Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. What were the outcomes of the Prime Minister's recent meeting with President Biden, and how will they shape the alliance between Australia and the United States into the future?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a pleasure to meet again with President Biden. Our most important relationship is our alliance with the United States. Indeed, the United States, of course—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would have thought the heckling wasn't necessary; I would have thought there was bipartisan agreement on that issue.

President Biden and I have signed a historic agreement to advance climate and clean energy action between our countries. We agreed that climate change action is a national security issue. He, indeed, stated on Saturday that this is a new pillar of our alliance—a new, third pillar, indeed. The Climate, Critical Minerals and Clean Energy Transformation Compact is an ambitious agreement. It will expand and diversify our clean energy supply. It will promote the sustainable supply and processing of critical minerals and support the development of clean hydrogen, battery technologies and other clean energy products.

President Biden also undertook to work with congress to enable Australia to be included as a domestic supplier under the US Defense Production Act. Now, that is critical, because treating Australia as a domestic supplier will allow our industries to benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act. That is worth A$547 billion dollars. That means big opportunities for Australia to build our renewable energy industry and create jobs, including in the hydrogen sector, to boost manufacturing to support emerging industries. The only other country in the world with this designation is Canada.

So we'll do this while ensuring our people and businesses can access secure, affordable, renewable energy. What this shows is that the Australia-US alliance continues to go from strength to strength. I look forward to visiting the United States later this year. Of course, President Biden, like other US leaders, will always be a welcome visitor here in Australia. But I thank him very much for the relationship that we have built over the last year. It is in Australia's national interest that we develop those strong personal relationships at a leadership level, and that is something that we have been doing. President Biden is a great friend of Australia, and I welcome the initiatives that arose on Saturday from our bilateral and then from the Quad meeting, which we had later that day.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

on indulgence—I want to join with the Prime Minister in emphasising the importance of the relationships and congratulate him for the engagement with the leaders over the course of the last 48 hours or so. We have an incredible friendship with each of the countries—with Japan, with the United States, with India—and the G7 nations otherwise obviously share many of our mutual interests and perspectives on the outlook in our region, so it is important that the world hears that there is bipartisan support, as was demonstrated under the AUKUS agreement, brokered by the coalition and signed by the government. It's in our country's best interests to be strong, to provide deterrence, to provide reassurance to our friends in the region, and we continue the bipartisan approach in relation to this very important area of policy that's in the best interests of our country.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On his birthday, I give the call to the member for Kennedy.