The tragedy of much public commentary in Australia is that it is blatantly anti-conservative, fascinated with trivia and, when it comes to conservatives, rich with personal abuse.

Peter Hartcher's retrospective last week of my 12 years as foreign minister was a case in point. For any commentator who is a self-styled serious analyst of Australian foreign policy to reduce a dozen years of diplomacy to a tirade of personal abuse is to reveal a stark and embarrassing anti-intellectual bigotry.

The last dozen years has been a period of intense activity in Australian foreign policy. Some of it has been controversial; some of it has been unpopular; and sometimes the practitioners have had a moment of laughter and personal enjoyment. But always our policies have been considered, planned and founded on the principle of promoting Australia's national interests.

Importantly, the Howard government built on the attempts by previous governments to enmesh Australia with our Asian neighbours. With one exception, we were highly successful. We knew that a successful Asia was a region where power was well balanced between the great powers and Australia had a real role to play in contributing to that balance.

We built a strong relationship with China but not a fawning relationship. We wanted to embrace China into the architecture of the region and beyond: I always opposed a policy of containment. That didn't mean that we were uncritical of China or we would do whatever China wanted.