The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s first multicultural ambassador will enable Australia to project its unique multicultural soft power to the world. At a time of growing unpredictability, a more inclusive statecraft will contribute to a more stable Indo-Pacific.

Today, modern Australia is a vibrant multicultural country with over 400 languages spoken making it one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse countries in the world. In 1975, then-Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam became the first Australian prime minister to refer to Australia as a multicultural nation. Fast forward to 2023, the country’s political establishment has widely embraced multiculturalism, often referring to Australia as the most successful multicultural country in the world.

But despite the country’s rich cultural diversity, Australian foreign policy has quite often overlooked receiving invaluable input and perspectives from Canberra’s multicultural diaspora communities. In fact, Australians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are still very much under-represented in the Australian public service, including in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

However, last year Australian multiculturalism received renewed vigour when Anthony Albanese became the first Australian PM of non-Anglo-Celtic background, after his victory over Scott Morrison in the Australian federal election. At the time, Albanese said that “Labor’s victory was good for multicultural Australia.” Diverse representation on the Albanese Government was further boosted with the appointment of the Malaysian-born Penny Wong as Australia’s first foreign minister from the Asian-Australian community. One of Wong’s primary goals as foreign minister is to project the “modern multicultural face” of Australia in its regional and international diplomatic efforts. Wong has also led efforts to reinvigorate Australia’s long-neglected and under-funded statecraft capacity within DFAT. This neglect has been to Australia’s detriment as the Indo-Pacific becomes an increasingly multipolar region with the emergence of US-China hegemonic rivalry. Wong has recognised this reality and said that Canberra cannot “just leave it to the great powers to decide our fate in the Indo-Pacific.”

The Albanese Government could further make up for lost time by embedding unique multicultural knowledge and perspectives from Australia’s multicultural communities across its diplomatic services. This would enable DFAT to truly tap into Australia’s rich multicultural social tapestry. In doing so, the soft power of Australian multiculturalism could become a major asset in Canberra’s middle-power statecraft. Canberra should particularly focus on harnessing the unique knowledge of its dynamic and growing South Pacific Islander and Southeast Asian diaspora communities. The respective regions are the nearest regions to Australia and are also the most important regions for a secure and resilient Australian continent.

The diverse Pacific and Southeast Asian diaspora communities

According to the 2021 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS Census), 48 percent of Australians have a parent born overseas. Australia is also home to over 300 different ancestries in its modern society today. Approximately 337,000 Australians are of Pacific Island ancestry, predominately from Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea (PNG), the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. The Pacific Islander community is growing rapidly, more than twice as fast as the total Australian population. Australia’s diverse Pacific Islander communities are mostly made up of Polynesian and Melanesian First Nations peoples and Indian-Fijians. First Nations Australians are also closely related to the native Melanesian peoples of PNG, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. Both Indigenous Australian and Pacific Islander communities share a deep-rooted South Sea Island identity.

Moreover, a sizable 17.4 percent of Asian Australians make up the total Australian population today. 4.5 percent of Asian Australians are of Southeast Asian heritage from Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Timor-Leste, and Singapore. Canberra’s Southeast Asian communities are predominately made up of native Southeast Asian peoples and overseas Chinese from the region. For instance, Penny Wong’s paternal ancestry is of a Malaysian-Chinese background. Of course, Southeast Asia’s strong cultural and economic ties to Australia predate European settlement in the country. Long before, Makassan-Indonesian trepangers (fishermen) from the Indonesian city of Makassar visited the coast of northern Australia. Between at least the late 1600s to 1907, the trepangers collected and processed trepang (sea cucumber) here, selling the valuable commodity to Chinese merchants. During these visits, deep economic and cultural ties were established between the Makassans and the Yolngu First Nations people of Arnhem land. This subsequently made the Makassan Indonesians Australia’s first and oldest recorded trading partner.

Multicultural ambassador and special envoys 

DFAT’s appointing of Australia’s first multicultural ambassador will entrench the country’s rich multiculturalism in Australian foreign policy. The ambassador would be responsible for leading efforts to incorporate multicultural experiences and perspectives from Australia’s broad and diverse diaspora communities across DFAT. The ambassador could also head a new multicultural engagement office within the department. From the beginning, the main priority should be given to diaspora communities from the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. Canberra’s renewed regional focus in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia has been a centrepiece of the Wong foreign policy doctrine. Wong has stated that her priorities as foreign minister will be to expand and deepen “Australia’s cooperation across Southeast Asia and the Pacific to address shared challenges.” These priorities were showcased in Australia’s recent Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget, which, by a large amount, was given to the two regions (AUD$900 million to the Pacific and AUD$470 million to Southeast Asia).

After embedding multicultural perspectives across DFAT, Canberra could appoint multicultural special envoys in some Australian diplomatic missions in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Together with the Office of Multicultural Engagement, DFAT’s Office of Southeast Asia and the Pacific could also play an integral role in the everyday operations of the special envoys in the region. Furthermore, the special envoys should be given a substantive role in driving Australia’s public and cultural diplomatic efforts in the region. This could also include the involvement of senior advisers with specialised knowledge and perspectives of countries in the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

Moreover, if the special envoy project in the respective regions is successful, Canberra could in different stages appoint more multicultural special envoys to other regions of the world. Ultimately DFAT’s first multicultural ambassador will enable Australia to project its unique multicultural soft power to the world. It will also greatly strengthen Australia’s regional leadership and standing in its immediate region. This new multicultural foreign policy outlook in Canberra’s statecraft is needed more than ever today, as the Indo-Pacific rapidly becomes an unstable and unpredictable region.