Source — AITW Ep097 — Incoming Government Brief, 2022 Edition¶

Episode Metadata¶

Field	Value
Episode number	97
Title	Ep. 97: Incoming government brief, 2022 edition
Publication date	2022-05-28
Recording date	Friday, 27 May 2022
Guests	None (Allan and Darren only)
Allan present	Yes
Format	Post-election analysis; structured as an incoming government brief for the newly elected Albanese Labor government. Covers election meaning, Penny Wong as Foreign Minister, China, the Pacific, and pandemic preparedness. Reading/watching segment at close.

Summary¶

Recorded one week after Labor's May 21 election victory — and days after the new PM and FM flew directly to the Tokyo Quad Leaders summit — this episode is one of the most institutionally textured in the corpus. Allan operates throughout as a practitioner assessing a new government's prospects, and three things are biographically significant.

First, he places himself at his local Canberra polling booth ("the primary school down the road that I've voted at for the past 20 years or so") buying a democracy sausage and talking to a first-time political volunteer — a domestic civic vignette that anchors his public-intellectual identity in neighbourhood participation, not just elite commentary. Second, asked about the structure of DFAT, he reaches back to his own entry year: "When I joined the very small Department of External Affairs in 1969, Australia did in fact have a separate foreign service" — and explains its merger with the APS from personal memory. Third, in the reading segment, he volunteers that he is going "down to Melbourne" the following evening to see The Girl from the North Country (the Conor McPherson/Bob Dylan play) — "we're going down," suggesting travel with a companion he does not name, and a life beyond Canberra that includes theatre.

The analytical substance is rich. His verdict on Penny Wong is the most unqualified endorsement in the corpus: "the most politically influential Australian Foreign Minister since Alexander Downer." His China formula — "clear, consistent, calm and confident" — is explicitly attributed to an Australian Foreign Affairs article he wrote three years earlier, a rare instance of him citing his own prior work as policy prescription. And his diagnosis of Morrison's foreign policy failure is precise: "internal fracturing" between Morrison, Dutton, and Payne, not strategic incoherence, was the core problem. "It just didn't feel like a system working seamlessly."

Key Quotations¶

The democracy sausage — "the celebratory atmosphere"¶

"I went back to the local polling booth at the primary school down the road that I've voted at for the past 20 years or so. And I was struck again as I bought my democracy sausage by the celebratory atmosphere. And what was new this time was the huge number of volunteers handing out how-to-vote cards for a couple of the independent candidates... this was a middle-aged man who said this was the first time in his life that he'd ever been involved in politics."

— [00:02:58.140 --> 00:06:44.140]

"At the primary school down the road" locates him in an ACT neighbourhood, consistent with his career-long Canberra-based life. The democracy sausage detail is warm and deliberate — he is not commenting on the election from a distance, he is in the queue. The conversation with the first-time volunteer is the nub: Allan is alert to the human texture of political participation, not just its statistical outcome. The man's being middle-aged and first-time matters to him as evidence of democratic vitality. "Again" — "I was struck again" — implies this is a recurring feeling, not a discovery: he votes here every election and it always moves him. For a man who has spent fifty years inside Australia's foreign policy apparatus, the democracy sausage is a kind of grounding ritual.

"The most politically influential Foreign Minister since Downer"¶

"I think she's going to be the most politically influential Australian Foreign Minister since Alexander Downer, who, of course, was a former leader of his own party. She has political authority in her own right as leader of the government in the Senate. She's often cited as the most admired woman in politics, so the public knows her... And as any public servant who has confronted her during Senate estimates knows, she also has an inbuilt gravitas, which will help impose authority locally and will be persuasive to her international interlocutors."

— [00:14:03.140 --> 00:16:18.140]

The Downer comparison is specific and double-edged: Downer was influential because he was a former party leader, with personal political weight independent of his portfolio. Allan is arguing Wong has the same structural quality — she is Senate government leader, not just a minister. His criterion for "politically influential" is therefore institutional position within government, public recognition, and the capacity to impose authority internally — on cabinet, on the bureaucracy — as well as externally. "As any public servant who has confronted her during Senate estimates knows" is a practitioner's register: Senate estimates is where ministers and officials test each other, and the judgement here is professional, not partisan. "Inbuilt gravitas" echoes his use of "gravitas" in Ep096, now promoted to confirmed assessment. He predicted it before the election; he restates it as institutional verdict after.

Morrison's failure as "internal fracturing"¶

"When we weigh the Morrison government's history from a greater distance, my guess is that we're going to think of one of its foreign policy failings as coming from internal fracturing. There clearly wasn't a close relationship between Morrison and Defence Minister Dutton or between either of those two and the Foreign Minister, Maurice Payne, who often seemed out of play... It just didn't feel like a system working seamlessly in the whole of government where it's meant to."

— [00:14:03.140 --> 00:16:18.140]

This is his provisional institutional verdict on a government that has just lost office — and it is a practitioner's, not a partisan's, verdict. The failure was not strategic incoherence; it was that the system — NSC, whole-of-government — was not functioning as a system. Payne "often seemed out of play" is a damning observation: a Foreign Minister who is peripheral to foreign policy decision-making. "A system working seamlessly" is Allan's standard for good government: not brilliant individuals but integrated process. Having run the International Division in PM&C, and having been ONA DG — two positions that depend entirely on the system working — this is the kind of failure he would feel personally.

The four Cs on China — "as I wrote three years ago"¶

"First, as I wrote in an article in Australian Foreign Affairs three years ago, we have to be clear about our goals with China, consistent in the way we pursue them, calm in the face of some of the wilder claims about Beijing's intentions and confident in our values."

