As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and French President Emmanuel Macron exchanged smiles and back slaps this week, Foreign Minister Penny Wong capped off a charm offensive through the Asia-Pacific with selfies in the Malaysian city of her birth.
The new government’s ascension to office has coincided with a busy diplomatic calendar, as well as heightened geopolitical tensions in Europe stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China’s increasing assertiveness, especially in the Asia-Pacific. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his partner Jodie Haydon enjoy the sunshine with French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte outside the Élysée Palace in Paris.“There is a significant effort [by Wong] to distinguish her travels from the last foreign minister, who was often criticised for not being out there enough and for, perhaps, not engaging in both the Pacific and South-East Asia as much as was needed for this geopolitical moment,” Kassam said.
The thaw between Australia and France following the spectacular fallout between Macron and former prime minister Scott Morrison last year over the aborted submarines deal has helped fuel the perception of a wide-ranging reset of Australian diplomacy. But Kassam said Morrison deserved credit for his foreign policy achievements, including reviving the Quad talks, and negotiating the creation of the AUKUS trilateral security pact between Australia, the UK and the US.
Any chance of them visiting Australia?
DuchessFrida The word 'blitz' seems to have lost its original meaning. Blitz is destructive - the opposite of what the new government is doing. We need a new metaphor.
Biggy1883 Also opening up trade channels but the MSM seem to have missed that.
Its called work not sunbaking in Hawaii or attending some Happy Clapper Hillflogger prey meet.
'and talking up the new government’s climate change ambitions' So they all paddled there?
Compare and contrast. How many air miles did the Morrison ministers clock up in 2019? Or even just Matty Cormann alone (at our expense) in snagging his Secretary-General job?
When this trio have solved the world's climate problems and China's aggression perhaps they can come back to Australia to deal with a few trivial challenges like energy security, inflationary cost of living, aged care and NDIS crisis and defence capability to name a few. AlboMP
No wonder the French bloke is laughing and wants to do more business when we give them billions of dollars for nothing.
Fiddling as Australia Burns..... hi cost of energy, no economic plan Skyhigh inflations and interest rates,industrial relations unrest, etc
Would be nice if they did some actual work.
'I am giving you more than $700 million extra, will you please be my friend, pretty please' GutlessWhimpAlbanese
To be fair, they have had a LOT of repair work to do after mini Trump shuffled off the stage. I’d say they are doing a good job