Nuclear subs deal and PM's French row puts question mark over DFAT's influence: Penny Wong

Senate Opposition Leader Penny Wong also challenged how much input her counterpart Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne had in the row.

It comes as tensions between the Australian and French governments peaked last week after Mr Morrison was accused of lying to French President Emmanuel Macron.

Days later, the French ambassador to Australia described the Prime Minister's alleged leaking of private texts between the two as a "new low".

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had either lost its influence in shaping foreign policy and diplomacy or was "not being as competent as it should be", the Labor senator said in a conversation with Lowy Institute director Michael Fullilove released Monday.

Senator Wong said recent events showed the Morrison government didn't consider diplomacy and international relations a priority matter.

"With all due respect to my counterpart, I think in part [Senator Payne's] influence has also been diminished because it doesn't appear that the foreign minister is a key player in some of the major decisions when it comes to foreign policy and international relations," she said.

"When you make a decision in the national interests, which you know, is going to be a difficult decision to land, you have to do the whole job and you have to focus on what is it that we can do to minimise the blowback, minimise the damage.

"Clearly, that was not done."

Senator Payne met with French ambassador Jean-Pierre Thebault ahead of his National Press Club address on Wednesday last week.

The hour-long meeting was a "constructive discussion" about repairing the relationship following the announcement of AUKUS and the dumping of a $90 billion French-Australian submarine deal, Senator Payne said.

Tensions again rose during the COP26 summit in Glasgow in November after media reports casted doubts over whether Mr Macron and US President Joe Biden were completely in the dark on Australia's intention to cancel the French submarine deal.

The French ambassador told the press club audience the deal also included the sharing of top-secret information in a growing strategic partnership between the two countries over security priorities in the Indo-Pacific region.

Mr Thebault said it had been a "major breakdown of trust" and signalled to other countries that Australia's word could not be relied on.

"These are not things which are done between partners, even less between friends," he said.

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Senator Wong said key lessons could be learned from the diplomatic clash and hoped an internal review would be undertaken by the department to determine how to better handle issues in the future.

"I hope those in the leadership of the department and the broader national security community take this opportunity to reflect on that," she said.

"I think there are demonstrable failings from our leaders, politicians, some demonstrable failings from Mr Morrison.

"I hope at a bureaucratic level that there is some thinking about it."

The senior Labor senator was also asked whether research indicating political appointees to embassies, instead of career diplomats, was at an all-time high indicated an issue for Australia.

The trend was a problem, she said, but there were examples of where political appointees weren't always a negative.

In government, Senator Wong, as a foreign affairs minister, said she would work to stop the rising trend of political appointees.

"I think some politicians can be very good heads of mission and there are certain posts where having someone who, you know, the weight of their history and brings with them the capital of their personal relationships with senior people in the government is a good thing," she said.

"But I think that there are so many announcements that we have seen where you would want someone with more diplomatic capability, rather than a political person.

"What I will be doing is to try and assess whether or not you've got the right person for the job."

The Canberra Times has approached DFAT for a response to the senator's comments.

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