Treasurer says PM’s argument is that global institutions must ‘work for all countries, not just some’

This article is more than 11 months old

This article is more than 11 months old

Josh Frydenberg has denied suggestions Scott Morrison echoed Donald Trump’s rhetoric in a major speech criticising “negative globalism” and cited UN criticism of Australia’s asylum seeker policies as an example of international overreach.

The treasurer and deputy Liberal leader made the comments on Friday, following Morrison’s speech to the Lowy Institute in which he declared sovereign nations needed to eschew an “unaccountable internationalist bureaucracy” and the world needs to avoid “negative globalism”.

A week after Trump used a speech to the United Nations to declare the future belonged to patriots, not globalists, Morrison echoed the American president’s nationalist tone, telling the foreign policy thinktank on Thursday that “only a national government, especially one accountable through the ballot box and the rule of law, can define its national interests”.

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Frydenberg said the prime minister was arguing that global institutions must “work for all countries, not just some”.

“We want these global institutions not to berate countries but to work effectively with them,” he told Radio National.

Asked what “international bureaucracy” Australia disapproves of, Frydenberg cited “the human rights organisation within the UN” for “singling out [Australia] more than North Korea or Iran” during the Howard government era.

“Now, they were doing that at the time because of our border protection policies … that have been admired by other countries around the world for their effectiveness, ensuring that authorised arrivals come to Australia and lives are not lost at sea – so that’s a good example.”

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Australia runs offshore detention facilities on Manus Island and Nauru designed to deter people from coming to Australia by boat to claim asylum, and turns back boats at sea, a practice the UN has said is illegal under international law and “may intentionally put lives at risk”.

Although offshore detention centres were reopened in the dying days of the Labor government in 2013 and turnbacks introduced by the Abbott Coalition government thereafter, the bipartisan consensus for harsh refugee policies can be traced back to the Howard government because John Howard won the 2001 election in part because he refused to accept asylum seekers rescued by the Norwegian tanker MV Tampa.

Frydenberg rejected the claim Australia only approves of international institutions when they agree with Australian policies, countering that “it’s about getting the balance right and sometimes they don’t”.

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He defended Australia’s record as a “good global citizen – being a founding member of the UN and pulling more than our weight in our region, for example in East Timor and the Solomons and other places”.

Frydenberg rejected the suggestion Australia is echoing Trump’s rhetoric on globalism. “Australia will chart its own course … We act on behalf of 25 million Australians,” he said.

“We do disagree with the Americans on a number of issues, not least of all the current trade tensions.”

Frydenberg said Australia recognises the US has raised some “legitimate issues” but wants it to reach an agreement with China to end tit-for-tat tariff increases and add to global growth.

“[Morrison] was also making a broader point about the need for Australia to chart a practical path forward globally and that means engaging with our key partners,” Frydenberg said, citing the prime minister’s upcoming trips to India, Indonesia and Japan and the need to “not [see] the US-China relationship as a binary choice for Australia”.

On Friday Morrison doubled down on the themes of the speech, telling reporters in Burnie that Australia would not take directions from global organisations “that are at odds with the national interest and with any presumption that somehow, some global agenda is bigger than Australia”.

Morrison cited “border protection” as an example of a policy area where international organisations provide “commentary about what Australia should and shouldn’t do”.

“We have taken issues to an election and policies to an election and those other policies I will implement and I will not be pushed into other policies by global institutions.”

Despite Frydenberg’s denial, the Coalition’s political allies were prepared to join the dots between Trump and Morrison’s rhetoric.

The Institute of Public Affairs policy director Gideon Rozner tweeted that Morrison is “following the [Donald Trump] playbook: Engage the base, deliver for the middle and ignore the bleating of people who will never, ever vote for you”.

On Friday foreign minister Marise Payne said that Morrison’s speech had “set out … Australia’s long-held understanding that our security and our prosperity is absolutely underpinned by the rules-based international order”.

“We seek an international system that preserves the unique characteristics of individual states, sovereignty must be what we are about,” Payne told reporters at a joint press conference with New Zealand’s deputy prime minister and foreign affairs minister, Winston Peters, in Sydney.

“At the same time, we have to have a system that gives a framework for cooperation on the most pressing issues for our security and prosperity.”