In 1996 the Coalition government set out to define and articulate its foreign policies for Australia. In doing so it implied, and sometimes explicitly posited, some key differences between its approach and that of the preceding government. Paul Keating had been driven by grand visions. By contrast, John Howard would be commonsensical and pragmatic. Keating had been intensely concerned with Asia. Howard, while maintaining concern with Asia, would right the balance by tilting back towards the Western powers. Keating had been preoccupied with economic issues. Howard would balance economic concerns with a renewed focus on security matters. The Keating government had pursued multilateralism and middle-power activism in its quest for wider influence. The Howard government would be more interested in a revival of bilateralism, especially in the US relationship, and had few illusions about Australia’s potential for influence on the world stage; it saw ’activism’ as too often merely meddlesome, an irritant to other countries. In adumbrating these shifts the new government was, among other things, defining and presenting itself as practical, tightly focused, and above all realistic.

After the chronic political instability that marked the conservative collapse and then the feverish pace of the truncated Whitlam regime, the ensuing years present an outward appearance of equilibrium. Between 1975 and 1991 there was just one change of government, and two prime ministers held office for roughly equal terms. Both in their own ways were striving for the security the electorate desired, and both held to the middle ground. Yet in the circumstances that now prevailed there could be no security without upsetting the ingrained habits of the past. One prime minister preferred confrontation and the other consensus as the way to bring change, but the changes were never sufficient. There was always a need to go further, to abandon yet another outmoded practice and make additional improvements. The first of the leaders was Malcolm Fraser, who headed a Liberal–National Country Party coalition from 1975 to 1983. In 1983 the voters rejected him for a new Labor leader, Bob Hawke. Both leaders searched for solutions. In the absence of older certainties, governments sought to restore national cohesion and purpose. Most of all, they tried to repair an economy that no longer provided reliable growth and regular employment.