Peter Hartcher: What’s our globetrotting PM learnt about Australia’s place in the world?
Incidentally, in London he had his third meeting with US President Joe Biden – Albanese finds him to be, contrary to the comic caricature, not doddering but “sharp as”. He also had multiple conversations with the new monarch.Charles, he reports, is “warm, engaging, intelligent, with great depth of experience”. He’s so positive about him that I have to ask whether the King talked the PM around and made him into a monarchist? “No, that hasn’t changed,” replies the lifelong republican.
, that Australia – once you left it – was a country that ceased to exist. It was never mentioned in world media, apart from the obligatory shark attack and bushfire stories, the stuff of stereotype. It was a place of no consequence beyond its own shores.No longer. “We are almost uniquely positioned to have a significant influence over global political dynamics, and that’s something Australians need to be cognisant of,” he tells me.
“Because of Australia’s standing, it was seen as important. Whether it was at the Quad, or the response from [Indonesian President] Joko Widodo, or the Pacific Islands Forum, or the NATO summit with European and North American leaders. There was enormous attention to Australia’s position.