Astral Weeks Ahead

Astral weeks ahead for Australian ambassador in Ireland

BY LLOYD GORMAN

Van Morrison and Scott Morrison both have a lot to do with Australia’s new ambassador to Ireland. The incoming diplomat - who fills the position that has been vacant since the start of the year - has enjoyed a life long love of the music of the ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ singer. Last August the former Australian politician Gary Gray made a pilgrimage from Perth to Ireland for a very special concert by the Northern Ireland artist at the Seamus Heaney HomePlace in Bellaghy, Derry. Just twelve months later Gray will return to Ireland as Australia’s envoy in August. Irish Scene was the first Irish media to break the story of his appointment on social media, and here Mr Gray speaks exclusively with editor Lloyd Gorman in his first interview in his new role as ambassador elect. His journey to the ambassadorship has been paved by a long and varied professional and public career and a personal life that has known great heartache and loss. “Prior to the Van Morrison trip, my wife Deborah and I visited Ireland in 2012,” said Gary. Deborah’s family name was Walsh and her ancestors on both sides could be traced back to Ireland. Her grandfather was Robert Walsh - known as Bob or Pop Walsh - and his father was also Robert Walsh, and is believed to have been born in 1862 in Ireland. “Robert’s mother died when he was born and Robert was reared by an aunt in Carrick on Suir, an Irish village on the River Suir near Clonmel Tipperary,” explained Gary. “Robert married Margaret Agnes Kelly, the daughter of Peter Kelly. Peter Kelly was born in Cork, in 1844, the son of Cornelius Kelly and Mary Murphy. They arrived in Victoria via South Australia in about 1842. His daughter Margaret Agnes Kelly married Robert Walsh Senior in 1901.” Gary and Deborah were happily married and had three sons. Tragically, the same week that Michael D. Higgins was in Perth in October 2017 and they should have been celebrating Deborah’s Irish heritage, was the same week she died. In August, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she died on October 20 and was buried in early November. “That part of 2017 is deeply etched on my psyche,” said Gary, who spent that time caring and grieving with their boys, family members and loved ones. Together with some of her best friends, Gary has just written and compiled a book about his wife ‘A Life That’s Good’ as a way to preserve her memory and life and share it with their children. He has now read all the speeches President Higgins gave on that visit and found them to be “an eloquent description of a modern view of the Irish Australian relationship”. It was a relationship that would reach out to him in his darkest hour. “When Deborah died, a number of members of the government

