Ethnic Indian, Peter Varghese, to be new Australian high commissioner

08 June 2009

Australia has appointed its top intelligence executive and ethnic Indian, Peter Varghese, as the new high commissioner to India. Varghese, the current head of the Office of National Assessments (ONA), will take over in August from John McCarthy, who has been holding the post in New Delhi since 2004.

The announcement comes at a sensitive time in bilateral relations, with the billion-dollar student market in Australia under threat in the face of racist attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney. The education industry is critical to Australia with more than 80,000 Indians currently studying there.

But a chill in relations precedes recent events and harks back to the lukewarm, if not downright hostile response, Australia offered to the regularization of the Indo-US nuclear treaty in international bodies. It was because of some not-so-subtle arm twisting by the then Bush administration that saw Australia back off into a neutral corner.

Australia has refused point blank to allow India to import uranium from its mines, which it needs for its growing energy needs. Bilateral relations under the new Kevin Rudd regime can only be described as being coldly polite, as the Labour dispensation in Canberra lets its ideological baggage put bilateral relations in deep freeze.

In making the announcement, foreign minister Stephen Smith said Australia's engagement with India was expanding rapidly in recognition of the country's growing economic and strategic importance and influence.

Australia and India also engage closely on strategic and defence matters, Smith said.