30 years on from the election of the Howard Government, how does its extensive foreign policy legacy live up to scrutiny?

On this week’s Afternoon Light Georgina Downer speaks with Alexander Downer and his biographer Tony Parkinson to discuss A Step to the Right, the new book on Australia’s longest serving foreign minister. The man who oversaw one of the most eventful periods in Australian foreign policy, from the successful intervention in East Timor, to the response to 9/11, invocation of the ANZUS Treaty, and of course the controversies of the Iraq War.

Tony Parkinson is a former senior adviser to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, and Victorian Premier Dr Denis Napthine. He began his career in journalism, serving as The Age’s International Affairs Editor, The Australian’s European Correspondent, and national political editor of The Herald and Herald Sun in Melbourne. He has reported on elections in Australia, the United Kingdom, Poland, and Germany, and on conflicts in Northern Ireland, Fiji, and the Middle East — including the 1991 Gulf War and the liberation of Kuwait. Parkinson has also served as a consultant to the United Nations and the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, and held a senior government affairs role with one of Australia’s top 20 ASX-listed companies. In 2000, he published Jeff: The Rise and Fall of a Political Phenomenon (Viking/Penguin).