By Philip Dorling
A VETERAN diplomat appointed by Kevin Rudd in 2008 to promote his ambitious proposal for a new Asia-Pacific community undermined the plan by candidly telling the United States how little preparation had gone into it.
According to leaked US embassy cables, no one was more surprised than Richard Woolcott when Mr Rudd asked him to lead the global lobbying for his "vision" of a new Asia-Pacific community loosely modelled after the European Union.
The cables indicate that Mr Woolcott, a former United Nations ambassador and Foreign Affairs Department secretary, was given only three hours' notice of his appointment before Mr Rudd announced his plan for new regional "architecture" in a speech on June 5, 2008.
A month later, the 80-year-old diplomat had still not met with the then prime minister to discuss the plan.
On the day after Mr Rudd's announcement, the US embassy in Canberra reported that the initiative was "hastily rolled out, with minimal consultations".
"Most working level contacts within the [Australian government] seem to have been caught off guard by the PM's announcement, with many embassies advising that they had received notification immediately before the speech and had not been consulted on the concept,'' the embassy reported in a cable to Washington obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to The Age.
"Even Richard Woolcott … only learned of his role as the special envoy to carry the initiative forward some three hours before PM Rudd's address. He told us [on] June 5 the PM's senior advisor had telephoned him at about 4pm the previous day to ask if he would consent to spearhead the initiative, and when he remonstrated that he wanted an opportunity to discuss it further, was advised his name was already in the PM's pre-printed speech, leaving him no choice but to accede.''
The embassy reported further that "except for a brief exchange with PM Rudd at the speech venue, Woolcott said he was still waiting to get a full briefing from Rudd and his staff''.
Mr Rudd's office was initially keen to emphasise the then PM's sole authorship of the initiative. His foreign policy adviser Scott Dewar told US envoys that Mr Rudd had "put a great deal of time and energy into the speech and that the idea of a new grouping is 'his baby'."
Mr Woolcott's discomfort at being dragooned into Mr Rudd's diplomatic offensive was still evident in a meeting with US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick on June 25, 2008. A State Department record of the talks says that "in an aside, Woolcott speculated on the origin of Rudd's initiative, saying the PM was scheduled to speak at the June 5 annual Asia Society dinner and needed a deliverable".
"While the idea had been percolating in Rudd's head for some time, it had not been vetted with other elements of the Australian government or any other country,'' the record says.
Almost three weeks after Mr Rudd's speech, Mr Woolcott "admitted he had not yet been briefed fully on the initiative or in fact spoken personally with Rudd about it, and did not anticipate being briefed by the PM … until mid-to-late July''.
US scepticism about Mr Rudd's plan was reinforced by other US allies including Japan, whose ambassador in Australia, Takaaki Kojima, told his US counterpart that Mr Rudd's ''top down'' approach to foreign policy was ''very unusual''.
The US embassy reported to Washington that ambassador Kojima had "noted that, when Rudd told him about his Asia Pacific Community initiative two days before the public announcement, the prime minister noted that he had not informed any of his foreign policy advisors, including the senior foreign policy advisor in his own office''.
"Kojima opined that, with the exception of Treasury, all other [Australian government] ministries and agencies have in effect been cut out of the foreign policy decision-making process,'' the US embassy reported.
"According to Kojima, the lack of details attendant to the APC initiative suggests the hurriedly thought-out nature of the proposal and lack of consultation by Rudd with his staff and ministries.''
In March last year, Mr Rudd tried to enlist US interest in his scheme by presenting it as a means to counter growing Chinese power in the Asia-Pacific region. He told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton his goal was to curb China's dominance and that he wanted to ensure there was not ''an Asia without the United States''.
But the cables suggest the US never took the plan very seriously, instead describing it as one of Mr Rudd's ''foreign policy mistakes'' and part of his tendency to be ''obsessed with managing the media cycle rather than engaging in collaborative decision-making''.
By December last year, the embassy was reporting that the plan had run into the sands. After a conference on the idea co-sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the embassy reported Canberra's ''low expectations''.
It also said Mr Rudd ''was disappointed at the continuing strong opposition by ASEAN countries as well as frustrated that countries such as India and Russia are not more eager to support his initiative … Participants agreed that a completely new institution was unrealistic.''
■ Australia's media union has waived Julian Assange's fees for a year after Master Card cancelled his credit card. The WikiLeaks founder told the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance in November he was unable to pay.
The union's Victorian secretary, Louise Connor, said Mr Assange, a member since 1997, had not breached the code of ethics and continued to publish in the public interest.