The damage done by the secret briefing paper on South Pacific nations and leaders comes not from its content, but from the carelessness that enabled the document to be made public.
Australian officials should make frank assessments about nations with which Australia has dealings, in particular nations which receive large amounts of Australian aid.
Australian politicians and bureaucrats need to be aware of anything in receiving that might jeopardise Australia’s aid effort, especially defects in governance. But having made the frank assessments, officials should ensure they remain confidential to those Australian eyes for whom they were made. This, after all, is one of the two fundamentals of diplomacy: to gather information about other countries to help your own, in addition to spreading the good word about your country in other countries.
The damage caused by the publication of details of this document can easily be exaggerated. In some quarters it might show Australia as arrogant, insensitive and intolerant. But in other quarters, including in the Pacific, it will show Australia as perceptive and not a sucker for aid money in dealing with governments which have a lot to do to put their own house in order. A lot of the flak, of course, is that much more vehement to the extent that what the paper says is true. Obviously, the paper is not the official policy of the Australian Government. None the less it will be necessary, and embarrassing, to express that overtly to those governments named.
But the real dangers lie elsewhere: that the episode will cause officials to sanitise all of their advice and assessments and go into protective mode; and that foreign aid will get a bad name on the basis that we should not give money if governments are as bad as described. But people in need cannot be responsible for their governments.