By ABC's Barrie Cassidy

Posted November 18, 2011 07:44:04

Photo: Barack Obama and Julia Gillard walk from their joint press conference. (Reuters: Jason Reed)

When United States president Barack Obama talked about American leadership and the Australian partnership in the same sentence, as he did in his speech to the joint sitting of the Federal Parliament, you get the idea.

Given the size, reach and power of the United States, the relationship with Australia has always been uneven.

Try as they might to give a sense that they are not pushovers, Australian prime ministers go weak at the knees when the bells and whistles are brought out at the White House, or when they bring them to these shores.

All of them, whether they are Liberal or Labor, desperately want a good relationship with the president, whether he is Democrat or Republican. They are all seduced to some extent.

That seemed to be the case with Julia Gillard in the early moments of the joint news conference with Barack Obama on Wednesday evening. It wasn't exactly a panic attack, but it did seem as if the magnitude of the event suddenly overwhelmed her. It was quite a shock, given her customary unflappable nature. She quickly recovered and performed well. But it was nevertheless, symbolic of the relativities at work.

Unlike the Kiwis, who once told the Americans where they could stick their nuclear powered warships, Australians have been compliant.

Not always. Bob Hawke once had to tell president Ronald Reagan that he needed to withdraw his support for the testing of US MX missiles in Australia. It was June, 1985, and Hawke was woken up in Brussels on route to Washington to be told by powerbrokers Graham Richardson and Robert Ray that caucus wouldn't cop it.

A young Paul Keating got on the phone and said to Hawke: "Stuff them (the Americans), you know, let's face up to them."

It's the sort of advice you give when you are not the one headed for your first White House experience as prime minister. (The thoroughness of WikiLeaks has never exposed the moment when a prime minister Paul Keating told the Americans to get stuffed!)

Hawke was eventually bailed out by the secretary of state, George Schultz, who found an alternative way to monitor the tests in international waters. He was relieved, but nevertheless annoyed that the Americans had exposed him to the hostility of his own caucus when a perfectly satisfactory alternative existed all along.

Hawke – a Labor prime minister – went on to have a very good working relationship with Reagan – a Republican, every bit as good as the relationship that two leaders from the right, John Howard and George W Bush, enjoyed later on.

The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Tip O'Neill, once said of Reagan to Hawke: "There has never been a more conservative son of a bitch in the White House. But you can't help but like the guy can you?"

Hawke visited the United States five times under the Reagan presidency and he often said he never met anyone who didn't like him.

Australians though didn't have the same regard for Reagan that they clearly have for Obama.

Writing in the Financial Review, Laura Tingle raised the question - in the light of Obama's rock star reception - "would an announcement of an expanded US military presence in Australia … be greeted in quite the sanguine way if it had occurred under the former president?"

Of course, the answer is no. Greens leader Bob Brown heckled the previous president but joined the queue to shake the hand of this one.

President Obama is unquestionably popular in Australia, far more popular than he is at home. That is why Julia Gillard must get some residual goodwill from her close encounters with him. She has been relaxed and comfortable in his presence. The president has quite deliberately sent the right signals through his own body language. It matters more to this Prime Minister than most because she has suffered, almost uniquely, from a lack of status and authority that normally comes with the job. She lacked those qualities because of the circumstances which initially led to her leadership. Then when she went to an election to seek a mandate, she got a hung parliament.

There will probably be a bounce in the polls as a result of the Obama visit, if not in the Government's primary vote, then at least, you would expect, in terms of personal approval rating and preferred prime minister.

But like a summer tan, a White House glow eventually fades. The winters are still long.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of ABC programs Insiders and Offsiders.

Aussie PMs can't resist a bit of presidential charm - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)