A rock star: that’s how the Lowy Institute’s executive director Michael Fullilove described Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney when the pair sat down for a chat on global affairs on Wednesday evening.
Fullilove acknowledged the label is a surprising one. After all, not only is Carney a politician but a longtime central banker – a career that, with all due respect to the monetary masters of the universe, is not usually associated with being cool.
Yet Carney achieved something remarkable with his much-discussed speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January – going viral with a thoughtful, even lofty, analysis of the geopolitical landscape. While carefully crafted, Carney’s speech cut through the clutter because of its clarity and directness. Politicians often say they will leave the commentary to others, but here was a world leader calling time on the “fantasy” of the rules-based international order and warning middle powers they risk being subordinated by bigger nations unless they band together.
Donald Trump was not a fan of Carney’s subtle but unmistakable digs at his administration, and promptly disinvited him from joining his board of peace. Anthony Albanese, however, was impressed. A week after Davos, Albanese announced that his fellow centre-left leader would visit Australia and speak to parliament. Carney is just the fifth world leader in a decade to receive this honour, reflecting the unusual status that has been given to his visit. The last time a Canadian prime minister visited Australia was almost 20 years ago, reflecting how the bilateral relationship between two like-minded nations has been largely left on cruise control and taken for granted.
Carney’s visit – sandwiched between trips to India and Japan – was intended to take the Canada-Australia relationship up a gear and put into practice his clarion call for middle powers to band together. The question was whether the trip could possibly live up to the hype. And whether Carney has a remedy for the ills of our chaotic age or merely a diagnosis of the problem.
While nothing Carney said in Australia rivalled his rollicking speech in Davos, listening to this erudite operator was refreshing palate cleanser from the banal talking points that dominate much of our domestic political discussion. In his Lowy appearance, Carney spoke with admirable candour about how he deals in private with world leaders such as Trump, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi.
Carney’s speech to parliament featured four references to “variable geography” – a term summarising his view that middle powers need to work together in specific, ad-hoc coalitions to get things done. This phrase, it turns out, isn’t just a bit clunky but also unoriginal: Joe Biden’s secretary of state Antony Blinken used it repeatedly to describe how, in a post-post-Cold War era, diverse coalitions should gather to solve discrete problems.
“In a post-rupture world, the nations that are trusted and can work together will be quicker to the punch, more effective in their responses, more proactive in shaping outcomes, and ultimately more secure and prosperous,” Carney told parliament, outlining his philosophy.
“In a world of great power rivalry, middle powers have a choice: compete for favour or combine for strength.”
His visit resulted in an array of new bilateral initiatives, impressive more for their breadth than depth. The nations will collaborate on critical minerals while establishing formal dialogues on defence, the economy and other topics. Albanese and Carney signed a new clean energy partnership while committing to modernise the Australia-Canada tax treaty to spur more investment. It was solid and sensible, if mostly unremarkable, stuff. Carney himself would concede much more will need to be done to insulate middle powers from the risk of subordination by bigger nations.
Reflecting the thinking of a risk-hedging banker, Carney points out that Canada and Australia have little to lose by working closely together – even if a miracle occurs and the world snaps back and becomes a more orderly, placid place.
Carney’s visit, of course, would have received far more attention had the Middle East not been engulfed by war. Australia and Canada both voiced support for the initial US-Israeli strikes, arguing Iran could not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon or continue funding terror proxies across the region. By Wednesday, with the conflict widening and key airports still shut down, Carney was calling for a de-escalation of hostilities.
At Thursday’s press conference, a Canadian journalist asked whether it was a bit rich to call for de-escalation now, given Iran’s belligerent behaviour was an entirely foreseeable reaction to the initial strikes. It was a fair point.
Carney, however, insisted he saw no contradiction in his evolving remarks, which reflected “a very volatile, extremely complex situation” in the Middle East. He may be a rock star politician, but he’s still a politician.
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Matthew Knott is the foreign affairs and national security correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X, Facebook or email.