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What do you do after a long career in state politics? For Barry O’Farrell it was an unexpected foray into foreign diplomacy.

The former Liberal NSW premier was appointed High Commissioner to India in early 2020, putting him at the heart of perhaps Australia’s most dynamic international relationship.

Former high commissioner to India, Barry O’Farrell fell in love with the nation’s economic potential.

As premier, O’Farrell eschewed work lunches. But he agrees to my invitation to talk about his eventful foreign posting over a meal.

O’Farrell doesn’t choose Indian – he’s had plenty of that lately. Instead, we dine at Ursula’s, a restaurant nestled among the terrace houses of Paddington in Sydney’s inner east.

We kick off with the chef’s entree special: Western Australian scallops with lemon, almond and miso butter. O’Farrell orders a glass of pinot grigio and I opt for beer.

O’Farrell is relentlessly enthusiastic about India and its burgeoning relationship with Australia. But his time in the grand High Commissioner’s residence in Delhi “had its moments”; O’Farrell arrived weeks before India’s 2020 pandemic lockdown.

“So COVID was my constant companion,” he says.

West Australian scallops with lemon and almond miso butter at Ursula’s.Credit: Janie Barrett

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade repatriated all spouses and non-essential staff in Delhi after the COVID-19 outbreak so O’Farrell’s wife Rosemary had to return to Australia weeks arriving in India. “I remember this as though it was yesterday; for some reason it had gotten into our heads that this would only be a six-week separation,” he says. “Ten months later she arrived back in country.”

O’Farrell’s first three months in the job were “all virtual” thanks to COVID’s disruptions. The High Commission also oversaw a massive repatriation of Australian citizens stranded in India by border closures.

Despite the distractions, India-Australia relations deepened markedly during O’Farrell’s time as High Commissioner, which ended in June.

India’s influential foreign minister, Dr S. Jaishankar, posted on social media after his official farewell that O’Farrell’s “tenure has seen a transformation in India-Australia ties”.

A high point came in April last year when the two nations signed a landmark trade pact called the Australia-India Economic Co-operation and Trade Agreement, or ECTA, which sounds like the Hindi word for “unity”. It was the first trade deal India had signed with a developed nation in more than a decade.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited India in March this year and in May, his counterpart, Narendra Modi, came to Sydney. Modi is the first Indian prime minister to visit Australia twice.

O’Farrell, now aged 64, had never lived overseas before being taking on the complex and challenging post in Delhi.

O’Farrell believes politicians have unique skills they can contribute to diplomacy.Credit: Janie Barrett

“My mantra for three years was I’m not a trained diplomat, I’m a recovering politician,” he says. “That line used to get a bit of a laugh, particularly among official secretaries and so on. But in a sense it meant I couldn’t ask any inappropriate questions because sometimes I’m sure I did.”

O’Farrell argues politicians like himself can bring unique skills and insights to diplomacy, especially in nations with democratic political systems similar to Australia’s.

To illustrate he tells me about the complex negotiations leading up to last year’s trade deal. He instructed Australian embassy staff to develop relationships with the personal staff of key Indian ministers, not just bureaucratic officials.

“That’s not something we’ve focused on previously,” he says. “But in any democracy if someone wants to get a meeting, or to get information on something, if you can’t get to the minister, the ministerial office is extra-good, whereas the bureaucratic officers tend to be the most tight-lipped … we worked the ministerial offices hard because we thought it was a useful thing to do to get things done.”

O’Farrell believes his politician’s touch, which included a willingness to take risks to get an outcome, helped deliver the deal. “My favourite Indian word is jugaard which means finding a way to get something done when it’s impossible,” he says.

Barry O’Farrell and Anthony Albanese view a performance during a Holi celebration in India in March.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

But O’Farrell’s approach could be contentious. He drew sharp criticism from some in 2020 after meeting Mohan Bhagwat, the leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS, a nationalist paramilitary group which advocates “Hindutva”, a philosophy that Hinduism and Indian national identity are more or less synonymous. Narendra Modi was an RSS leader before entering politics and the organisation has close links to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP.

O’Farrell says the meeting was necessary to help understand political influences in India. “It was controversial at the time, no ifs or buts,” he says. “It’s all about trying to distil what the facts are and what’s relevant.”

COVID-19 wasn’t the only crisis facing India during the early months of O’Farrell’s tenure. In June 2020, Indian and Chinese troops clashed at Galwan Valley on their shared Himalayan border. At least two dozen Indian and Chinese soldiers died in a battle fought with sticks and clubs. It was the first fatal confrontation between the two sides since 1975.

