Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question goes to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has now been asked three times why he will not apologise to the Prime Minister of Japan for his appalling behaviour on the Bush Deep podcast. Three times he has refused to give a straight answer. My question to the Prime Minister is whether or not he will follow the example of someone else in this House who has made it very clear, when he makes a mistake, he owns up to it.

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

Well, the fact is that I have worked and the government has worked to improve relations in our region and indeed right around the world—to repair them—and our relationship between Australia and Japan has never been stronger. We have never been more strategically aligned than we are today.

My government has made the significant decision to procure the upgraded Mogami-class frigates for Australia's general purpose frigate program, a reflection of the trust between our two nations. Our enhanced defence and security cooperation increases the interoperability between our defence forces. Indeed one of the activities that I've done as Prime Minister is to welcome the naval fleets from all of the Quad countries into Sydney Harbour for the joint operations that are occurring. Indeed throughout the visit of the Japanese Prime Minister, as well, one of the things we did was to establish the Australia-Japan Leadership Dialogue. This is a 1.5 track dialogue which will bring together leaders and experts from across government, academia, business and civil society to help address the most important issues in the Australia-Japan relationship. I look forward to continuing to have a very good and positive relationship with the Prime Minister, as I have with leaders in our region.