Turnbull urges UK firms to boost local investment

Malcolm Turnbull has appealed to 20 of Britain’s top companies to keep investing in Australia.

Malcolm Turnbull has used a final meeting in London before an ­audience with the Queen to appeal to 20 of Britain’s top companies to keep investing in Australia.

Leaving behind a wave of ­domestic controversy following a speech to a right-wing think tank, and having secured an accord with British Prime Minister Theresa May for a speedy finalisation of a free-trade agreement, the Prime Minister turned to the British investment community to make the Australian case.

Addressing a business breakfast at the Australian high commission, the Prime Minister said the Australian economy was “recovering strongly from the inevitable downturn of the mining investment boom’’.

“Many people said we would have a hard landing but the resilience of the Australian economy, because of our commitment to free trade and open markets, enabled us to power ahead,’’ he said.

Mr Turnbull was also reminded of his past as a lawyer in the British Spycatcher case, in which he took on the ­British government and won, when he found himself seated next to a former head of the British spy agency MI5, Baroness Eliza ­Manningham-Buller.

“There are days when your ­predecessors wouldn’t have liked to be with me, I think, but all is ­forgiven,’’ he told her.

“I spent part of yesterday in the COBRA briefing room deep underneath Whitehall.

“It did occur to me that 30 years ago, if I found my way into a basement under Whitehall, I mightn’t have been let out.”

Among the companies represented at the business roundtable, was chief executive Sanjit Gupta of the Liberty House Group, which recently took over control of the Arrium steel in Whyalla.

Rio Tinto boss Jan du Plessis also joined the discussion, along with Maarten Wetselaar of Royal Dutch Shell and Astra Zeneca’s Pascal Soriot, who announced a further $100 million investment in its biopharmaceutical manufacturing operation in Sydney.

During an education roundtable at London’s King’s College, Mr Turnbull promoted his recent school education reforms and pushed for greater higher ­education collaboration between Australia and ­Britain