Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has appointed the Secretary of the Defence Department, Greg Moriarty, to be Australia’s new ambassador to Washington, succeeding Kevin Rudd, who leaves the position in March.
The highly-respected senior bureaucrat is a safe choice, and his defence background gives him special qualifications for the post when the further development of AUKUS will be a major preoccupation in coming years.
Moriarty will not be surrounded by any of the controversy that came with the appointment and tenure of Rudd, who had vehemently attacked US President Donald Trump in the years before becoming ambassador. In an embarrassing moment when Albanese had his first formal meeting with Trump last year, the president said to Rudd, “I don’t like you either, and I probably never will”.
