A Legacy of Freedom

Speech by the Hon Alexander Downer MP, Minister for Foreign Affairs, to the FORUM 99 Meeting of the Australian American Education Leadership Foundation

Sydney, 28 August 1999

(Check Against Delivery)

Its a very great pleasure to address FORUM 99 of the Australian American Education Leadership Foundation, and I'd like to congratulate all those involved in organising this year's meeting.

This is a unique institution with a strong focus on the issues that really matter to Australia and the United States. One only need look at the calibre of this meeting's participants, and the breadth of political and social opinion they represent, to appreciate the high regard in which this meeting is held. And before I move on the main subject of my remarks tonight, I just want to mention a project on which Phil Scanlan and his colleagues at the Foundation have been working in recent weeks: the Review of US Alliances in Asia.

Groups led by Bob Blackwill and Paul Dibb began meeting a few days ago. Pairs of Australian and American analysts will look at the framework of US alliances across our region, and publish their views on the present state of play and possible future directions. I commend this as a valuable contribution to debate on US engagement in Asia, engagement which - if I may anticipate some of my later remarks - Australia finds overwhelmingly constructive.

What really binds us

I wanted to start my comments with a few remarks on the nature of the relationship between Australia and the United States and then put that into fresh context. I don't want to give you chapter and verse on the breadth of our ties and their history, since I'm sure that most of you here are very familiar with those subjects. Rather, I want to consider at what you might call the "intangibles" of the relationship - the values, ideals, opinions and points of view that when bundled together will give the sense of the spirit, of the feeling between our two countries.

It is a little ironic that Australia and the United States should have developed such a close and supportive relationship, since the origins of our own country partially lay in the need for Britain to find an alternative to the lost American colonies as a destination for its exiles. The value of the spurned Americans to the Antipodes was shown soon enough, however, as US whalers and merchant ships helped keep our struggling colonies alive in the earliest days of settlement.

It wasn't just physical sustenance we were drawing from the United States during our colonial years. As the nineteenth century developed, and the Australian colonies began their political awakening, it was developments in the United States as much as those in Britain that were influencing our progress towards democracy. There is no more obvious example of that fact than our own Constitution, which combines aspects of both Westminster and Washington.

Ours was a relationship born largely out of shared experience. Two nations of immigrants forged on unknown continents, with settlers experiencing hardships which they could never have guessed at when they set sail into an uncertain future. For those reasons, our outlooks - for all their differences - had much in common: respect for individual achievement, a belief that hard work and enterprise could move mountains, and an almost unbounded sense of optimism. It was as if, in these new lands, the shackles of the old worlds - stifling tradition, rigid class structures, and narrow political systems - has been cast off, and our true potential realised.

These outlooks were tested, and tempered, during this century of conflict. While the peoples of some lands could trace the origins of their disputes back decades, or even centuries, for US and Australian servicemen the issues were clear - they were fighting for what was right, for democracy and for freedom.

This unity of purpose, of national spirit, is immediately obvious when groups of Australians and Americans gather together on occasions such as this. Despite the trivial Gershwin disparities - "you say toe-may-toe and I say toe-mah-toe" - there is a tremendous commonality of views. I know it has become something of a cliche to say so, but the truth of it remains clear nevertheless - the things we have in common, the truly important things, far outnumber our differences. Now these things we have in common not only bind us together emotionallty but encourage us to develop a new bilateral agenda for a new age.

When cenventional commentators consider the Australian/US relationship they do so in the very positive context of the security relationship as well as the more competitive and sometimes querullous area of trade and investment. Based on our common values there is a new context for the relationship: the promotion of improved global and regional governance.

Our common values, our common experiences and our common objectives mean we can and we should work more closely together to try to achieve better social, political and economic outcomes within countries. It is not enough today to try to solve global problems with regional and worldwide security or economic architecture. We must do more. With the cold war behind us, so many conflicts today are a result of dysfunctional state structures. Put another way, we must recognize that security problems, poverty and human rights abuses are so often a function of poor domestic governance.