of whom I was close had long discussions with me about what I would do next,” he said. “It was known that I needed to rebuild my life. Deb and I had been married for 30 years and so as part of that rebuilding of my life, friends on the other side of politics were well aware of that. So when the invitation came I was more than open to it and I had made it clear I was open to it.” That ‘invitation’ came in the form of a phone call from Top: Gary’s wife Deborah, who passed away in Prime Minister Scott 2017. Above: Australian PM Scott Morrison Morrison. “Scott Morrison knows my affection for the music of Van Morrison, and it was well known that when I went to Ireland last year I had gone to see him play,” he smiled. Wasn’t it unusual for a Liberal PM to offer the job to a former Labor Party organiser and minister in the Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard governments, I asked. “It’s not uncommon for the Australian government to make appointees to diplomatic postings from outside of the formal diplomatic/bureaucratic process,” he replied. “There’s quite an extensive record of political appointees into the Australia embassy in Ireland, maybe not so much in the last decade or so but the longest serving ambassador to Ireland was a former Liberal cabinet minister appointed by John Howard, just before John Howard’s own personal visit to Ireland. I’m a member of the union, I’m a member of my party and I’m proud of those things and that won’t change but serving the government of the day is important to me and that will take absolute supremacy in my role, but I will remain a member of the union and a member of my party.” The last time a West Australian was made ambassador to Ireland was when Labor PM Bob Hawke (who spent much of his childhood and life as a young adult in Perth) gave the gig to Brian Burke, one of his most loyal backers. Burke had resigned as premier of Western Australian on February 25 1988 - which he had held for five years. It was also his 41st birthday. Brian Burke was Australia’s ambassador to Ireland and the Holy See from 1998 until 1991. From the outset Gray was also something of a rising star in the world of the Australian Labor Party. “I was the youngest ever national secretary of the Labour Party, I did that job longer than anyone else had ever done,” he said. “After that I went into a medical research role, then I went into an oil and gas role and then into federal parliament. I’ve had a wonderful and interesting and varied life that’s been an amalgam of a business life and a political life, and I see the work I’m about to do in Dublin as being an extension of that.” He held the Division of Brand in WA in the House of Representatives from 2007 until 2016, and was a Cabinet minister first under Kevin Rudd and then Julia Gillard when she challenged and ousted Rudd from office. Those events sparked a period of unprecedented churn in the prime minstership of Australia. “In global terms it was not anything extraordinary, but in Australian terms, because we normally have very stable leadership arrangements, it looks turbulent and it is,” he said. “In the course of the last twenty years we’ve had Prime Minister (PM) Morrison, PM Turnbull, PM Abbot, PM Rudd, PM GIllard, PM Rudd and PM Howard. In the 20 years before that we had PM Howard and we had PM Keating, so we’ve had a lot of churn in the top role to what Australia would normally have. But if you look forward two years to the next election, its not possible to see a change in the current Prime Ministership, and then we will have had two PM’s in seven years. So we’ve been through a turbulent time but you can see us returning to a more normal environment.” He admits it is “tough” to live through a period like this, but despite the fear and loathing generated within Labor itself, and between Labor and the Liberals, he still counts Tony Abbot and Julia Gillard amongst his friends. “I may have differences of opinion with them but I respect the purpose they brought to public life and the purpose they brought to their prime ministership.” He argues that to be effective in modern politics, you must be able to talk to all sides, understand their purpose and be open to finding solutions everyone can live with. Good tried-and-tested skills for a diplomat to possess. Interestingly his appointment - announced on June 26 by Foreign Affairs Minister Marisa Payne - came just one day before the final piece of a very complicated jigsaw fell into place that would allow a new Irish government to be formed since the Irish general election five months ago. “You could look at Ireland and say you had an election in February that produced a one third, one

third, one third result, an indeterminate outcome, no Taoiseach for how long?, no government for how long? Or you could look at it another way and say the electoral outcome produced a stable political environment to deal with the pandemic and then an agreement in power transfer and sharing going forward. I much prefer to believe in the power of good will, certainty and thoughtful management rather than racing headless chooks. WA send off: From left, Freda Ogilvie, Marty Kavanagh, Gary and Pippa, Governor Kim Beazley, “Forming a government Premier Mark McGowan and Richard Matias took part in a recent function for Gary out of those forces at this time takes a lot of heart, a lot of skill, and you see that still remain strong and deal with all the public in Ireland. One of the substantial hallmarks of Irish administration challenges that life throws at us in a politics has been the ability to come together to find thoughtful and vigorous way. enduring solutions that bind the country together. I’m Gary and his partner Pippa had planned a looking forward to my time in Ireland not just from reconnaissance trip in April to ‘suss out’ the country the perspective of somebody who loves politics and that will be their new home for the next four years. political engagement Irish culture brings us, a lot that Coronavirus put paid to that plan, and now they will is replicated in Australian politics, but it also brings make the move at the start of August and go into us in the modern day strong and thoughtful views quarantine when they land. Their pet dog will follow about how to build a strong economy, a strong society, as soon as possible. Gary’s sons all hope to travel to strong culture and strong social connectivity to help people through tough times. I think events of just this week shows the triumph of modern Irish politics,” he said. Ireland at some stage too, but at the moment would face two weeks in isolation when they arrived in Ireland and then another two weeks when they got back to Australia. The newly minted emissary plans to “You see Ireland ascend to the UN Security Council get the ball rolling by introducing himself and holding meetings online. His ambassadorship “ Building relationships is what I’m good at and a will become effective and official after he has presented his credentials to Michael D. Higgins in Áras an Uachtaráin. While there are many ceremonial politician who can build relationships across the functions to the role it is also very much a working and vital position, divide in Australia is surely going to be of some for him personally and for Australia. use building those relationships in Ireland.” “I’m doing this because its an interesting thing to do, not because its cushy or nice or uplifting my and the creation of a tripartite coalition government. salary, its interesting work and I’m You see the resolution of political conflict through rebuilding my life,” he said. “Building relationships talk, negotiation and discussion and agreement, not is what I’m good at and a politician who can build through conflict. And you see that happening at a time relationships across the divide in Australia is surely of pandemic, so you see a lot in Ireland that gives us going to be of some use building those relationships in great hope about how modern western economies Ireland.” can face the great difficulties of the pandemic and Like all politicians who entered federal parliament

