Abbott was full of sovereign indignation in bagging Geneva-based officials from the United Nations for daring to criticise his government's treatment of asylum seekers - "it is 'torture', no less, that we were accused of inflicting", the Prime Minister railed, complaining Australians are sick of being lectured to.

Yet at the same time, Abbott was pleading with Jakarta to recognise the bonds of common humanity, soften its hard line attitude towards Indonesia's drug laws, and mete out clemency for Australian smugglers on death row.

Not coincidentally, in Geneva, many other countries at the Human Rights Council have joined Australia in a global call for Joko Widodo to halt the imminent executions.

The two episodes again exposed a long-standing tension between "bilateral" versus "multilateral" approaches to diplomacy; the trick in finding the right balance between dealing with a country, one-on-one, in a hard-headed pursuit of individual interests, or choosing to work collectively towards a common good, with all the compromise and mutual scrutiny that inevitably entails.

"There tends to be a bit of partisan divide in Australia, where the right of politics tend to be more sceptical of the United Nations than perhaps the commitment on the Labor side," says Russell Trood, a former Liberal senator from Queensland and professor of international relations.

"Most Labor politicians in my experience see the UN as an unquestionably virtuous organisation - they are not uncritical, but generally speaking are much more supportive," Trood says.

"Those of the right of politics tend to be, not hostile, but sceptical about it and much more cautious about how you regard it among the range of instruments you might use."

Inevitably, countries employ both approaches.

Abbott was never an enthusiast for the UN, promising in opposition to abandon what he derided as a "bronze medal" campaign for a two-year stint on the Security Council, and failing to met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during a 2011 visit to Australia.

But when a missile shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine last year, Australia was quick to turn to the UN to condemn the attack. Abbott heaped praise on the subsequent Security Council resolution that demanded access for recovery teams and investigators to the wreckage, declaring: "the United Nations will continue to have a crucial role in the aftermath of the MH17 tragedy."

Yet there was no more talk of "crucial role" this week after Juan Mendez, the UN special rapporteur on torture, found Australia had failed to "sufficiently" answer questions relating to the treatment of asylum seekers in detention.

"Now we have got what is supposed to be a reputable body criticising the Australian government for doing the right thing," Abbott told radio host Alan Jones. The UN, he went on, should instead be crediting the Coalition for saving lives at sea by stopping the asylum seeker boats.

Ukraine, by contrast, praised Mendez's report about eastern Ukraine and called for an investigation into human rights abuses by Russian proxy militants.

"In my view there are many UNs, and governments often choose to embrace some while distancing themselves from others," says academic James Cotton, author of Australia and the United Nations, a diplomatic history published in 2013 by the Foreign Affairs department.

The UN has grown enormously from the 51 original members to 193 nations today. The UN is also much more than the vaulted marble hall of the General Assembly in New York or the horseshoe Security Council table.

Specialised agencies have spawned by the dozen, the World Health Organisation, UNESCO, UNHCR, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, and countless more to tackle global problems and regulate everyday life.

Cotton agrees Australia's enthusiasm for UN has waxed and waned since 1945 when the organisation was founded, but he doesn't see this as a typically partisan story.

The enthusiasm of Labor's H. V. Evatt in the early years was mirrored by Paul Hasluck, Australia's first chief diplomat at UN headquarters in New York and later Liberal foreign minister.

This delegation's work saw language inserted into the UN Charter widely known as the "Australia pledge" - setting a goal for higher living standards of living, full employment, economic development and social progress.

"We did a good job there, probably better than we thought we'd done," Cotton says. It led to enormous ambition for the UN, particularly in helping newly independent countries stand free of former colonial masters. Both the Whitlam and Fraser governments became heavily engaged in the work of decolonisation.

The UN also offered Australia a venue to take Japan to the international court over whale hunts but at a cost. This same courtroom has meant East Timor has the chance to challenge Australia over spying allegations during gas and oil negotiations.

But Cotton says what marked Abbott's criticism of Mendez as unfortunate was that it rested on a misunderstanding, blaming the entire UN system for one official's views.

"Mendez's position has been organised so he doesn't reflect the views of the organisation, he is an independent person," Cotton says. "His job is simply to give an independent view of the performance of countries in relation to the obligations they themselves took on ... You just have the feeling the Prime Minister's remarks are made more with a domestic constituency in mind than the record of Australia's diplomacy."

Trood, now head of the UN Association in Australia, has no qualms about Australia having a disagreement with rulings by UN agencies or rapporteurs. But any criticism, he says, should narrowly point to the problem.

"Bagging the whole organisation is not helpful, particularly when we've profited from being an active member of it so recently," Trood says.

The diplomatic dance will carry on. There is bound to be a few stepped on toes later this year when those same Geneva UN-types subject Australia to a scheduled review of its human rights record.

And by then, Geneva might appear a haven from fast-souring ties with Jakarta.