The Prime Minister has been given a royal audience by King Charles at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. The meeting came a day after Anthony Albanese spoke with the UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. Political editor, Andrew Clennell spoke to me from Scotland.
ANDREW CLENNELL, HOST: Kieran, here I am outside Balmoral Castle, where Anthony Albanese has driven for miles through the rolling green hills of Scotland for an audience with the King. I spoke to the Prime Minister a short time ago after what has been a very busy trip so far.
Prime Minister, thanks so much for your time.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good to be with you, Andrew.
CLENNELL: How is the King and how does he react to you being a Republican?
PRIME MINISTER: His Majesty was delightful, as he always is. He's warm and engaging. It was very good of him to honour Australia with the invitation to come here to Balmoral Castle for a one on one meeting, but also for a very nice lunch.
CLENNELL: It's been reported he had some influence on Donald Trump and his visit here, including on Ukraine. And I guess he mentioned AUKUS publicly too. Did he discuss any of that with you?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, protocol requires that those discussions remain private. I respect that protocol. But His Majesty is, as you will see from his public comments, someone who is interested in Australia. He's interested in the state of the world and the future of the world, including for younger generations. He's someone who I take a great deal of benefit from his insights into issues and it's always good to have these one on one discussions with him.
CLENNELL: Briefly though, he kind of did you a favour with the AUKUS comment with Trump, didn't he? Or did Australia a favour, should I say?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, he's someone who's conscious about Australia's interests and he's someone who is very aware of what is happening in Australia. He takes a great interest. I have conversations with him on the phone as well as the one-on-one meetings that we've had since I've been Prime Minister and every one of them has been worthwhile.
CLENNELL: Speaking of one on one conversations, tell us about your brief meeting with Donald Trump. How did it work? Did all the leaders meet him for the photograph or was it independent of that that you met up?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, not all. I think others did, though. So it was an opportunity to engage with him briefly to talk about the October 20th meeting that we will have, but also to engage personally on some one-on-one issues as well. So, it was a good discussion, it was very warm.
CLENNELL: Do you like Donald Trump from what you've seen so far in your phone calls?
PRIME MINISTER: I do. They've been very warm, the conversations that we've had. And he was very generous in the comments that he made when we discussed after my re-election. I look forward to sitting down with him.
CLENNELL: At that summit in London, you and the other leaders were rallying against what you called 'far-right populism'. But isn't that sort of right populism what got Donald Trump to power? Is there a danger in talking like this ahead of your meeting?
PRIME MINISTER: No. We put forward and I put forward Australia's national interest and our views on politics. But I'm always very respectful of leaders who I deal with and I'm respectful of President Trump. Both as a person who has risen, won two elections, came back after not being successful in 2020 to be elected, re elected President of the United States. The relationship between Australia and the United States is a very important one.
CLENNELL: Why, in your view, has it taken this long to get the meeting?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh look, these things, I think the media have been more focused on that than others. We have had warm discussions, we've got the lowest tariff of any country - no country's done better than Australia has. And so we've been engaged, and not surprisingly, of course, the President, because of what was happening in Iran at that time, left the G7 when a meeting was scheduled. That was perfectly understandable.
CLENNELL: But you have such different views on, and values, as you put it, on a lot of issues. I must admit, if I were you, I would go to the White House with some trepidation. Do you hold any fears in terms of this meeting?
PRIME MINISTER: No, not at all. The discussions we've had have been very positive and constructive and Australia and the United States are great friends. We pull our weight and we - it's not a relationship of unequals. The United States is obviously the largest economy in the world, the most powerful country in the world, but Australia, always, we punch way above our weight and we engage. The United States has a trade surplus with Australia. We have warm people to people relations. I've had a number of discussions with people in the Administration, including in New York. I didn't just talk with President Trump, I talked with a range of other people as well.
CLENNELL: Who? Marco Rubio?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, Scott Bessent and I had a very good discussion there.
CLENNELL: Keir Starmer talked up action on climate change and is very much on the same page as you on it, with one outlier, and that's he put nuclear in the mix. Do you think we'll never see nuclear power in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it doesn't stack up economically. See if you can find someone who's investing in it. No one's been able to do that, which is why the Coalition went to an election saying that taxpayers would have to do it because the private sector, it just doesn't add up for what is necessary to for the immediate needs. Our coal-fired power stations, 24 out of 28 announced their closure under the former government and nothing was done to step up and to fill that gap. What is needed and what can be done is renewables backed by storage and backed by gas.
CLENNELL: Now you're going better than most of the so-called progressive leaders around the world, there's no doubt about that, politically. Do you think illegal migration and the fact you've got a handle on that is a key to that? Because that's what really seems to be, you know, a massive political issue in other countries.
PRIME MINISTER: I'll leave the commentating to the commentators. But we have a strong position on these issues, as I said we would prior to our election in 2022. I think you can be strong on borders without being weak on humanity and that's what drives my government.
CLENNELL: Now Sussan Ley's made some comments at home about you attending the British Labour Conference. I guess the Progress Action Summit was from Labour Together. Can you understand if some Australians view the amount of travel you've ended up doing this year as excessive? Or what do you make of those comments she's made about them being basically political events?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I think that says more, she can explain her own position, but what I do is work very hard representing Australia. You've been with me, Andrew. Do you think we've been sitting around during this time? And you know, I've had journalists who tell me how tired they are. Well, just try to keep up, because I work each and every day for Australia. And in the UK, I got an invitation from Prime Minister Keir Starmer, yesterday I was able to meet with the Prime Ministers of Spain, Iceland, Canada, the UK, as well as with Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Conservatives in the UK as well, because it's been a bipartisan position, at least from the UK's perspective. I'm not sure what Sussan Ley's comment means for that, but we have an important economic relationship with our Free Trade Agreement. And in Liverpool I'll be having discussions with Ministers, not just with Prime Minister Starmer about AUKUS. And about that progress, taking the opportunity to sit down with government ministers.
CLENNELL: Just finally, Donald Trump's forced different ownership for TikTok in America. Is that something you've at all looked at or considered or could be something that you considered down the track?
PRIME MINISTER: We haven't given consideration that. What we have done is take the security advice, which is that TikTok isn't on government phones.
CLENNELL: Prime Minister, thanks so much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Andrew.
