By Rob Harris, Angus Thompson and James Massola
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has warned Coalition colleagues that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s decision not to attend a historic NATO summit in Washington next week is a sign to prepare for an early election as Labor strives to sell its domestic economic agenda.
Albanese was expected to gather with his counterparts from Japan, South Korea and New Zealand as members of the so-called “Indo-Pacific Four” at the summit marking NATO’s 75th anniversary beginning next Tuesday, but Defence Minister Richard Marles will now travel to the US in his place.
US President Joe Biden shares a toast with Anthony Albanese in Washington last year.Credit: Bloomberg
Dutton speculated about Albanese’s decision in the Coalition party room meeting on Tuesday, saying the decision “could be because he’s considering an early election”.
“Whatever it is, it’s becoming clear that he genuinely does not understand what people are going through, and not just clearer to us, it’s clearer to the electorate as well,” Dutton said, adding that if there was a message for the party room on Tuesday it was “be ready”.
Three Liberal Party MPs, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Dutton had privately warned his MPs for several weeks that a September election was possible.
They cited three reasons for the warning: to put MPs on notice to ramp up fundraising efforts, encourage shadow ministers to speed up policy development, and enforce party-room discipline.
The next federal election has to be called by May 2025 but some Labor MPs believe it could be called in March 2025 or even December 2024.
Australia has partner status with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, a collective of 32 member nations in Europe and North America founded in 1949 after World War II as a security deterrent. An invitation was sent by outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg earlier this year, with an official in February saying top-level political presence from Canberra would deepen the country’s increasing status among the alliance’s membership.
Albanese’s attendance at the previous two summits, Madrid in 2022 and Vilnius last year, earned a fierce rebuke from Beijing through its state-control media, as well as from former prime minister Paul Keating and former foreign minister Bob Carr, who believe the Europeans and the US should stay out of the Indo-Pacific affairs.
But the prime minister said last year the summit had become “essentially the meeting globally of the world’s democratic leaders” and while its focus was on the north and Europe, its principles applied globally.
A government source, not authorised to speak on the record, said the decision was made after Albanese was unable to confirm a bilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden. Albanese’s office advised him not to make the trip as it could invite further criticism as his government struggles with a cost-of-living crisis at home.
The government is determined to promote the new stage 3 tax cuts, but inflation remains stubbornly high and there are renewed fears of further rate rises.
It is not the first time an Australian prime minister has sent another cabinet member to a NATO summit. Malcolm Turnbull, for example, sent then-defence minister Marise Payne to a NATO summit in Belgium in 2018.
Three Labor MPs said there was broad consensus in the party that selling the government’s domestic agenda should be the priority.
“That’s what [the prime minister’s] been told in no uncertain terms. Our electorates are feeling it,” one MP said.
At a later press conference on Tuesday, Dutton said it was time for Australia to send a message that it was part of a united global front against international aggressors.
“Australians are very unsettled at the moment ... and they’ve got a prime minister who wants to put local politicking ahead of his obligation to stand up for our country,” he said.
In November Dutton urged Albanese against flying to the US and to instead focus on domestic issues.
Coalition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham condemned the prime minister’s decision not to go, saying “national security is the top responsibility of the government, and the idea that Anthony Albanese would rather be campaigning to shore up Labor marginal seats than sitting down with the NATO leaders to ensure global security and our national security interests are heard, is an appalling representation of his priorities”.
With the US election in November, the NATO gathering would probably have been the last meeting between Albanese and Biden as counterparts. His attendance could have provided an opportunity for the first bilateral leaders’ meeting with Keir Starmer, who is widely expected to become the UK’s prime minister on Friday.
US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said last month the White House was expecting Albanese to attend as well as Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeo and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.
Albanese was forced to fend off criticism from the Coalition and several media commentators last year as he took four overseas trips in the month after the Voice referendum defeat, taking his tally to 18 since he came to office. He has made just one overseas trip this year, to Papua New Guinea, for Anzac Day.
The prime minister’s office was contacted for comment.
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