Top: Gary’s love of Van Morrison took him on a pilgrimage in 2019 from Perth to Ireland for a very special concert by the Northern Ireland artist at the Seamus Heaney HomePlace in Bellaghy, Derry. Above: The Andromeda Galaxy

after 2004, Gray does not get a parliamentary pension. He plans to work until he’s 70, and has given up a well paid position in the private sector - as general manager external affairs at Mineral Resources - to head up Australia’s mission in Dublin. While Ireland and Australia enjoy deep rooted historical and cultural connections and share many common values they are also well established trading partners. Economic ties between the two nations in 2018-19 alone for two-way goods and services trade was valued at $4.5 billion. In 2018, Ireland’s stock of investment in Australia totalled $21.8 billion and Australian stock of investment in Ireland was $15.4 billion. Ireland has been crucial to the development of Australia, and Western Australia he said. “Between 2010 to 2015 Australia invested the equivalent of two Marshall plans in our resources sector in Western Australia alone, in the Pilbara in LNG and hard rock mining,” he said. “In a province of less than 150,000 people we invested the equivalent - inflation adjusted - of two Marshall plans. We could not have done that without our relationship with Ireland that gave us access to the skilled labour both to carry out that construction, to do it safely to do it efficiently and in our hospitals and schools, so the closeness of that relationship is at very deep levels and the importance of it in an economic context is simply fundamental. We could not have achieved what we achieved without the support of Ireland.” The small island nation of just five million will also be “central” to developing and maintaining future trade links. He added: “We have a substantial free trade agreement we are attempting to negotiate with the EU, Ireland is central to that, central in the context of the European Trade Commissioner but also central in the context of our ambitions to establish a strong agricultural trade presence in Europe that underpins our desire to conclude that free trade agreement.” On top of all that he will be largely responsible for organising and commemorating the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Ireland and Australia in 2021. While he will be certainly earning his crust the incoming ambassador also it won’t be all work and he is looking forward to the chance to indulge his hobby - star gazing - in a whole different hemisphere. “I’ve had a fantastic life, I thought at one stage I’d be an optical engineer,” he admits, “but then my love of politics and the cause of seeking social justice took over in me and astronomy became a really important hobby. My telescope is packed and gone already,” he said. “I’ll have to figure out how to run it on a different power system, because my lithium ion battery couldn’t go in cargo. The telescope itself, a big automated one, has been shipped. I will be setting it up for the northern hemisphere and I’m looking forward to seeing objects in the sky, such as the Andromeda Galaxy - a mere 2.5 million light years from Earth and the Milky Way’s nearest neighbour - which I can’t see from here. Ireland has made a massive contribution to planetary astronomy, from the discovery of planets to the design and construction of scientific instrumentation, telescopes and the creation of accurate timepieces and optics, and Ireland as a contributor to that engineering and technology in the early part of the 20th century was second to none so I’m looking forward to exploring that. One of my enjoyments now is understanding indigenous stories and the stars and indigenous astronomy, and I have memories of being in the Central desert where the stars of the Milky Way will cast a shadow. That remains one of my great moments of understanding the power of the universe, the stars and the value of a dark sky.” No doubt there will be another star he will be on the look out for as much as possible. Considering he will have just landed in the country at the start of August, will need to quarantine and has a big job ahead of him it could be tight, but to borrow an old Irish phrase ‘by hook or by crooke’ Scomo’s man in Ireland may just be able to catch a glimpse of ‘Van the Man’ in concert for the 2020 City of Derry Jazz Festival, scheduled (still) to play two gigs on Friday 21 August and Saturday 22nd. Irish Scene would like to thank Marty Kavanagh, Ireland’s Honorary Consulate in Perth, for helping to arrange our interview with Ambassador Gray.