Why freedom matters

With that in mind, let us consider why freedom and democracy are important to Australians and Americans alike. At first glance, this is a nonsensical question - one might as well ask why "love", or "motherhood", is important. But it is necessary to ask the question because these are elements that are missing from many societies around the world, be it in greater or lesser degree.

In countries like Australia and the United States, liberty and democracy are so deeply woven in the fabric of society that we may find it hard to identify the benefits they bring. Indeed, it is only when we are denied them that we realise just how important they are. We find it easier to identify the shortcomings their absence engenders in other societies - governments that ignore the will of the people, the widespread and systematic abuse of human rights, endemic corruption, and poverty that defies any attempt at eradication. They are, in fact, the kind of shortcomings that can even become apparent in our own countries when our systems break down.

These are also the issues that have been thrown into sharp relief in the Asia Pacific after the onset of the East Asian economic crisis.

Both of our countries identified lack of "good governance" as the key contributing factor to the crisis. Governance is not merely good government. It is about a good society, a "civil society". It is about how individuals and groups in a community voice their interests, mediate their differences and exercise their legal rights and obligations. And it therefore involves the entire economic, social and political fabric of the nation.

Effective governance is the effective management of a country's social and economic resources in a way that is open, transparent, accountable and equitable'. And if you examine the course of the East Asian economic crisis, you can find many examples of how the breakdown in the open, transparent, accountable and equitable management of economies - what we might describe as a lack of freedom and democracy in the market place - has been a major factor contributing to the scale of the economic downturn.

In fact, one of the most striking aspects of the regional crisis has been the success of reform efforts. I give full credit to governments in East Asia who have implemented often difficult reforms in the face of massive economic dislocation: we have seen some important moves to overhaul financial systems, increase the independence of central banks, improve corporate governance and abolish monopolies and cartels. Governments have recognised a broad need for greater transparency and, thereby, greater accountability in their economic management.

There are resonances also in the area of politics. The most obvious example is Indonesia, where the economic crisis led to quite fundamental change in the political arena - the end of three decades at the helm for President Soeharto, and the holding of the first truly democratic elections in more than forty years. And in two days' time the East Timorese will have the opportunity to decide their own fate - indeed, more than 440,000 of them have defied the odds to register for the vote.

There is no more resounding affirmation of the values of freedom and democracy, and of the desire of people for them - no matter that some of these people have had to wait a lifetime for change to come. These events have put paid, hopeful forever, to the notion that such concepts are little valued by Asian peoples. There is no peculiarly "Asian" - or "American", or "Australian" - way to freedom.

It is in examples such as these that we see the value of liberty and democracy in action. Countries with effective democratic institutions do not wall themselves off from possible economic problems - but they do help build a responsive and representative economy and society that can deal more quickly, and effectively, with the financial storms that may arise. If regulatory institutions fail to act effectively, their performance is plain to see. And if governments do not act, they can be voted out of office.

I might mention one final benefit of free and democratic societies, and I do so seriously, though it sounds a little flippant when stated baldly. It is this - democracies rarely go to war with each other. If you examine the development of international relations over the past century, one of the major factors for stability has been the rise of democracy. Governments who realise that they will be held accountable by their electors for every life lost on the battlefield are less likely to resort to war than those who care nothing for the opinions of the cannon fodder. And when that is the case on both sides of an international dispute, the prospects for an equitable negotiated settlement are greatly enhanced.

Our action agenda

So, we Australians and Americans share many values, and we agree on the benefits of freedom and democracy. But where does that take us?

It is not enough for us to feel good about each other, and our own lot in life. We have a responsibility to see that these same benefits are enjoyed throughout the world. Our motives are not purely altruistic - although the genuine philanthropic and altruistic impulses of our peoples should not be underrated. We recognise that the more democracy and freedom takes root throughout the world, the less we are likely to see armed conflict and economic dislocation. As President Clinton said in an address on foreign policy earlier this year: "We must recognize we cannot lift ourselves to the heights to which we aspire if the world is not rising with us".

