Joe Biden looking to Australia as a guide on how to control COVID-19

US President-elect Joe Biden is looking to Australia as a guide on how to control the coronavirus pandemic and the recession as he reached out to Scott Morrison on Wednesday.

Scott Morrison speaks to Joe Biden on Thursday.

President-elect Joe Biden has told Scott Morrison he is looking to Australia as a guide on how to manage the coronavirus pandemic as the US battles daily ­infection rates topping 135,000.

Mr Biden spoke to the Prime Minister for the first time since defeating Donald Trump in the US election.

“We discussed the many global challenges,” Mr Morrison said on Thursday. “Whether they be COVID-19, which is very much clearly top of his agenda in addressing the situation there, as well, of course, as the economic impacts of that.

“The president-elect was very interested in Australia’s success here and what Australia could contribute from our lessons and our learnings and the way we have managed the COVID-19 pandemic, and the economic ­dimensions of that as well.

“We’ve discussed … security and the environmental challenges that Australia and the US can work together on, particularly in the areas of emissions-­reducing technologies.”

Mr Morrison’s decision not to embrace a target of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 was not raised in the conversation despite Labor seizing on the election of Mr Biden to warn that Australia risks being internationally isolated on climate change.

Mr Biden has pledged to re-enter the Paris climate agreement and set the US on a path towards carbon neutrality by 2050. “We did not discuss that (target) but I raised with the president-elect the similarity between the president-elect’s comments and policies regarding emissions reduction technologies — that we needed to achieve that,” he said.