Foreign policy is the means by which a country tries to achieve those national objectives that lie outside its exclusive jurisdiction. For many years foreign policy in most Western countries has been conducted, wherever possible, above the rough and tumble of domestic politics. In Britain especially but also to some extent in Australia, foreign policy has been ’an idol to be hidden in the temple, untouched by profane hands’. The content of foreign policy is now becoming less distinctive, its conduct less exclusive, and the years 1976–80 witnessed some changes in the foreign policy process which reflect the broadened compass of foreign policy. That process was also influenced of course by a number of transient political or personal factors.