Tim Watts is used to long flights and tight schedules. As Australia’s newly appointed Special Envoy for Indian Ocean Affairs, he’s now zeroing in on a region that, by surface area, dwarfs the Pacific yet rarely gets the diplomatic airtime it deserves. But to Watts, who previously served as Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, this posting is no novelty. “It’s a region that really matters to Australia,” he said bluntly in a recent interview on ABC Radio National.
Watts sees continuity between his former role and the new brief. “We’ve been lifting our engagement there over the last three years,” he explained. “This role is a continuation of that.” That engagement, he says, has included opening new diplomatic posts, increasing defence cooperation, and deepening economic partnerships—especially with South Asia.
For him, influence isn’t always about policy—it’s about presence. “In the influencing business, half the job is turning up,” he told presenter Sally Sara. He plans to leverage existing relationships across the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) countries, citing past visits to Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa, and Bangladesh among others.
The job isn’t limited to flying flags and shaking hands. Watts pointed to hard infrastructure behind Australia’s claim as a key player in the region. “Australia has the biggest exclusive economic zone in the Indian Ocean, one of the biggest coastlines and the biggest search and rescue zones,” he said. It’s a region deeply tied to Australia’s own geography and economic future—especially given that “half of Australia’s seabound trade leaves from Indian Ocean ports.”
That makes West Australians instinctively aware of the region’s importance, Watts added. They don’t need a policy paper to understand why Indian Ocean diplomacy matters.
Pressed on the vast geographic remit—from the African coast through South Asia and into Southeast Asia—Watts acknowledged the scale but drew attention to Australia’s core focus. “The Defence Strategic Review identified the Northeast Indian Ocean as a priority area for Australia’s defence,” he noted. South Asia, and India in particular, feature heavily in Australia’s trade diversification agenda.
He was also clear-eyed about the need for partnerships. “It’s a large enough region that no one country can do the kinds of things that you need to see in the region alone,” he said. India, Indonesia and South Africa were name-checked as key partners in shaping a future that is “peaceful, prosperous, secure, governed by rules, norms and international law.”
Aid spending, too, came into the spotlight. Watts acknowledged the impact of global cuts in aid budgets—especially from the United States—and pointed to the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh as one area of continued focus for Australia. “That is Australia’s single biggest humanitarian spend,” he said. During each of his visits to Bangladesh, it was “always very front of mind for them.”
But the region’s needs go well beyond refugee assistance. Island nations in the Indian Ocean face many of the same challenges as their Pacific counterparts—especially in terms of illegal fishing, maritime security and safeguarding blue economies. “There are many agendas that we can bring to cooperating with our partners,” Watts said, positioning Australia as a willing ally in tackling these shared concerns.
Though the job title is new, the mission is familiar: engagement, cooperation and visibility in a part of the world where absence is quickly noticed. Watts is betting that consistency, relationships, and yes—turning up—will carry weight.
And with a crowded foreign policy calendar ahead, it seems the Special Envoy is already on the move.
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