In a speech to the US-Australia Leadership Dialogue in Sydney on 20 July 20005, the federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott said that while America has for over half a century been Australia’s most important ally, “…the importance of Britain – as America’s principal global ally, Europe’s most assertive military and economic power and Australia’s second-largest foreign investor and fourth-largest trading partner – has too often been underrated”.

Mr. Abbott criticised those who assumed that the American alliance enhanced republicanism [in Australia], a point argued by Mr. Keating’s speech writer, Don Watson in ‘A Quarterly Essay’.

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