— [00:25:34.140 --> 00:26:56.140]

The explicit attribution — "as I wrote... three years ago" — is a rare self-citation. Allan does not usually reference his own prior work on air; he prefers to let arguments stand on their own. The fact that he anchors his China advice to a three-year-old formulation signals that this is not campaign commentary but durable analytical principle: the four Cs were right in 2019 and they are right now. Clear, consistent, calm, confident — the formula is notable for what it excludes: hardness, firmness, toughness, strength — the vocabulary of deterrence advocates. All four Cs are epistemic and dispositional, not military.

On the foreign service merger — "when I joined in 1969"¶

"When I joined the very small Department of External Affairs in 1969, Australia did in fact have a separate foreign service. But it merged very shortly after that with the wider Australian public service, mainly because the diplomats felt quite correctly that they were getting a much worse deal on salaries and conditions than the home-based staff."

— [00:39:46.140 --> 00:40:48.180]

Institutional memory from the inside. Allan was there for this: he joined the separate foreign service and watched it merge. His verdict — the diplomats "felt quite correctly" they were being underpaid — is the practitioner's sympathy, and also a historical explanation that most contemporary DFAT observers wouldn't know. "The very small Department of External Affairs" is a quiet reminder of how much the institution has changed, and of how personally he witnessed its evolution. He has been inside this system for fifty years.

Biographical Fragments¶

New

ACT voter for 20+ years: votes at "the primary school down the road" — locates him in a Canberra suburb, consistent with an ANU/Crawford precinct life. Buys democracy sausage; talks to voters in line. (Ep097)
Joined a separate foreign service in 1969: when Allan entered External Affairs, Australia had a foreign service distinct from the APS; it merged "very shortly after" due to pay disparity. He was personally present for this institutional transition. (Ep097)
Going to Melbourne for theatre — "The Girl from the North Country": "We're going down to see the musical play... tomorrow night in Melbourne." The "we" suggests a travelling companion (unnamed). Reveals: Canberra-based life (Melbourne is "down"), attendance at theatre, interest in or curiosity about Bob Dylan/Conor McPherson. (Ep097)
Encountered a senior Japanese diplomat who described elections as Christmas presents: "A senior Japanese diplomat once told me..." — an unnamed professional encounter, from an unspecified period in his career, showing the breadth of his senior-level bilateral contacts with Japan. (Ep097)

Reinforcing

"Same advice I've been giving for ages, Darren" on China — the four Cs (clear, consistent, calm, confident) explicitly attributed to Australian Foreign Affairs article from ~2019. The formula pre-dates the specific government he is now advising. (Ep097)
Whole-of-government integration as core standard: the "system working seamlessly" criterion is applied critically to Morrison; it matches his standard in ONA and PM&C roles. (Ep097)

Style and Method Evidence¶

Civic participation as personal grounding: votes in person at his local school; talks to volunteers; buys a democracy sausage. National politics as neighbourhood experience.
Four Cs as durable framework: explicitly attributed to prior work, not improvised commentary — shows his China analysis is stable, not reactive.
Practitioner's institutional diagnosis: Morrison's failure is a systems-integration failure, not a strategy failure — only someone who has worked inside the NSC/whole-of-government machinery would frame it this way.
Pre-attribution of credit: recommends The Girl from the North Country before seeing it, with an explicit commitment to report back if it fails — unusual epistemic honesty about a recommendation.
Percy Spender recalled instantly as Menzies' External Affairs Minister and ANZUS architect when Allegra Spender wins her seat — depth of historical recall on Australian foreign policy personnel.
"PIF centrality" coined: proposes this as a rallying concept explicitly modelled on ASEAN centrality — demonstrates his habit of building policy frameworks by analogy.

Reading, Listening and Watching¶

Allan — The Girl from the North Country (Conor McPherson / Bob Dylan), Melbourne

"I'll go for something I haven't actually heard or watched yet, but I will be seeing tomorrow night in Melbourne. We're going down to see the musical play The Girl from the North Country written by the Irish playwright Conor McPherson with Bob Dylan's songs. Now, I know we have high critical standards on this podcast. So if it turns out to be crap, I will let you and our listeners know before the Canberra season begins."

— [00:45:13.140 --> 00:45:48.560]

The first recommendation in the corpus of something Allan has not yet experienced — he is pre-recommending it and explicitly accepting accountability for the endorsement. "If it turns out to be crap, I will let you and our listeners know" is a commitment to follow-up. Whether this follow-up materialises is itself a research question for later episodes. The "we" is unelaborated — he does not say who he is travelling to Melbourne with. The trip itself, a weekend visit to the city for theatre, tells us something about his life outside the podcast: he goes to live performance, he moves between Canberra and Melbourne, and he is drawn to work that puts canonical literary or musical figures on stage in dramatic form. "High critical standards on this podcast" is Darren's phrase, gently attributed back to Allan as a shared identity — to which Allan does not object.

Open Questions¶

Allan commits to reporting back on The Girl from the North Country — does he do so in Ep098 or later? This is an explicit promise, and its fulfilment or absence is itself evidence of the conversational continuity of the podcast.
The four Cs formula ("clear, consistent, calm and confident") is attributed to an Australian Foreign Affairs article from ~2019. Which issue? The article would be valuable to trace for the full argument Allan developed at that time.
"We're going down" to Melbourne — who is the companion? Allan never names a partner in the corpus. Is there any other episode where "we" in a personal context appears?
"PIF centrality" — does Allan use this phrase again in subsequent episodes? Does the Albanese government's Pacific policy adopt it as a frame?
Allan says pandemic preparedness was his top "incoming brief" priority. Does his assessment of the new government's multilateral health engagement appear in later episodes?