Diplomatic by Joe Hockey

Author:Joe Hockey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

DINNER AT THE WHITE HOUSE

Prime ministerial visits, the state dinner and Trump’s bathroom

The National Governors Association (NGA) is a kind of peak body for US state governors. The strength and influence of governors in the country cannot be underestimated: almost 40 per cent of presidents had previously served as a governor. The COVID-19 crisis has proven just how much power they exert, which extends well beyond the power of the equivalent state premiers in Australia.

The NGA comes together twice a year, holding a meeting outside of Washington in summer, and then one in Washington in February. The chair rotates annually between Democratic and Republican states. I was keen to pursue greater integration of politics and business between our two nations, and I decided that the NGA would be a good means for doing so. I wanted the bilateral relationship between Australia and the United States to reach a new high-water mark.

The summer 2017 meeting had featured Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a keynote speaker, and we organised for Australia to be invited to host the February 2018 event in Washington, DC. The NGA was very keen for our prime minister to be their next keynote speaker.

I flew to Nevada to meet with Governor Brian Sandoval, the Republican who was the 2017–18 NGA chair. As with the G20, I didn’t want the event to be conducted as it had been in the past. If Malcolm Turnbull was going to come all the way here, I told him, I wanted to make it worthwhile. First, we would need to lock in another meeting with President Trump. Second, if we were to engage with this forum, I argued that we should have a truly bilateral opportunity that would involve state premiers and chief ministers travelling from Australia to participate in meetings. And it would be a great opportunity to have a business roundtable involving senior business leaders from Australia and the United States. Sandoval loved the idea.

Of course, saying you’ll get the prime minister, all the premiers and chief ministers, and the top business leaders from Australia to attend a forum in the United States is one thing; achieving it is quite another. Balancing competing calendars, agendas and egos between Canberra, Washington and the business leaders took a mammoth effort by our embassy staff. In the end, we managed to get all the premiers to commit except two; South Australia and Tasmania would both be having elections at the time.

Along with the premiers, we had secured the involvement of business leaders including Anthony Pratt, Kerry Stokes and Andrew Forrest. On the American side, we had almost the entire contingent of state governors, leaders of US companies with significant interests such as Hilton, Marriott Hotels, CBS and FedEx. On top of all that, Malcolm Turnbull would address the forum, and President Trump would host talks with him the day before the event.

At one stage, the Americans started discussing having the first official state visit under the Trump administration with Australia. That would

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