The dramatic impact of the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington sharply intensified relations between Australia and the USA. The bilateral relationship was reconfirmed as the two states joined in war against an elusive, and unexpected, enemy. As the war on terrorism broadened, Australia enthusiastically joined the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’, sending troops to fight in Afghanistan and, more controversially, deploying forces alongside the USA in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. From late 2001 commentary in Australia invariably accepted that ‘relations with the United States dominated Australian foreign affairs’ or more subtly observed that ‘the central dynamics of Australian foreign policy revolved around the issue of relations with the superpower, and the implications of this relationship’ for the broader exercise of Australian foreign policy.

Australia’s extraordinary economic boom continued throughout the period covered by this volume. By the end of 2005, the economy had enjoyed fifty-seven quarters of consecutive economic growth: Paul Keating’s ‘recession we had to have’ was a distant memory. Unemployment fell to slightly more than 5 per cent, the lowest rate for three decades. The government’s budget was enjoying record surpluses. Australia’s economic growth rate in the period was substantially above that of the average for the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the grouping of leading industrialised economies. Australia’s ranking in the OECD on per capita income rose from eighteenth in the early 1990s to eighth by 2005. Astute intervention by the Reserve Bank of Australia through the imposition of a marginal increase in interest rates in early 2005 appeared to have succeeded in deflating the housing bubble and in ensuring a soft landing for the economy.

Foreign policy in the period covered in this volume was largely dominated by the Australian response to the events of 11 September 2001 and its consequences. A federal election campaign was keenly anticipated at that time, but foreign policy issues – beyond the question of the treatment of asylum seekers – were not expected to be a major concern. Little that had happened so far in that year prefigured what was to come. The new George W. Bush administration in Washington had signalled its intention to adopt a distinctive and less internationalist stance, refusing to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol (intended to restrain the global emission of greenhouse gases) and taking a much more critical view of the rising power of China. Although there were signs that on these issues Australia was likely to follow the US lead, and the initiation of studies on the impact of a free trade agreement with the USA was a further indicator of the potential similarities in outlook of the two governments, the closeness post-11 September of the Howard Government’s alignment with its Washington counterpart surprised even some conservative commentators.

The prospects for Australia’s relations with its most immediate region at the beginning of the decade seemed bleak indeed. On the surface at least, they continued to be troubled as the rise of terrorism and people smuggling as major security issues, and Australia’s participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, introduced new sources of tension into Australia’s relations with its northern neighbours. Yet by 2005 the picture had changed remarkably. John Howard’s government, despite being dogged by diplomatic gaffes and pilloried by its critics, had achieved some remarkable successes in Australia’s relations with South-East Asia. Bilateral trade agreements had been signed or were under negotiation with the region’s major economies. Talks had begun on a new security agreement with Indonesia, and the Australian Prime Minister seemed to have forged a close rapport with the first directly elected Indonesian President. Perhaps most significantly, Howard was invited to two meetings crucial to the development of a new East Asian regional institution: the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in November 2004 and the inaugural East Asia Summit in December 2005.

Asylum seekers, the war in Iraq, and the threat of terrorism dominated foreign policy in the first years of the twenty-first century not only in the political arena but also in the polls. Not since the 1980s and the debate about Asian immigrants had questions of immigration loomed so large; not since the Vietnam War had the deployment of Australian troops in a US-led invasion of a distant land proved so divisive; and never before had Australia had to grapple with the threat of international terrorism. Border protection and terrorism figured prominently in the run-up to the 2001 election; security issues and, to a lesser extent, the war in Iraq were factors in the election held in 2004.

During the first five years of the twenty-first century the Howard Government took on a more activist role in the South Pacific. This trend was influenced by the ‘war on terror’, particularly the Bali bombings, which struck home in a manner that the 11 September attacks could not, but it also firmly reflected policy orthodoxies. This is not to say that responding to terrorism closer to home has not become a justification for intervention in the region, but it must be acknowledged that declaratory policy was not always matched by operational realities. The ‘war on terror’ opened up the political space in which increased intervention in the South Pacific could be undertaken, but events within the region itself were the central factor contributing to intervention. In particular, domestic crises in Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, and to a lesser extent Nauru, presented major challenges for Australia, and the creation and maintenance of an environment conducive to intervention was a significant foreign policy shift by the government.

