Alexander Downer

Alexander Downer
File:Homopatheticus.jpg
Buffoon, clown and senior member of the Ozzie Idiotocracy
Incumbent
Assumed office March 1996
Preceded by	Gareth Evans
Constituency	Mayo
Personal details
Born	9 September 1951 Adelaide, South Australia
Political party	Liberal Party of Australia
Spouse	Nicola (née Robinson)
Signature	File:ADsign.jpg

Alexander John Goose Downer, MP (born 9 September 1951), Australian buffoon, clown and senior member of the Ozzie Idiotocracy. He also served as the federal parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party from 1994-1995.

Biography

Downer was born in Adelaide, South Australia, into one of the state's prominent established political families. His father, Sir Alexander "Alec" Downer, also reached cabinet rank in federal politics, then was High Commissioner in London from 1963 to 1972. 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 in Australia, then at Radley College and University of Newcastle upon Tyne in England while his father was High Commissioner. 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 Adelaide Hills.

The Liberals were in opposition from 1983 to 1996, and Downer held a number of positions on the Opposition front bench from 1987 onwards.

Downer's establishment family background and accent have sometimes been the subject of 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.) Downer's Cultivated Australian English accent is becoming much less common amongst politicians. Paul Keating jibed that he was "the idiot son of the Establishment." [1] [2] [3] Downer is also often caricatured in political cartoons wearing fishnet stockings and high heels, which he once donned for a charity event.

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.

Opposition Leader

As Liberal leader, Downer initially attracted record levels of public support. Then aged only 43, he was perceived as a fresh-faced alternative to a government in its twelfth year of power. His support base was quickly eroded, however, by a series of embarrassing public blunders, the most famous of which occurred at a formal dinner. Promoting the Liberal party slogan "The Things That Matter", Downer then quipped that the party's domestic violence policy would accordingly be named the "things that batter", referring to abusive husbands. In addition, Downer suffered Keating's parliamentary attacks, with Keating once describing Downer as "being born with a silver cutlery service in his mouth." Opinion polls began to show that the Liberals were going backwards under his leadership. [4] 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.

Minister for Foreign Affairs

Downer with former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer at Parliament House, Canberra, February 2005

Downer was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs when the Howard government was elected in March 1996, a position he still holds. He became the longest serving Foreign Minister of Australia on 20 December, 2004.

In 1999, Downer was involved in negotiating the entry of the INTERFET peace keeping force into East Timor. [5] The result of these actions caused Osama Bin Laden to place a fatwa on Australia and Australian interests. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] He has subsequently negotiated an agreement over the gas and oil reserves in the Timor Gap, admidst accusations that the agreement is unfair to East Timor. [11]

As Minister for Foreign Affairs, Downer played 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. 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 Iraq war 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. [12] [13] [14] In August 2006, it was claimed by a former weapons inspector Dr John Gee, that Downer had in 2004 suppressed information that the search for weapons of mass descruction in Iraq was fundamentally flawed. [15] [16] [17]

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. [18]

Downer with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2006.

As Foreign Affairs Minister Downer supported the United States Government's incarceration of two Australian citizens, David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, in the Guantanamo Bay detention center.[19] Habib was eventually released without charge, while Hicks was sentenced in 2007, by the Guantanamo military commissions, for providing material support for terrorism. Hicks is the only prosecution to date.

A major challenge was 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. [20]

See also

• Minister for Foreign Affairs (Australia)
• Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia)
• Politics of Australia

External links

• Alexander Downer - Profile located @ SA Liberals
• Alexander Downer - His official Australian Government webpage

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