Defence department chief Greg Moriarty to succeed Kevin Rudd as Australian ambassador to US | Australian foreign policy

The head of the department of defence, Greg Moriarty, will succeed Kevin Rudd as Australia’s ambassador to the United States.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, announced Moriarty’s appointment to the role on Sunday. A former chief of staff to Malcolm Turnbull and former Australian envoy to Iran and Indonesia, he has led the defence department since 2017. He will take up the posting in Washington from April.

Moriarty was Australia’s inaugural counter-terrorism coordinator and previously worked in US Central Command in the Gulf during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

He represented Australia in Papua New Guinea, and as a negotiator of the peace monitoring group for Bougainville.

Rudd will finish in the role on 31 March.

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Albanese said Moriarty would represent Australia’s interests with the Trump administration with distinction, including as the Aukus nuclear submarine agreement is progressed.

He called Moriarty “an outstanding Australian public servant.”

“He has served both Labor and Coalition governments and he’s been of the secretary of the department of defence and the Aukus deal is central to our relationship with the US,” he told ABC TV.

“I know Mr Moriarty very well. I have been impressed by the dignified way he handles himself, by the connections in the United States as well. I engaged broadly in discussions about who the right person was.”

Albanese confirmed members of the Trump Administration had been consulted on the appointment.

Moriarty had been included in a list of possible frontrunners for the job, along with former Labor ministers Joel Fitzgibbon and Stephen Conroy. Australia’s former ambassador to Japan, Justin Hayhurst, and the trade minister, Don Farrell, were also among possible contenders.

Rudd will leave Washington a year ahead of schedule. The former prime minister and foreign affairs minister will take up the role of global president of the Asia Society thinktank and head the society’s Center for China Analysis.

Albanese said Rudd “can look back with real pride”. He praised Rudd for at taking Aukus from “an idea into a reality”, praising his work on critical minerals deals, and investment of Australian superannuation funds in the US.

Rudd’s social media commentary about Trump proved a diplomatic sticking point with the White House. In 2020, he called Trump “the most destructive president in history”, leading to an awkward moment during Albanese’s first face-to-face meeting with Trump in October.

Moriarty’s successor at defence will oversee a major overhaul planned by Labor, aimed at tackling budget and timeline blowouts for major procurement projects.

The defence minister, Richard Marles, announced in December the biggest changes to the defence bureaucracy in Australia since the mid-1970s. It will see the merging of three agencies: the capability acquisition and sustainment group, the guided weapons and explosive ordinance group, and the naval shipbuilding and sustainment group.

A new independent delivery agency will be established to manage billions of dollars of complex defence and military projects, merging organisations responsible for overseeing nearly 40% of the department’s current functions.

Albanese also confirmed the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, had been invited to address federal parliament in March.