Page 11 - IB January 2024

Diplomacy Diplomacy

United Arab Emirates is a major exporter of oil, while Australia is a major exporter of coal and gas. Overall, in
terms of energy content, Australia experts nearly three times as much fossil fuels as UAE.
Source: UNEP2023a.

Pat Conroy, have visited every country and territory across This link between departments and agencies was shown
the region. Since his appointment as Special Envoy last July, with the 2021 decision to support the purchase of Digicel’s
McDonald has also travelled to a range of meetings, from Pacific operations, rather than risk investment from
the Melanesian Spearhead Group summit in August, to the Chinese competitors. The government guaranteed the bid
September 2023 US-Pacific Islands Forum summit at the by Australian corporation, Telstra, to buy Digicel’s telecom
White House and last November’s Forum leaders meeting in business in six Pacific countries; Telstra only paid a fraction
Rarotonga. of the purchase price in equity, while the remaining US$1.3
Before his appointment, McDonald served for more than billion was contributed from Export Finance Australia, along
four years as Head of the Office of the Pacific, created within with insurance guarantees.
DFAT in 2019 by the Coalition government led by Prime During his time at the Office of the Pacific, McDonald said:
Minister Scott Morrison. “We were primarily working on the three pillars of security,
Designed to co-ordinate “whole of government” policy economics, and people-to-people. It was a very demanding
towards the region, DFAT staff in the Office of the Pacific role when you look at some of the big things we did like the
were supported by secondments from the Department of Digicel deal, the policy work that was done, and a lot of
Defence, Home Affairs, Attorney-General’s office, Treasury, changes to our funding.”
the Australian Federal Police, and a range of other agencies
and departments. Re-defining security
McDonald noted that his status as Head of the Office was Defence, security and intelligence co-operation is a central
important within the bureaucracy: “It gave the authority feature of Australia’s regional policy, shown with recent
to meet the expectations of the government that we would security agreements with Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu,
act in a ‘whole of government’ way on its Pacific policy and the Falepili Union with Tuvalu, and financial support for the
implementation. When we needed to reach out to other Pacific Fusion Centre in Port Vila.
departments from Foreign Affairs, that authority was there.” Many people are concerned, however, that Australia’s

Islands Business, January 2024 11