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BOTH are smart, sassy, articulate, attractive women. Both arrived in federal politics in 1998, taking up ministerial positions in social policy areas. One as minister for housing, human services, social inclusion and the status of women. The other as minister for ageing, education and women’s issues. One Liberal, one Labor, both now hold senior portfolios in what is still a bloke’s game.
Sadly, the similarities end there. One is an adult in an adult’s world. The other tends to default, in tone and tactics, to the street combat of student politics. While Foreign Minister Julie Bishop goes from strength to strength, Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek does the opposite.
Since becoming Foreign Minister, Bishop has proved her political mettle. Not one for grandstanding, she gets things done quietly and firmly. Early on, Labor bequeathed her a foreign policy disaster when allegations became public that intelligence agencies under the Rudd government spied on Indonesia. Bishop immediately understood her job.
Refusing to cast aspersions on the Rudd government, she set about mending relations, meeting and talking quietly, far from the media, with Indonesian counterparts.
Meanwhile Plibersek seized the media megaphone, claiming a fractured relationship between the two countries, demanding it be fixed as a priority, naively suggesting the linchpin to mending our relationship was a joint understanding about spying. None of this was correct.
She was at it again last week, undermining our relationship even before the inauguration of the new Indonesian President. Plibersek defaults to hand-to-hand political combat, a skill well-suited to wranglesome domestic portfolios but not foreign affairs, which requires political maturity and professional nous, best signalled by knowing when to pull your punches.
