A couple of decades ago, when Menna Rawlings joined the foreign office after university, the profession was a closed circle. No one thought about private cables finding their way to the public domain.

That changed in 2010, when WikiLeaks dumped more than 250,000 classified cables, sparking an international diplomatic crisis.

Rawlings, who has served as the UK high commissioner to Australia since 2015, says the big dump, and its aftermath, have changed the way diplomats think about the relationships they develop on postings, and the way they report back on events.

In a broad-ranging conversation with Guardian Australia’s politics podcast before her return to London in January, Rawlings is candid about the impact. She says understanding the lines between professional contacts and personal friendships is “becoming more difficult for diplomats generally because the age we live in is much more open and transparent than in the past”.

In general I think there is scope to be more open about what we do Menna Rawlings

Since the WikiLeaks dump, “there’s a real challenge for us when we report what people say to us”, Rawlings says. “I always think to myself: how would I feel if this leaked? Twenty or 30 years ago, you probably didn’t have to think about that.”

Asked whether that concern about private communication becoming public now impedes diplomatic work, working against candour, Rawlings says there isn’t one answer.

“I think it’s very important that we can speak truth to power, and if you inhibit yourself too much in terms of your analysis or the extent to which you report private conversations, then you are not doing your job as well as you need to.”

She says diplomats just need to adapt – take greater care, limit circulation of sensitive information if necessary. “If you are really worried about it, you pick up the phone and give the message verbally. There is more of that than there used to be.”

Menna Rawlings with former Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull at a memorial service for the victims of the Manchester terror attack in 2017. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Despite the pitfalls, Rawlings says transparency is the correct principle. She insists diplomats do not have to work in closed and clubbish ways to be effective.

“I think we have to work harder to define the boundary between what is private and keep that tighter, versus what we can be more open about, because in general I think there is scope to be more open about what we do.”

Rawlings also thinks practical elements of diplomacy, such as consular work, are “really important” in an age of declining trust in political systems and in institutions.

When two British backpackers were killed in a frenzied attack at Home Hill in Queensland in 2016, Rawlings went to the scene and worked with Australian agencies and the families of the victims to try to provide information and comfort.

“In the era of the trust deficit issue that we all face, getting that right is really important,” Rawlings says. “Diplomacy can seem very highfalutin’ and intellectual and some of it is quite secret and private, but [consular work] is a real opportunity to engage with the British public.”