SMH · Matthew Knott · Tuesday 24 March 2026
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Australia with a stark warning about global instability, sweetened with cultural pleasantries about flat whites and pavlovas — a diplomatic sugar-coating that may say more about the audience than the messenger.
Von der Leyen flew fourteen thousand kilometres to tell Australia what it already knows but won't say aloud — the rules-based order is copping a hiding and the flat white isn't going to fix it. She wrapped the warning in pavlova jokes because that's what you do when the host country treats diplomacy like a wine-and-cheese night. 'Brutal, harsh, unforgiving' describes the geopolitical moment, but it also describes the gap between Australia's strategic ambitions and its attention span.