Rudd’s million dollar folly
Thursday, 17 June 2010
The announcement today that the Prime Minister has abandoned his push for a new Asia Pacific Community has come too late to save the taxpayer from more than one million dollars wasted on this folly, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop said today.Ms Bishop said there is a consistent pattern of behaviour, where the Prime Minister makes grandiose announcements without prior consultation and is then forced into embarrassing back downs.
“Mr Rudd could have avoided this entire debacle had he bothered to consult broadly with other governments before announcing that he would personally redraft the regional diplomatic architecture,” she said.
“The announcement today that he would no longer campaign for the idea reflects the lack of support that was evident from day one.”
Ms Bishop said Mr Rudd should also apologise for the offence caused when he berated nations in the region during his Shangri-La dialogue address in Singapore last year.
“Mr Rudd effectively accused regional leaders of not taking an active interest in the regional architecture, something many of them found deeply offensive,” she said.
Extract from Prime Minister Address at Shangri-La Dialogue 29 May 2009
“The choice is whether we seek actively to shape the future of our wider region – the Asia Pacific region – by building the regional architecture we need for the future, if we are together to shape a common regional future.
Or whether instead, we will adopt a passive approach – where we simply wait and see what evolves, whether that enhances stability or whether in fact it undermines stability.”
