on 14 July 2008.^[42] His resignation triggered a Mayo by-election.

It has been confirmed that Downer is now advising British corporate investigation firm Hakluyt & Company.^[43]

References

External links

• Electorate website
• Search or browse Hansard for Alexander Downer at OpenAustralia.org