The Office of National Assessments, which reports direct to the Prime Minister and is Julia Gillard’s principal source of assessments on international developments, has downgraded its focus on Europe and the Americas at a time when European instability threatens global markets and economies and the US remains as important as ever to Australia.

Office of National Assessments director-general Allan Gyngell confirmed during Senate Estimates in the Finance and Public Administration Committee on Tuesday evening that the organisation’s Atlantic Branch would be axed next month.

Responding to questions from Shadow Parliamentary Secretary of Small Business and Fair Competition Senator Scott Ryan, Mr Gyngell said the decision had been made partly because of recent budget cuts. 

At the same time, those branches responsible for the rest of the globe – ONA’s South Asia and Middle East, North Asia, South-East Asia and Oceania branches – will be retained.  This suggests a worrying Keating-era-like attitude that our traditional allies and friends in the Americas and Europe have somehow become less important in the government’s eyes compared with other parts of the world.

“At a time when the US remains of huge strategic, political and economic importance to Australia and Europe is at the centre of global economic turmoil, it seems short-sighted for the Prime Minister to be cutting funding to her own international advisory agency,” Senator Ryan said.

“Economists have been speculating that a Greek withdrawal from the Eurozone would be more damaging for the world than the collapse of Lehman Brothers. This is not the time for Australia to downgrade its sources of advice on Europe.”

“The Gillard Government is taking a myopic view toward international security, ripping $5.5 billion from the defence force budget and also cutting back on our security and intelligence agencies.  But underlining the government’s skewed priorities, Labor has still managed to find many millions of dollars to support the much more dubious national security benefits of a temporary seat on the UN Security Council.”