ONA will become the Office of National Intelligence with an oversight role of other intelligence agencies. The director-general of ONI will head the so-called National Intelligence Community. He, or she, will serve as the Prime Minister’s principal adviser on intelligence. Inevitably, a more powerful security agency at the behest of the Prime Minister – especially a PM who fancies himself as a security “expert’’ – will lessen Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade leverage in China policy. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video This is not desirable at a time when policy has clearly suffered from a certain clumsiness exemplified by Malcolm Turnbull’s resort to a Maoism while introducing the foreign interference laws. Australia had “stood up’’ against Chinese interference, he said in broken Mandarin. That government communications when it comes to China policy leave a lot to be desired is a consensus view among China experts inside and outside the bureaucracy.

Assuming the guise of a salesman selling a product about which he was not entirely convinced, Turnbull last week blamed the media for tensions in the Australia-China relationship. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at an Australia China Business Council event at Parliament House. Credit:AAP “It’s important not to be distracted by the media and political commentary which is often designed to highlight friction … or possibly to even accentuate friction,’’ he told a sceptical Australia China Business Council audience. This is nonsense. The government’s China policy difficulties are of its own making, including inconsistencies in messaging between the Prime Minister’s and foreign minister’s offices. While Shearer might be qualified for the job having served previously at ONA he will bring with him a notably neo-conservative mindset for an agency whose remit since it was established in 1977 on the recommendations of the Hope Royal Commission was to separate intelligence analysis from ideology.

Since he became roadkill in the Turnbull coup of 2015 – Shearer was Tony Abbott’s foreign policy adviser – he has been attached to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and to Melbourne’s Institute of Public Affairs. In those twin capacities he has published extensively in conservative journals. His views on the issues of the day, notably China have not been disguised. Loading In Sydney’s Daily Telegraph he had this to say about Australia’s challenges in dealing with the perfidious Chinese. (The word “perfidious’’ is mine and carefully chosen.)

“Australia needs to be ready for a long struggle, as do the US and other democracies targeted by China’s political influence activities – tackling covert, corrupt and coercive practices head-on,’’ he wrote. Shearer then went on to say that beyond meeting China “head on’’ the “more difficult challenge will be to resist self-interested entreaties that are already coming from various quarters in the business community and a predictable handful of commentators to tread softly despite flagrant interference in Australia’s domestic political affairs.’’ Let’s deal with the “predictable handful of commentators’’ reference. Loading Names were not provided, but I would be happy to attach myself to calls for a more measured, more consistent, more nuanced, less ragged approach to China policy than we’ve witnessed in the recent past.

Speaking from experience as a correspondent in China in two separate assignments spanning 10 years from the beginning of the economic reform miracle to a later post-Tiananmen phase, what is required is a consistent whole-of-government approach that is both firm and principled. We need to get right away from a silly culture wars debate in which those who advocate a more nuanced approach are decried as “panda huggers’’ or, worse, “agents of influence’’. This is rendered even more necessary at a moment when a disruptive US administration has signalled the end of the age of certainty for Australian foreign policy. This brings us finally to the role of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and her department under siege on China policy from an aggressive security establishment cheered on by Canberra’s think-tank hawks. Bishop should be commended for her efforts calmly to foster a continuing strategic dialogue that seeks to emphasize common ground such as opposition to disruptive US trade practices.

She resists calls for a “reset’’, but this would seem to be required in a period of rockiness in the relationship. This unsteadiness is not the product of media fantasy. Bishop is understood not to have been involved in the Shearer appointment. Tony Walker is a vice chancellor’s fellow at La Trobe University and a Fairfax columnist.