On election night in 2022, the new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese committed to implement the Uluṟu Statement from the Heart with the promise of a new enlightened policy approach informed by a First Nations Voice. The subsequent failure of the 2023 referendum has cowed the government’s ambition and rhetoric with respect to its domestic policy approach.
However, alongside the commitment to the Statement from the Heart, the government also announced its intention to pursue a First Nations foreign policy approach. This novel, yet complicated idea was always going to be challenging, given Australia’s colonial and post-colonial record of ignoring First Nations culture and history in its national narrative and relations with the region.
Even the establishment of a First Nations Ambassador – appointed through an open process of public nominations – challenged the traditional practice plucking candidates from the foreign affairs establishment or the political class.
Australia’s foreign policy challenge will be overcoming the unconscious bias it has towards First Nations in Australia, their knowledge and worldview.
How then would a first nations approach inform the often impenetrable, opaque and transactional world of foreign policy and international relations?
The approach continues to be a work in progress.. But it was striking that when announcing a visit to Fiji last week, Foreign Minister Penny Wong made point of acknowledging she would be accompanied by First Nations Ambassador Justin Mohammed. In flagging priorities, this allowed Wong an opportunity to recast its worldview and reputation through a First Nations lens, stating:
Australia shares a vision for a peaceful, stable, prosperous and unified region, with the Pacific Islands Forum at its heart. Together we will implement the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, to foster a more interconnected and resilient Pacific.
We will discuss our bid to host the COP31 Climate Change Conference in partnership with Pacific island countries, and our aim to turn the world’s attention to the immediate impact of the climate crisis on the region, and accelerate global action.
It is important to consider that Australia and New Zealand, while both having minority First Nation populations, are surrounded by a region whose populous are majority First Nations. Australia’s foreign policy challenge will be overcoming the unconscious bias it has towards First Nations in Australia, their knowledge and worldview. For much of the foreign affairs establishment in the Western world, this has unfortunately been defined through the lens of the exotic – the oriental (to use the lingo of the late philosopher Edward Said) and Western civilisation’s perceived exceptionalism – to be paid lip service but ultimately to be neither understood properly, nor given a full seat at the table.
On a recent visit to Brazil that I and other members of civil society organisations participated in, it was clear in discussions with First Nations in Brasilia that the voice of these communities is increasingly unified in unexpected ways. This included the formation of a coalition across First Nations from the different countries that surround the Amazon Basin. These communities are unwilling to kowtow to colonial, industrial and extractive economic ideas, systems and rationalisations. At the same time there is a shared solidarity with First Nations globally whose livelihoods, communities and existence have for millennia relied on maintaining the sacred balance between human and ecological need.
This is similarly the case in the Pacific, where the rediscovered emphasis on unity, ignoring colonial boundaries, is a remarkable testament to the resilience of First Nations.
These communities from Brazil to the Pacific and Australia are observing and bearing the early onset of catastrophic climate change. They are in turn responding by calling for an end to fossil fuel use and giving the environment the opportunity to recover and replenish. The existential threat these communities face is increasingly at odds with the many interests in the fossil fuel economy – a point of rising tension.
It leaves an important question: where to with Australia’s First Nations ambassador and the country’s First Nations foreign policy approach? If the policy is simply a rubberstamping exercise, the Australian government will in truth be maintaining a business-as-usual stance. But if embraced, it could herald a fresh expression of unity with the region and a world view informed by millennia of First Nations knowledge, understanding and lived experience.
For Australia’s First Nations ambassador, a trip to Brazil after the Pacific should be on the agenda. In 2025, Brazil will host COP30, the global climate change negotiations, and Australia and the Pacific aim to host COP31 the year after. There is an opportunity to make the COPs squarely about recognising the voice of First Nations in decision making, with the ultimate ambition in reaching net zero and allowing the world to recover from the impact of unrestricted fossil-fuel use.
What better outcome for a First Nations foreign policy approach than to provide the whole of humanity with a future.
