Greg Moriarty: Diplomat, Defence chief and trusted adviser

article-body

Greg Moriarty has received the Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the General Division for distinguished service to public administration in leadership roles, particularly in national and international security.

It is perhaps a measure of the capability and calibre of advice from a senior public servant that their movements and actions remain firmly in the background as a trusted set of hands to discretely help guide ministers and agencies through sensitive and often difficult challenges.

That seems to be the case for the current secretary of the Department of Defence and seasoned diplomat, Gregory Lawrence Moriarty, who has been pinned with the second highest gong in Australia’s latest honours list to become an Officer of the Order of Australia.

A product of the necessarily secretive Defence Intelligence Organisation in his early career as an analyst, Moriarty’s military and intelligence diplomacy skillset and rapport had him embedded at the headquarters of the US Central Command in the Persian Gulf during the military intervention in Kuwait and Iraq after Saddam Hussein attempted to annex a large chunk of oil-rich Kuwait.

Returning home, Moriarty applied his skills to resolving the regionally volatile Bougainville crisis, setting him up for an ascending series of diplomatic posts at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, where he held key ambassadorships to Indonesia and Iran.

Moriarty’s assessments and expertise on the workings of Iran impressed the White House enough to request briefings from him, lifting general regard for Australia’s intelligence and diplomatic community.

Moriarty became a deputy secretary at DFAT in 2015 and was swiftly handed commonwealth counter terrorism coordinator role. For context, the Lindt Café siege in Sydney took place in late December 2014, while the ISIL/ISIS attacks in Paris took place in November 2015.

No stranger to maintaining public service calm in times of often internecine political instability, Moriarty moved into the critical role of international and national security adviser and went on to be seconded by prime minister Malcolm Turnbull as chief of staff.

During this time, while Moriarty’s name was known in public service and political circles as a diligent and proficient crisis manager and seasoned negotiator, he kept an assiduously low media profile compared with ambitious peers such as Mike Pezzullo, Kathryn Campbell and Jane Halton.

Moriarty was appointed secretary of the Department of Defence in 2017 above more ambitious rivals.

On returning to Defence, Moriarty maintained Australia’s above-par standing with key allies in a period when China became increasingly regionally assertive, especially in the Pacific.

At the same time, he continued to propel the need for Australia to have a strong offensive and defensive cyber capability to deal with changes in warfare, intelligence and espionage, often despite political infatuations with regulating diversity amid a recruitment shortfall.

It is clear Moriarty was privy to the inner workings of the construction of AUKUS that has redefined Australia’s defence posture and procurement for generations to come, namely through the switch to nuclear-powered submarines and long-range stand-off weapons.

While getting Australia admitted to the nuclear propulsion club is arguably the strategic advance of a generation, possibly two or three, weeding out Australia’s dud defence purchases and swiftly improving interoperability with allies has also clearly been a priority.

The retirement of the loathed MRH-90 Taipan helicopter, the acquisition of locally made Tomahawk and HIMARS systems and a strong focus on using joint exercises to embed critical skills like air-to-air refuelling of US and other allied aircraft are a capability step change.

Moriarty was last spotted in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, nosing around a US Navy Virginia-class fast attack submarine Australia will operate until the new SSN-AUKUS boats are launched around 2040.

That’s still 15 years away, and Moriarty will likely have retired by then, but it will be a physical manifestation of one of the many things the prescient diplomat and trusted adviser to both sides saw coming.