Australia differs from most other countries whose governance is based on Western precepts, because the nations that are most central to our external focus have historical, ethnic and religious backgrounds different to our own.

Their level of economic development is in the main much lower than ours.  Most have been subjected to colonialism.

All  these factors colour their outlook and expectations.

This feature of our external environment presents Australia with two sets of tension as determinants of foreign policy—between interests and values, and between geography and history.

At bedrock, our national interests are defined by security interests—our safety, territory, society and way of life—and our economic interests or prosperity.

As for our values, there is no real doubt. They are Western. We don’t need to apologise for that. Indeed, as others have noted, there are things about Australia that Asia would like to emulate.

That said, some of our most tricky regional problems have derived from values-related issues. For example, over the years, the question of capital punishment of Australian citizens has caused ructions in our dealings with Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

While there is a wealth of debate about which carries more weight in international dealings—interests or values—both count.

The second major determinant of our external policy direction is the contest between our geography and history.

We understand our geography pretty well. But we look at it through the prism of our history. Australian external policy has historically placed greatest emphasis on close alliances with powerful like-minded friends. Our hallmark is being on the team.

As a country—not just as a government—we think like the team. Our focus is inevitably on the team itself: essentially the United States and others in the West; to some degree on Japan and India; and, on the opposition, China and Russia.

Our own region sees our place on the Western team not just as a vital aspect of Australian foreign policy—and let us agree it should be—but as its paramount feature, which is questionable.

We are also a nation that has crushes on others in our region—Indonesia, India, China—and then allows the romance to fade; and one that mounts mighty studies on our place in the region, then runs out of puff, or changes governments and doesn’t follow through.

You entitled to ask: ‘This is all well and good, but what are we supposed to do?’

First, and this is from a member of a profession supposed to worry about upsetting foreigners, we must not water down for overseas consumption, advocacy of our cardinal national values.

Indeed, we must make clear our aversion to conduct contrary to the norms that most of the world claims it espouses—essentially, those set out in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

This is  a different thing to allowing our Western political culture indiscriminately to impact our foreign policy discourse. For example, Paul Keating’s description in 1993 of Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad as a ‘recalcitrant’ or Tony Abbott’s reference to Australia’s $1billion gift to Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami when seeking to prevent the executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Second, still on values, the shadow of our historical attitudes on race—both on aspects of immigration policy and treatment of indigenous Australians—continues to hover over us.

Particularly when you have form, episodes such as the One Nation saga, the Indian student crisis or the fate of the Voice, reverberate abroad. The colonial experience of most of our neighbours has left some neuralgic on questions of race. We need to get our own house in better order—and keep it that way.

Third, soft power—the ability to persuade and influence without coercion—is one determinant of international outcomes. However, soft power cannot be engendered by government fiat. And we cannot just tell the US and other Western countries to lift their game and behave better.

The deterioration in political mores in the US, and arguably elsewhere in the West, underlines that such Western soft power as still exists will not have the same positive impact in the current Western competition with China and Russia as it did in the Cold War.

Fourth, if, with the diminution of Western soft power, we want to maintain a global order even partly akin to the one that has prevailed over the past 80 years, we and others in the West must realise we are not cutting it with the Global South.

It is in the Global South that competition for global influence will be most pronounced. It is the West’s interest that it addresses the issues that hound the Global South—debt, climate, people movements and so on.

We have a part to play in that global context.

For a start, we could raise our official development assistance to 0.32 percent of gross national income, the average for member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, from our current level of less than 0.2 percent.

Fifth, we must focus not just more on the Global South but on our own region within it—and not just on those who share our worries about China, but on those who might not.

Australia started late as a serious regional actor, arguably after the fall of Singapore.

My cohort in the foreign service reported to those who had been present at its creation.

Australia engaged the region in a spirit of enquiry and zest and a sense that our destiny lay there.

The Colombo Plan contributed to the development of our neighbours. Our main universities were centres of excellence on the region. And crucially we dismantled the White Australia policy—opening the door to the multicultural country of today.

Despite this, our earlier sense that Australia’s destiny is in the region has dissipated. We must redress this.

This is about re-educating ourselves about the region. It is about all-of-nation heft.

We will always have to deal with a neighbourhood comprising systems different to our own.

In my lifetime we have come a long way. But we have a way to go—in educating ourselves, in economic engagement and the patient and persistent work of diplomacy. We must keep our own house is in order. We must do better—a lot better.