Former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill will replace Stephen Smith as Australia\u2019s most senior representative in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
Weatherill will commence his new role next year, with a clear mission to advance Australia\u2019s national interests and the trilateral AUKUS partnership<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Weatherill\u2019s appointment, highlighting his track record in politics.<\/p>\n \u201cJay Weatherill served as South Australia\u2019s 45th premier for over six years and championed national debate on sovereign defence capability, renewable energy targets, and environmental protection issues,\u201d Albanese said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs premier, he was instrumental in establishing South Australia\u2019s leadership in the defence industry, including in the construction of submarines.\u00a0<\/p>\n \tEssential reading for Australia\u2019s public service.<\/p>\n \n Stay ahead of policy shifts, leadership moves, and the big ideas shaping the public service. Sign up to The Mandarin\u2019s free newsletters. <\/p>\n By continuing, you agree to our Terms & Conditions<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201c[He also] served in the South Australian parliament for 16 years in portfolios including treasury, state development, education and the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n The PM also thanked the outgoing high commissioner and former Labor defence minister Stephen Smith for his \u201cexcellent job\u201d across a range of security and defence matters.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Honourable Stephen Smith has taken a leading role in Australia\u2019s work with the Coalition of the Willing in support of Ukraine, convened by Prime Minister Starmer and President Macron,\u201d Albanese said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill will replace Stephen Smith as Australia\u2019s most senior representative in the United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2324,64,3402,63,160153,160154,26787,53891,159616,159615,36204,44,117021,5429],"class_list":["post-276035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-anthony-albanese","tag-au","tag-aukus","tag-australia","tag-department-of-foreign-affairs-and-trade","tag-dfat","tag-diplomacy","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-high-commissioner","tag-jay-weatherill","tag-national-security","tag-news","tag-stephen-smith","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}