That is a difficult commitment to make. Many people thought that the end of the Cold War had seen the end of the need to promote with enthusiasm the benefits of freedom and democracy. But discrediting one ideology does not mean automatic victory for another. The truth is that there remain many alternative models to governance to which governments may wish to turn, and we have to do more to convince people of the benefits of the path we have chosen.

I am pleased to say that both Australia and the United States have taken positive action to advance the cause of freedom across the globe. We do so in different ways, according to our very different means, but the objective is the same.

We've often worked together, as we did when we tackled the massive disruptions being caused by the East Asian economic crisis. With the IMF, and bilaterally, we worked towards solutions that would ease the regions suffering, and put it on the road to long-term recovery.

In Australia, the Government's international aid agency - AusAID - has established a wide range of activities under our aid program to foster greater democratic accountability and respect for human rights throughout our region. I know that similar programs are promoted by USAID.

Of course, the most dramatic example of a commitment to freedom is seen in the participation of US forces in peacekeeping operations in places as diverse as Haiti and Kosovo. It is seen also in the continued engagement of the United States in our own region, an engagement that we - along with many of our regional neighbours - see as being overwhelmingly positive and constructive. And Australia has made a similar undertaking, though on a different scale, in places like Bougainville and East Timor.

Indeed, that is the ultimate commitment - a willingness to place your life on the line for the freedom of strangers. And I ask, what other societies - if not those so firmly rooted in the democratic tradition - could routinely ask their citizens to risk death for the sake of the freedom of others, and have that request accepted without hesitation?

Conclusion - pressing our cause

I conclude with something of a call to arms for people in Australia and the United States.

As we approach the end of this century, a century filled with so much death and destruction, I detect a disturbingly high level of cynicism about core values like freedom, and democracy and individual liberty.

Some of that cynicism is well-founded. After a century when barely a decade has been free of major military conflict, a century that has seen the birth of the capacity for humankind to wipe itself and most other species off the face of the earth, people are entitled to ask whether we have made so much progress.

And yet, though disappointments abound, so do events that reaffirm belief in the "better angels" of human nature. The invention of drugs that have ended the scourge of countless epidemic diseases. The fall of the Iron Curtain. A revolution in communications that opens up the world to people in the most isolated of locations.

If one image has strengthened my belief in the value of promoting freedom across the world, it was of an old black lady who had come to vote in post-apartheid South Africa. She had travelled the whole day on her grandson's back from an outlying farm, but she was determined to cast her ballot for the first time in her eight or nine decades of life.

It is that kind of determination, that love for freedom, that we must never forget. We need a return to a belief in the value of liberty, and a determination to help people around the world achieve it.

Australia and the United States are well placed to demonstrate the benefits of liberty and democracy around the globe. Each of us in our own way has sought to do that in our aid programs, and even in the very example our societies present to other nations. But I think we can do more than that.

I think that we should start to develop imaginative and innovative ways in which we can collaborate to advance this most fundamental of causes. We could look at meshing our activities, building on each other's strengths to ensure the best possible outcome for democracy and freedom. Such an aim, and such activities, would add a new dimension to our ties, and give a new and dynamic edge to a relationship that has delivered so much in mutual benefit over the years.

In this century, our peoples have been able to live the dream of true liberty in a world where freedom has been all too lacking - now is the time for us to help build such a reality for peoples who still can only dream of it.

So when we come to consider what kind of legacy we in Australia and the United States may leave to the world, why not consider the most fundamental of privileges available to us today - those of democracy and freedom, the right to decide our own affairs and our own fates. It is a cause worthy of a renewed and concerted effort by our countries - one that will benefit and enrich the lives of those who have longed for liberty, but have never known it. And, of course, it will ultimately enrich the lives of us all.

ENDS

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