Michael Gerard L'Estrange AO (born 12 October 1952) is an Australian public servant, and worked as the secretary (Chief Executive Officer) of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) form 2005 to 2009.
L'Estrange attended St Aloysius' College in Sydney and then studied history at the University of Sydney residing at St John's College, and graduated in 1974. He went on to win a Rhodes Scholarship in 1975, studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Oxford University, graduating in 1979 with first class honours. While at Oxford, he played first-class cricket for the Oxford University Cricket Club.
Returning to Australia, L'Estrange worked for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, focusing on foreign policy and also undertaking staff work with the Royal Commission on Australia's security and intelligence agencies. In 1986 he was awarded a Harkness Fellowship and attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University, where the supervisor of his studies was Madeleine Albright, who became the first female United States Secretary of State in 1993. He also studied at the University of California, Berkeley. After this fellowship, he worked as a policy adviser to Australian Liberal Party leaders between 1989 and 1994, and became the executive director of the Menzies Research Centre, a conservative think tank, in 1995. In 1996, with the election of John Howard's Liberal government, L'Estrange was appointed as Secretary of Cabinet and the head of the Cabinet Policy Unit. L'Estrange and Howard had been neighbours in the 1970s.
From 2000 to 2005, he was the Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, after which time he returned to become the secretary of DFAT. In 2007, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for service to Australian foreign relations.[1]
He was appointed in 2010 as the inaugural Executive Director of the National Security College at the Australian National University.[1]
| Diplomatic posts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Philip Flood |
Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom 2000 – 2005 |
Succeeded by Richard Alston |