Jabarkan Menteri Luar Negeri dari Alexander Downer

Downer ditunjuk sebagai Menteri Luar Negeri ketika pemerintahan Howard terpilih pada bulan Maret 1996. Ia menjadi Menteri Luar Negeri yang menduduki jabatan terlama sejak 20 Desember, 2004.

Tahun 1999, Downer turut serta dalam negosiasi masuknya pasukan perdamaian INTERFET ke Timor Timur. Ia juga melakukan sebuah negosiasi atas migas di Celah Timor, di tengah tuduhan bahwa persetujuan tersebut merugikan Timor Timur.  Sebagai Menteri Luar Negeri, Downer memainkan peranan penting dalam perselisihan diplomatik yang dikenal dengan Tampa affair tahun 2001, dimana Australia menolak izin mendaratnya MV Tampa di Pulau Christmas yang memuat pengungsi.

He has been a firm supporter of the legality of the Iraq war and he vociferously defended the claim that weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq to justify the 2003 invasion of that country, long after this claim was abandoned by many others.

In August 2006, it was claimed by a former weapons inspector Dr John Gee, thaat Downer had in 2004 suppressed information that the search for weapons of mass descruction in Iraq was fundamentally flawed.

In March 2006 he strongly opposed any form of co-operation with India, in the post US-Indian nuclear co-operation deal. Downer is quoted as saying "Australia had no plans to change a policy which rules out uranium sales to countries like India which have not signed the UN's nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)."

In April 2006 he appeared before the Cole Inquiry regarding the Iraq oil for food scandal and testified that he was ignorant of the kickbacks paid to the Iraq government, despite several warnings that had been received by his department from various sources

. In July 2006 it was revealed that six months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Downer had argued that participating in the invasion would be commercially beneficial for Australia.

As Australian Foreign Affairs minister, Downer has supported the U.S. in the incarceration of two Australian citizens, David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib in the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Habib was eventually released without charge, while Hicks remains imprisoned. Downer supports the Bush Administration's position on the special Guantanamo military commissions that are to be used to try Hicks.

A major recent challenge has been handling relations with Australia's most important neighbour, Indonesia when Australia accepted a boatload of asylum seekers from Indonesia's Papua province in March 2006.