Amid extreme tension between the giant nuclear-armed neighbours, O’Farrell had his first meeting with foreign minister Jaishankar. The new high commissioner had been asked to deliver a message from the Australian government; it supported the status quo and opposed any unilateral action to change the contested Indo-China border. Australia also supported India’s efforts to finding a solution through existing diplomatic mechanisms.

Indian army soldiers carry the coffin of a colleague killed during a confrontation with Chinese soldiers in the Ladakh region in June 2020. The clashes at the disputed border between India and China was the worst since 1975.Credit: AP

“Remember I was this tyro of a recovering politician, not trained diplomatically, delivering this very serious message to India, at a very serious time,” O’Farrell tells me.

“I did notice that after I delivered the message Jaishankar looked at me, then looked over my shoulder at my deputy Rod Hilton. I then saw out of the coroner of my eye that Rod nodded; so much as to say, ‘he’s not having a jaunt; he’s actually delivering a serious message’.” (Hilton, a career diplomat, is now Australia’s High Commissioner to Solomon Islands.)

O’Farrell attributes his fervour for India to a trip he made there as NSW opposition leader in 2010 on the recommendation of “an Indian Australian mate”.

“People who go to India fall in love with just its history, its food, its assault on the senses, or its spirituality, but I fell in love with its economic opportunity,” he says. “It’s very boring I know, but from moment I first got there I could see the scale.”

After leading the Liberal and National parties to a landslide victory in the 2011 NSW election O’Farrell made annual visits to India as premier. It was on one of these trips, in 2012, that he first met Narendra Modi, who was then the chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat. Modi has since emerged as the dominant figure in Indian politics with an increasingly influential role on the global stage.

Narendra Modi is the first Indian prime minister to visit Australia twice.Credit: SMH

A recognition of shared security interests in the Indian Ocean region, and mutual concerns about China, have been key drivers of the rapid improvement in political and military ties between Australia and India.

Progress has been less impressive in the business and trade relationship, although O’Farrell says the recent trade deal will help change that. “Australia and India have complementary economies, so we competed in very few areas; we’ve got stuff they need, they’ve got stuff we need,” he says. “There are just so many opportunities for Australia.”

O’Farrell singles out infrastructure and renewable energy as especially lucrative sectors for firms to target. “In my view India will be our most consequential relationship this century,” says O’Farrell. “This is India’s century, it’s going to really come to the fore.”

With that bold prediction, our main course arrives. He has the chef’s main special, an entree-size egg Parmesan omelette with shavings of Braidwood truffle. For me, it’s a scallop and lobster sausage. We share a green salad.

Ursula’s scallop and lobster sausage. Credit: Janie Barrett

O’Farrell believes many Australians have outdated perceptions of India. One reason for this is the amount of media coverage of India which O’Farrell describes as “smaller scale that it should be” in the nation’s growing importance. “I think the lack of media coverage is restricting a better understanding of where India is at today,” he says. “It’s not the India of old any longer.”

O’Farrell says, “advocating for the Australia-India relationship” will remain a priority for him now that he has returned. He’s also keen to do more “board work”.

When coffee arrives our conversation turns to contemporary Australian politics; O’Farrell becomes more guarded. When I ask how he feels about the demise this year of the NSW Coalition government he led to power in 2011 he says: “All governments have a shelf life.”

O’Farrell is confident the Liberals will bounce back from recent federal and state election losses. “I’m sceptical about descriptions that have been written about the end of the Liberal Party at this time,” he says. “That gets written every time there’s a major defeat at the state or federal level. Inevitably the party rises again.”

But he warns Liberal candidates must reflect the community. “You can only win government in NSW by being genuinely representative. That means having a party that looks like the community of NSW that you want to represent. If that’s in question you are simply giving votes away.”

O’Farrell says the Voice referendum is “long overdue” and strongly supports a yes vote. “You are going to produce better outcomes if you consult people,” he says.

O’Farrell bats away questions about his former political ally, Gladys Berejiklian, who like himself, stepped down as NSW premier after being embroiled in an Independent Commission Against Corruption investigation.

“Other than saying I continue to be a strong supporter of anti-corruption bodies at federal and state levels, I will not go into other people’s engagements with those bodies.” Although he does point out that it took around two years after his retirement from parliament in 2015 “for ICAC to produce a report that said he [O’Farrell] has nothing to answer for”.

O’Farrell’s career in state politics famously ended after telling ICAC he had never received a $3000 bottle of Penfolds Grange as a gift shortly after the 2011 election. When a thank-you note written by O’Farrell emerged, proving that he had received the red wine from a businessman, he resigned.

I ask whether O’Farrell is tired of wine bottle gags after all these years? “The joke is,” he says, “The only time I ever used to drink red wine was a sip doing toasts; I just don’t like the taste of red. My friends all know I’m white wine drinker.”

The things you find out over lunch.

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