Not so long ago, Scott Morrison delivered an infamous Lowy Lecture, assailing the multilateral system as “negative globalism”. Many were rightly stunned that the former prime minister didn’t comprehend the benefits of these rules and norms to Australia. These benefits are precisely why Australia helped create modern multilateralism in the wake of the Second World War.
The United Nations Charter is predicated on the understanding that peace, stability and prosperity are established by the many, not only the great powers. Each country making its own choices, exercising its agency.
Building coalitions has always been central to Australia’s ability to assert our interests and demonstrate our sovereignty. They are diplomatic force multipliers. This is clear in how much of our diplomacy is multilateral: not only through the UN, but also the Pacific Islands Forum, ASEAN, the G20, APEC, and burgeoning minilateral groupings such as the Quad, CANZ (Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), and MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, the South Korea, Türkiye and Australia).
We must face hard truths. Of the top ten UN donors, we expect to see decreased contributions from six.
Today’s deteriorating strategic circumstances have countries asking anew how we ensure we can live in a world where every country has a voice. Where no country dominates, and no country is dominated.
Countries like Australia are determined to play a greater role in shaping regional and global international relations for the better – not content to leave our future world for major powers to decide alone. Australia is advancing this existing multilateral engagement, just as we are strengthening our traditional partnerships, including just last week with our closest ally and principal strategic partner, the United States.
At the same time, we are also evolving the traditional concept of like-mindedness. We are pursuing new alignments to better assert our interests as they are affected by global changes. We are moving into a new era of amplified middle power diplomacy. This will continue as Australia seeks to work for our interests in an ever-more contested world – and as middle powers seek strategic balance in a multipolar world.
Where the UN can offer the solution, we must ensure it is equipped to deliver it. The UN continues today to prevent conflict, save millions of children from malnutrition and coordinate action on global climate change.
But the need for UN reform has become starkly urgent. It faces a budget reduction of 30 per cent, exacerbating its ongoing liquidity crisis.
We must grasp the opportunity of this crisis, and of amplified middle power diplomacy, to shape the UN’s future. If we want the UN to have another 80 years – or even another ten – we must reform it.
It is important to remember how deeply invested most countries are in the multilateral system. Countries are making purposeful efforts to safeguard the rules and norms that underpin it, not least the Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel, which Australia launched ahead of the UN General Assembly High Level Week in New York last month. The Declaration renews commitment at the highest political level to upholding international humanitarian law and protecting aid workers. After a year of advocacy, 104 countries signed up on the day it was launched.
We do not want the critical, but often invisible, functions that we all rely on such as disaster early warning systems or preventive healthcare, to simply degrade on our watch.
This reminded us what Australian multilateralism can be and what the world wants to protect – countries working together with the UN, international organisations, NGOs and civil society, to achieve a common purpose, and affirm our common humanity.
Yet we must face hard truths. Of the top ten UN donors, we expect to see decreased contributions from six. Cumulative funding cuts this year are expected to amount to A$29 billion since 2023.
Reform is essential: we do not want a UN that simply contracts, becoming increasingly dysfunctional and at risk of capture. We do not want a blunt 30, 40 or 50% slashing of each UN agency. That will only end up with “shell” or “zombie” agencies, doomed to fail because they can’t deliver basic functions.
As it is, UN agencies are already too siloed, duplicative and spread too thinly. We do not want the critical, but often invisible, functions that we all rely on such as disaster early warning systems or preventive healthcare, to simply degrade on our watch. We don’t want poverty entrenched, humanitarian crises unaddressed and human rights abuses to go unchecked, driving transnational crime and irregular people flows to our shores.
Nor do we want a dysfunctional UN that can be manipulated by those who mean to dismantle it or to take it over for their own aspirations. Or smaller or more vulnerable countries going back to being overlooked, including in the Pacific.
The key question we have to keep in our mind: What is the purpose? Because that tells us where we are going, and it is informed by what we want. The UN itself is not the purpose. The purpose is to enable multilateralism that enhances our sovereignty and helps us solve our biggest challenges - today and tomorrow.
Australia is for bold, ambitious UN reform: vision, not just process.
First, we need UN leadership with the vision and weight to deliver, and with the courage to make the UN more efficient and effective.
Second, we need to focus on critical functions, not be bound by structures. Meaningful reform will demand we focus on what we can do without, and what we need to preserve and grow, rather than how we have done things in the past.
Third, we need UN members to embrace their role; the UN won’t change if we don’t change. This will ultimately need to be driven by middle powers and smaller countries, because we have the greatest interest – just as it was by Australia’s external affairs minster H. V. “Doc” Evatt at the San Francisco Conference.
Then, as now, middle powers knew multilateralism expanded our choices and our power. Australia helped create the UN, and we want to help create its future.
This article draws on remarks delivered to the UN Association of Australia UN at 80 conference.
