Alexander Downer
Alexander John Gosse Downer, MP (born
September 9,
1951),
Australian politician, became
Foreign Minister of Australia in March
1996. Alexander also served as the federal parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party from 1994-1995.
Downer was born in
Adelaide,
South Australia, into one of the state's prominent established political families. His father,
Sir Alexander "Alec" Downer, was a member of the Australian Parliament
1949-
1964 and later
High Commissioner in
London. His grandfather, Sir
John Downer, was a Senator in the first federal Parliament in
1901. His mother, Lady Downer (
née Mary Gosse), is descended from early immigrants to South Australia. Downer is married to Nicola (née Robinson) and has four children, Georgina, Olivia, Edward and Henrietta.
Downer was educated at
Geelong Grammar School; then in
Radley College and
University of Newcastle upon Tyne in
Britain due to his family living in Britain from 1963-1972. His absence from Australia precluded him from the possibility of military conscription to which other Australians of his age group were subject. He entered the Australian Diplomatic Service, where he served until
1982. He then worked as an advisor to the
Liberal Prime Minister,
Malcolm Fraser. In
1984 he was elected to the federal Parliament as Liberal member for
Mayo, in the suburbs of Adelaide.
The Liberals were in opposition fron
1983 to
1996, and Downer held a number of positions on the Opposition front bench from
1987 onwards.
Downer's family background and his
Cultivated Australian English accent — rare in public life by the 1990s and regarded as sounding "snobby", "patronising" and/or "aloof" — have always made him vulnerable to political attacks which exploit anti-elitist sentiment. Labor MP
Mick Young, also a South Australian, once said: "Downer's
gamekeeper's house is bigger than
The Lodge" (the latter being the Prime Minister's residence).
However, he was an effective debater, and in
1993 he became Shadow Treasurer (Opposition finance spokesperson). When the Liberals unexpectedly lost the
1993 elections to
Paul Keating, Downer began to be talked of as a possible leader, and in May
1994 he succeeded
Dr John Hewson as leader of the Liberal party after defeating him in a leadership ballot.
As Liberal leader, Downer failed to get popular support and his term as leader lasted less than a year. Paul Keating jibed that he was "the idiot son of the aristocracy." He made a series of insensitive blunders, the worst of which was his joke in a speech at a formal dinner, in which he was promoting the Liberal party slogan
The Things That Matter. Downer referred to wife-bashing husbands as "the things that batter". Opinion polls began to show that the Liberals were going backwards under his leadership. In January
1995 he resigned as Leader, and
John Howard was elected to replace him. With a tenure of just over eight months, Downer is to date the shortest-serving leader of the federal Liberal Party. He is also the only federal Liberal leader never to lead the party into an election.
When Howard won the March
1996 elections, he appointed Downer as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Downer has continued in the role along with the
Howard government through various controversial incidents and several elections and became the longest serving Foreign Minister of Australia on
20 December,
2004.
As Minister for Foreign Affairs, Downer played had a key role in the diplomatic dispute known as the
Tampa affair in
2001 in which Australia denied permission for the MV Tampa to dock at Christmas Island having picked up a number of refugees from a distressed vessel off Australian coastal waters. Downer also played a role in the subsequent negotiation of the
Pacific Solution in which Australia held refugees off-shore in foreign jurisdictions in an attempt to deny them entry into Australia.
He has been a firm supporter of the legality of the war in Iraq and he vociferously defended the claim that
weapons of mass destruction would be found in
Iraq to justify the
2003 invasion of that country, long after this claim was abandoned by many others
In August
2004 he made a provocative claim that
North Korea could launch a ballistic missile to hit Sydney, although this claim is unsupported by any expert opinion.
In March
2006 he strongly opposed any form of co-operation with India, in the post US-Indian nuclear co-operation deal. Downer is quoted as saying "Australia had no plans to change a policy which rules out uranium sales to countries like India which have not signed the UN's nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)."
In April
2006 he appeared before the
Cole Inquiry regarding the Iraq oil for food scandal and testified that he was ignorant of the kickbacks paid to the Iraq government, despite several warnings that had been received by his department from various sources
. In
July 2006 it was revealed that six months before the
2003 invasion of Iraq, Downer had argued that participating in the invasion would be commercially beneficial for Australia.
As Australian Foreign Affairs minister, Downer supported the U.S.A in the incarceration of two Australian citizens,
David Hicks and
Mamdouh Habib in the
Guantanamo Bay detention center. Habib was eventually released without charge and Hicks remains imprisoned having recently made application to the British governement for British citizenship on the basis of his mother's birth. Downer also supported the Bush Administration's position on the special
military commissions that were to be used to try Hicks. The commissons were ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court on
June 29,
2006.
Downer's major recent challenge has been handling relations with Australia's most important neighbour,
Indonesia when Australia accepted a boatload of asylum seekers from Indonesia's Papua province in March
2006.
*
David Marr &
Marian Wilkinson Dark Victory. ISBN 1741144477
*
Minister for Foreign Affairs (Australia)*
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia)*
Politics of Australia*
Alexander Downer - Profile located @ SA Liberals
*
Alexander Downer - His official Australian Government webpage
