PM lines up royal visit as he meets King Charles in Scotland
Anthony Albanese invited Prince William and Princess Catherine, along with their three children, on a royal visit to Australia during wide-ranging discussions with King Charles.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has invited Prince William and Princess Catherine, along with their three children, on a royal visit to Australia during wide-ranging discussions with King Charles on Saturday.
Mr Albanese, a staunch republican, has also ruled out a referendum on the issue of Australia becoming a republic saying that “I have no intention of holding any referendums’’ and describing the country’s relationship with the monarchy as “very respectful”.
“It was very good of the King to invite me here to Balmoral Castle. I regard it as a great personal honour and also an honour for Australia. It is a sign of respect His Majesty is interested in Australia as well as the state of the world and it is always engaging and insightful to have discussions with him,’’ Mr Albanese told The Australian outside Crathie Kirk, the church the King regularly visits when he is in residence at Balmoral alongside Scottish locals.
The 90-minute discussion with King Charles was held, unusually, behind closed doors inside the remote castle in Aberdeenshire, with even the Prime Minister’s aides being seen outside.
King Charles continues to receive treatment for cancer and he came to Balmoral, one of his favourite residences, to recover from a busy schedule that included the lavish state banquet and visit by the United States President Donald Trump 10 days ago.
One of the key points on the King’s agenda in the fireside chat with the Prime Minister was the next visit by the royal family to Australia, but it was always unlikely that the King, with his health woes and Queen Camilla, who struggles with long-haul jet lag would return so soon after last year’s quick trip to Canberra and Sydney en route to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Apia in October.
Instead the Prince and Princess of Wales, both 43, have been keen to bring their children to Australia, with the timing expected to coincide with British school holidays next year.
Mr Albanese said: “We are hopeful that the Prince and Princess of Wales are able to visit as well and we are hopeful it might occur in the coming period.’’
Prince George, now 12, was nine months old the last time William and Catherine came to Australia in 2014.
His sibling Princess Charlotte, 10, has been on overseas tours to Canada in 2016 and to Poland and Germany in 2017, while seven-year-old Prince Louis has not been on a royal overseas tour.
A royal tour down under has been on the radar of the first in line to the throne for at least six years, but the Covid pandemic and then the death of Queen Elizabeth II – and the protocol that the King should visit each realm before other senior royals – came into play.
Meanwhile, Mr Albanese will visit the UK Labour conference in Liverpool on Sunday and deliver a speech, which may touch on his government’s ability to cut inflation despite ongoing cost pressures on energy prices.
Energy costs in the UK are as much as four times higher than in Australia and it has contributed to persistent inflation levels above five per cent, leaving the British economy reeling with the highest inflation of all its major trading partners.
Mr Albanese said: “We know the cost-of-living pressures have been a global phenomenon but in Australia but we have managed to get inflation down to have a two in front of it, instead of the six in front which was there when we were elected.
“We have done that whilst maintaining strong employment growth and whilst real wages are increasing, and that's a good thing.”
Mr Albanese also defended his attendance at the conference, pointing out he had meetings with the Conservative opposition party during this trip and that key government ministers including those relating to trade, would be in attendance.
He told The Australian he was “looking forward” to his upcoming meeting with Mr Trump at the White House on October 20.
When asked if he had picked up any hints from the British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer who has a good relationship with the US President, Mr Albanese replied: “I engage with people one on one the same way that I engage with people in Australia. I find that human relations and having those discussions is just to treat people as I am treated and certainly the discussions that I have had with President Trump whether on the phone or last week in New York have been very warm, constructive and positive and I look forward to October 20.”
PM greeted by bagpipes
Mr Albanese was greeted by a Scottish bagpiper and a rousing rendition of Scotland The Brave as he arrived at the military airport of Lossiemouth in northern Scotland on Saturday, where he had a much-anticipated meeting with King Charles.
Mr Albanese was accompanied by his fiancee Jodie Haydon as he left the Royal Australian Air Force aircraft in Lossiemouth for a 90-minute scenic motorcade through the rolling hills of Scotland to Balmoral Castle.
The arrival had been a bumpy one with the Prime Minister’s plane having to do a “go around” when strong tail winds meant an aborted first landing.
The King returned to his Scottish residence to recuperate after hosting the US President Donald Trump at a state banquet in Windsor Castle last week. He continues to receive regular treatment for cancer.
The King had used the lavish state occasion on September 17 to stress to Mr Trump the importance of the trilateral AUKUS defence deal between Australia, the UK and the US as well as encouraging the president to show further support to Ukraine.
The Prime Minister posted a photo on his Balmoral meeting on social media with the caption: “An honour to meet with you today, Your Majesty.”
Mr Albanese will also speak at the British Labour Party conference in Liverpool, and stop in the United Arab Emirates on the way home to discuss free trade and economic co-operation with President Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Albanese meets Sir Keir as he blasts ‘grievance politics’
The PM met Sir Keir Starmer and Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch during a full schedule of meetings on Friday local time, bringing along a four-pack of Willie the Boatman “Albo’’ beers with him to a 10 Downing Street drinks reception hosted by Sir Keir.
Attendees included Ms Haydon, Lady Victoria Starmer, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Diana Fox Carney, and Iceland Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir.
Amid rising expectations that Donald Trump will honour the Biden-era $368bn AUKUS nuclear submarine deal, the Labor leader said “there is no indication that I’ve seen of anything other than support for AUKUS going forward … it’s in the interests of all three nations”.
Mr Albanese spoke with Sir Keir about the nuclear submarine program and Palestinian recognition.
As Sir Keir faces growing leadership rumblings ahead of a critical appearance at the British Labour Conference, which Mr Albanese, as Labor leader, will address, the British Prime Minister overnight delivered a major speech announcing his plan to introduce Digital IDs for all workers in response to voter concerns about illegal migration.
The plan was immediately rejected by Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn.
Speaking at the Global Progress Action Summit in London, where he later joined Mr Albanese, Mr Carney and Ms Frostadottir on a Q&A panel discussing the future of progressive politics, Sir Keir invoked “grievance” politics and unfair representation of law and order in Britain.
“I do accept that it is now time for social democrats to confront directly some of the challenges and some of the lies, frankly, that have taken root in our societies,” Sir Keir said.
The embattled British Prime Minister warned of a miserable and joyless future if politics is driven by an “industrialised infrastructure of grievance” and declared that the “Conservative Party is dead” and the new battle “for the soul of the country” would be with Reform UK.
Asked by The Australian about the rise of Mr Farage’s Reform UK party, the dismissal of new right-wing parties as being fuelled by “grievance” and whether he was concerned about the impact of new political movements on Labor and the Coalition in Australia, Mr Albanese said modern political parties would face major challenges ahead dealing with the acceleration in artificial intelligence and wider impacts across society.
“I think one of the reasons why the last election campaign saw one side of politics speak about grievance without putting up any solutions over that period. I felt that there wasn’t the alternative policy work or constructive discussion. And I think they paid a price for that on the 3rd of May, frankly,” he said.
“It’s always easy to just try and tear things down. What’s hard is building things up. Serious people in politics want to build things up. And they want to leave or make a difference, not just occupy the space, not just identify all there’s this problem.”
Asked whether that was his advice for Sir Keir, Mr Albanese said “the job ahead for people in politics, in my view, is always to come up with solutions and to come up with programs that take countries forward, not just to identify where issues are”.
“I don’t want to see the rise of populist organisations, such as that (Reform UK). I’ve met with the mainstream opposition party here and I’m involved in parties of governance. (They) have to come up with solutions, not seek to divide people.”
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