大象传媒

On Wednesday this week much of Australia鈥檚 international diplomacy was conducted from level four of the Prindiville Stand at the WACA in Perth, as India and Australia played a very on the ground below.

For it was there, behind a row of corporate boxes, that the new foreign affairs minister, Stephen Smith, spent much of the three sessions manipulating the keypad of his Blackberry and making calls on his mobile phone in a spot of 鈥渂oundary diplomacy鈥�.

The more difficult juggling act came on the policy front, and involved Australia鈥檚 relations with two of the world鈥檚 leading powers: India and Japan.

The day before, the Rudd government had , thus overturning a pledge from the Howard government made only last year to let exports go ahead. In deciding to help quench India鈥檚 thirst for energy, Mr Howard had rewritten Australia鈥檚 long-standing rules, which barred uranium exports to any countries that had not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Rudd government reverted back to the old, restrictive rules.

In a curious quirk of scheduling, Mr Smith鈥檚 guests at the cricket - as well as being the foreign affairs minister, he鈥檚 also the local Perth MP- were the Indian high commissioner and a representative of Dr Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister. In a brief discussion in the lift, Mr Smith would not tell me if the Indians had 鈥渟ledged鈥� him for this reversal, but did say how much he enjoyed meeting Anil Kumble, the Indian captain.

The decision held no surprises for the Indians. Ahead of last November鈥檚 election, one of Labor鈥檚 clearest foreign policy pledges was to block the sale of uranium 鈥� the Australian Labor Party has long had a loud and vocal non-proliferation lobby. In making good that promise, the new government had taken what it framed as a principled and ethical stand.

But that day Mr Smith found himself dealing with another pre-election pledge from Labor: the promise to get tough with Japanese whalers who hunt and kill whales in waters which Australia claims as it own.

Two developments had brought the issue to the fore. First, a which decided that Japan鈥檚 so-called 鈥渟cientific whaling programme鈥� in the Southern Ocean was in clear violation of Australian law. Second, the detention of two anti-whaling activists on a Japanese whaler, one an Australian, the other a Briton.

Both raised the obvious question of how far the Rudd government was prepared to go to get tough with the whaling industry, as it had promised to do in opposition.

Would it risk an acrimonious row with Japan? Would it serve the injunction from its own federal court to the captains of the whaling fleet? Given that the fleet is operating in what Canberra claims as its own territorial waters, that, after all, was the clear implication of the court order. And what would it do to 鈥渞escue鈥� its own citizen from the Japanese ship?

It鈥檚 tempting - and arguably a bit hackneyed - to consider what Lord Palmerston, Britain鈥檚 most famous 19th Century foreign secretary, might have done. No doubt, he would have dispatched the Royal Navy to serve the court order, and evoked the cry of 鈥淐ivis romanus sum鈥�, the boast of any Roman citizen who knew the long arm of the empire would reach out if ever he found himself inconvenienced by a foreign power.

Whereas Palmerston favoured 鈥済un-boat diplomacy鈥�, on this occasion Kevin Rudd has opted instead for a customs ship, which overnight. As for the court order, the government decided against intercepting the whale fleet, and said it would go through normal diplomatic channels.

Meanwhile, the environment minister Peter Garrett would not be drawn on how far the government would go in enforcing the order, meekly noting that it would pursue 鈥渁n overall, holistic and fair-dinkum approach to opposing Japanese so-called scientific whaling鈥�.

The new government is clearly trying to avoid a bruising row with Japan, its biggest trading partner and the third largest source of investment. Neither is its legal position entirely clear cut. Only four countries - New Zealand, France, Norway and Britain 鈥� recognise Canberra鈥檚 claim on the Australian Whale Sanctuary, and enforcing the court order might therefore violate international maritime law.

Getting tough with the Japanese whalers makes for an easy pre-election slogan but a much harder post-election policy - as Stephen Smith has been finding out at first hand between overs at the cricket.

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