The AFR View
Albanese’s Washington mission is to get AUKUS done
It would not be in Australia’s nor America’s interest for the prime minister to head to China next month with nothing to show on AUKUS from the trip to the White House.
It was the overseas trip that Anthony Albanese didn’t expect to have to fit into an already-crowded travel schedule after the Congressional stand-off over the US federal debt ceiling forced Joe Biden to skip the Quad leaders summit in Australia in May.
But having touched down in Washington, the prime minister needs to make the most of the opportunity to meet American legislators and ensure that the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine pact is on track.
Jodie Haydon and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are greeted by the children of Australian embassy staff in Washington before his meeting with the US president. Alex Ellinghausen
Locking in Congressional support for the “legislation that’s required to turn this vision into a practical reality”, as Mr Albanese says, would more than justify the trip as in Australia’s national interests, regardless of the political noise back home about being out of the country following the defeat of the Voice and amid the continuing cost-of-living crisis.
Bad timing has struck again because Mr Albanese’s visit has coincided with the crisis in the Middle East, which is naturally absorbing the White House’s attention, and more political dysfunction and chaos in Congress over the failure to appoint a new Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Nevertheless, Mr Albanese’s point man in Washington, former prime minister and now Australian ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd, is confident the Congressional deadlock over the AUKUS-related legislation will be broken.
AUKUS seeks to deepen the US-Australia alliance and build a bigger deterrence against assertive China in a contested and unstable Asia. Mr Albanese’s announcement of a $5 billion investment by US technology giant Microsoft to help bolster cybersecurity Down Under, including working with the Australian Signals Directorate spy agency on a cyber shield to protect individuals, businesses and governments, is a welcome public-private partnership initiative to harden the nation’s defences on the new battlefields of digital warfare.
But it would not be in Australia’s nor America’s interest for Mr Albanese to head to China next month with nothing to show on AUKUS from the trip to Washington. This would provide a potential propaganda win for Beijing.
Avoiding that embarrassing prospect should be at the front of the minds of the US legislators Mr Albanese will meet to help get AUKUS done, thereby underscoring America’s commitment to Australia’s most important security partnership in an increasingly tumultuous international environment.
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