Why David Brat, the new US ambassador to Australia, has a big in-tray

David Brat and Donald Trump in 2015.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images After an almost two-year vacancy – and some reported “ grumblings ” about Australia’s tight pet quarantine rules – there’s now a new face heading up the US presence down under.

Former Republican congressman David Brat touched down last Friday to take up the post of US ambassador to Australia.

Australia is typically seen as a desirable posting for American diplomats, with its longstanding US treaty ties, common language and enviable weather ( Canberra notwithstanding ).

But Brat will have his work cut out for him in the months ahead.

He’s already had to hit the ground running.

On Tuesday, the US embassy expressed “serious concerns” about Australia’s proposed Digital Duty of Care, suggesting the laws could amount to “extraterritorial censorship of protected speech”.

And today’s revelations about the OpenAI hack of multiple Australian government websites may have added a new diplomatic headache.

The Greens are explicitly calling on the government to summon the US ambassador to explain what happened.

More broadly, Brat’s arrival in Canberra comes in the wake of a highly consequential period in the Australia-US relationship.

There’s daylight between Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Donald Trump on tariffs and Iran , as well as rising uncertainty among the Australian public about US security guarantees.

So, who is David Brat? And what are the top priorities in the briefing memo sitting on his desk? A longstanding Trump ally The once-obscure economics professor burst onto the national political scene in 2014 when he toppled Eric Cantor in the Republican primary race for Virginia’s 7th Congressional district.

The New York Times branded it “one of the most stunning upsets in modern political history”.

To this day, Brat remains the only primary challenger in US history to unseat a sitting House majority leader since the position was formally established over a century ago.