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NSFW Anon WHOA! Australian PM criticizes the UN as New World Order. "We can never answer to a higher authority than the people of Australia" (QRV)

-submitted 4.1 hours ago by 3454782?
The Australian is probably the most balanced news media in Australia. This is just out now.
https://tinyurl.com/y68omep2
(Behind a paywall but content below)

BEN PACKHAM

@bennpackham
FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT

Scott Morrison has declared his government will lead the charge in asserting the authority of ­nation states over unelected ­international ­institutions, such as the UN.

The Prime Minister, in a major foreign policy address to the Lowy Institute on Thursday evening, signalled Australia would seek to play a greater role in shaping a new economic and strategic world order.

Mr Morrison’s speech was aimed squarely at the push by the UN to set the global agenda on ­issues such as climate change and refugee policies.

As democratic nations increasingly band together to counter a rising China, Mr Morrison ­announced he would visit India and Japan early next year and ­Indonesia next month.

 Mr Morrison’s visit to Washington DC late last month sparked ­debate about how the ­nation should balance its relationship with the US and China, but he told the Lowy Institute it was not a “binary” equation.

While Mr Morrison recognized the benefits the global economy had brought Australia, he declared that the ballot box should always be more powerful than international institutions.

He warned that where elite opinion became disconnected from the mainstream of societies, it could foster a sense of resentment and disappointment.

“(It is) an era of insiders and outsiders, threatening social ­cohesion, provoking discontent and distrust,” Mr Morrison said.

He said Australia would partner with the international ­community through “practical globalism” and vowed to make fresh efforts to reshape inter­national rules, starting with a new audit of global institutions and rule-making processes.

“We should avoid any reflex towards a negative globalism that coercively seeks to impose a mandate from an often ill-defined borderless global community. And worse still, an unaccountable internationalist bureaucracy,” Mr Morrison said.

“Only a national government, especially one accountable through the ballot box and the rule of law, can define its national interests. We can never answer to a higher authority than the people of Australia.”

He said Australia had played its part over the generations to build a better world through “co-operative and respectful internationalism”. But he warned that pragmatic international engagement was giving way to a new order that sought to “elevate ­global institutions above the authority of nation states to direct ­national policies”.

The speech came just over a week after Mr Morrison told the UN general assembly in New York that Australia was “carrying its own weight and more” in the fight against climate change, and warned against the exploitation of children’s anxieties to wage global campaigns.

While the Prime Minister did not name the UN in his Lowy Institute address, he has bristled in the past at UN criticism over Australia’s border protection policies, and has called for changes to global trading and climate change rules that hand preferential treatment to China by classifying it as a developing country.

Mr Morrison said Australia would seek to be a central player in shaping the new international order.

“I’m determined Australia will play a more active role in standards setting,” he said.

“I have tasked the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to come back to me with a comprehensive audit of global institutions and rule-making processes where we have the greatest stake.

“And I want to send a message here tonight that we will be looking to tap Australian expertise as part of our efforts.”

Mr Morrison told the Lowy Institute he would visit India, a partner in the nascent Quad strategic bloc, in January at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“My visit will be another step in cementing India in the top tier of Australia’s partnerships,” he said.

He revealed he had also accepted an invitation from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to visit Japan early next year, and would attend the inauguration of Indonesian President Joko Widodo next month.

“And I also intend to put more effort into our relationship with the Republic of Korea, building on our significant trade, energy and infrastructure ties,” he said.

Mr Morrison told the Lowy Institute that his natural instincts as a politician had always been domestic, but as Prime Minister he had to focus on the international forces that were shaping the nation’s future.

“Under my leadership, Australia’s international engagement will be squarely driven by Australia’s national interests,” he said.

“To paraphrase former prime minister John Howard, as Australians, ‘we will decide our interests and the circumstances in which we seek to pursue them’.”

Days after Chinese President Xi Jinping displayed his country’s growing military might in a massive parade, Mr Morrison reiterated that Australia’s alliance with the US was “the bedrock of our security”. But he said even in an era of great power competition, Australia did not have to choose between the US and China.

He said Australia’s partnership with China was a mutually beneficial one, after Chinese ambassador Cheng ­Jingye declared this week that Australia should ­remember it depended on China for its economic success.


BEN PACKHAM - FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT

Ben Packham has spent almost 20 years in journalism, working at Melbourne's Herald Sun before joining The Australian as a political reporter in 2011.