Could Anthony Albanese have ever delivered a speech similar to Mark Carney’s Davos speech? Could any Australian prime minister, other than Paul Keating, who, uniquely, had a clear strategic vision of Australia’s role in the world that did not centre on our alliance with the United States?
To reprise, Carney argued that the “rules-based international order”, a phrase that has been the single greatest cliche of Australian diplomacy for decades, was always something of a self-serving fiction for the West, but it was serviceable while it lasted.