Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. What work was undertaken at recent international summits to advance Australia's national interest?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. Over an eight-day period I attended four summits representing Australia, and it was a great honour to do so. I represented Australia at: the ASEAN Australia summit; the East Asia Summit, held in Cambodia; the G20, hosted by Indonesia; and APEC, hosted by Thailand. Australia is back as a partner. Australia is engaged in the world, bringing a calm, mature and collaborative approach to international relations.

We have major global challenges, and global challenges require global solutions. We've seen the impact the Russian invasion of Ukraine is having not just on the people of Ukraine but on the global economy as well, with rising inflation having an impact on everything from fuel right through to energy, right through to supermarket prices. We're also seeing the global impact of climate change; we actually see it, and it's experienced. I spoke to Andrew Gee, the member for Calare, before question time; we know that communities in New South Wales continue to be impacted by flooding.

This gave me an opportunity as well to meet with our AUKUS partners, to meet with President Biden and to have a good meeting with Rishi Sunak, the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. We discussed the importance of the AUKUS relationship, and we were able to sit down with our traditional allies and have those discussions—including action on climate change, which both those governments prioritise.

I was able to present a keynote speech to the B20 meeting, attended by business leaders from the 20 largest economies around the world. I thank President Widodo for that invitation. I held 14 bilateral meetings—an important one, of course, being the first meeting with China for six years. It was a very constructive meeting with President Xi, and I want us to move forward together with a stabilisation of the relationship. It's very clear that we have differences, but dialogue promotes understanding. My attitude towards China is that we must cooperate where we can, disagree where we must but engage in our national interest. I also had an important meeting with Prime Minister Modi, and I will lead a business delegation to India in the first quarter of next year. In addition to that, we were able to further develop the constructive relationship that we now have with President Macron of France and other European leaders to promote the EU-Australia Free Trade Agreement that I'm hoping to advance next year.