The Australian Federal Parliament stands magnificently atop Constitution Hill in Canberra as a symbol of the importance Australia attaches to its long and strong democratic tradition. The semiotic message of the Parliament’s architecture is that this is a people’s place, ‘a publicly accessible monument’, a place where its visitors will be as much a part of the fabric of its business as the business of the legislature. The Parliament has used technology to match this physical accessibility such that never has there been a period when greater access to the business and deliberations of the Parliament has been more possible. This accessibility has, however, been matched in the period under review by increasing physical constraints and barriers to access never envisaged at its creation: for the first time in the history of the Commonwealth, the Parliament was closed to the people – on the occasion of the visit of President George W. Bush in October 2003. In this way, the Parliament stands also as a symbol of the way the world has changed since the bombings of the twin towers in September 2001.

In conventional institutional terms, Australia’s role in world environmental affairs is the product of its foreign policy on regional and global environmental issues and its domestic implementation of formal treaty obligations and other commitments. Australia’s ecological profile provides good reason for governments of whatever political hue to take a keen interest in international negotiations to manage transboundary and global pollution, protect the world’s species and ecosystems, and advance the cause of sustainable development. Australia has one of the world’s most variable climates and is, with the exception of the Antarctic, the world’s driest continent. As the drought conditions that beset the country in the first half of the period under review demonstrate, the country is susceptible to water stress. Australia is one of the few industrialised countries that suffers from severe desertification, and it is the only developed country among the ten in the world that qualify as mega-diverse in their fauna and flora. As a country ‘girt by sea’, protecting the oceans from pollution and resources therein from over-exploitation is a key policy objective.

The period 2001–05 represents a landmark in Australia–China relations. During these years, the bilateral relationship deepened and broadened to an extent that few observers had foreseen. The foundation of the burgeoning relationship was undoubtedly the enormous expansion of trade. By 2005 China had emerged as Australia’s second-ranking trading partner and replaced the USA as Australia’s second largest merchandise export market. Bilateral trade continued to grow strongly, driven by China’s booming economy and its surging demand for Australia’s energy and mineral resources. In May 2005 the two countries began negotiations on a free trade agreement that, if concluded, would further bind the two economies. Underpinned by strong trade ties, bilateral political, security, and cultural relations also strengthened and broadened significantly. These were marked by increasingly frequent high-level visits in both directions, institutionalised dialogues on political, defence, and security issues, and greater people-to-people contacts. During the period under review both sides sought to elevate the relationship to a ‘strategic’ level.

On Tuesday 18 March 2003 the Prime Minister John Howard moved a motion in the House of Representatives, in order to advance the government’s claim that Iraq’s ‘possession and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction’ constituted ‘a real and unacceptable threat to international peace and security’, that Australia’s commitment of military forces to the Gulf with the intention of disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction as a response to this threat was justified, and that this action was legitimised by successive UN Security Council resolutions, most notably Resolution 1441. The Opposition response was to oppose the motion on the grounds that while the disarmament of Iraq was a desirable objective, unilateral means were to be rejected in favour of entrusting the task to the United Nations.

The last five years in bilateral relations between Australia and Japan have been intriguing. Despite the extraordinary depth of the relationship, a period of drift was discernible between the late 1990s and mid-2002. Japan was (and remains) preoccupied with domestic economic problems, the rising political and economic challenge from China, and taking an active role in the formation of an East Asian Community. For Australia the preoccupation was closer alignment with the USA. The period since 2002, however, marked a return to intense, and at times frenetic, activity between Australian and Japanese officials. At the governmental level efforts were made to invigorate existing commercial, political/security, and cultural aspects of the bilateral relationship. Three government-sponsored conferences were held (in 2001, 2002, and 2005) with the specific task of energising a wide range of connections at the national level and showcasing the relevance of the bilateral relationship in a changing environment.

Three themes permeate most discussions of Australia’s relationship with Europe. The first is that relations are marked by extreme asymmetry. On one side there stands a large and economically powerful group of states, increasingly organised within the European Union (EU); on the other, a middling power that belongs to no regional bloc and possesses limited international clout. The second is that Australia’s relations with Europe are largely driven by trade issues, especially issues in the agricultural sector. And the third is that Australia’s close bilateral links with Britain are still a central feature of its European policy.

In a global context dominated by the ‘war on terror’, and a domestic context of unprecedented governmental power, Australia’s traditional concern for human rights diminished in the period under review. The contradictions within Australian human rights policy, and the mix of positive and negative developments noted in the preceding volume, gave way to an unambiguous reality in which Australia’s respect for human rights was generally at a discount, both domestically and internationally. New schisms in public opinion were also created. Although the government and its supporters clearly regarded the loss of civic freedoms as primarily the product of the new environment of terror and the necessary price of enhanced national security, critics argued that the government’s human rights record before September 2001 had already been so mixed that the war on terror had merely exacerbated an already deteriorating situation.