By Matthew Knott

Copyright brisbanetimes

New York: During his first term in office, the Coalition accused Anthony Albanese of being hooked on international travel. It was a petty attack, ignoring the fact international diplomacy is hard work, not a luxury, and that Albanese’s time spent abroad was about the same as his predecessors. The biggest event on the international relations calendar didn’t even make it into his diary.

Albanese didn’t attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York in his first three years as prime minister, regarding it as less central to Australia’s interests than regional summits like the Pacific Islands Forum and Association of South-East Asian Nations. After being re-elected with a thumping majority in May, Albanese decided now was the time to make his debut at UN headquarters, a gleaming modernist complex beside the East River in midtown Manhattan.

It was a trip with two distinct and seemingly contradictory goals. First, to deepen Australia’s involvement at the UN, positioning Australia as a good global citizen and enhancing its status on the world stage. Second, to build ties with Donald Trump’s conservative-populist administration and secure his first meeting with the US president. On both counts, it proved a success.

Albanese departed for the trip amid swirling speculation about whether he would meet with Trump while in New York. Trump had cancelled the pair’s first planned meeting in June to attend to the war between Israel and Iran, and the first anniversary of his election victory was fast approaching. To the prime minister and his team, the media’s increasingly obsessive focus on when the leaders would finally meet was overblown. “We’ll meet when we meet,” Albanese breezily insisted last week. Some Australian officials have privately argued there is little to be gained, and a lot to lose, from a high-profile encounter with Trump, who sees bilateral meetings as an opportunity to “shake down” fellow leaders, even if they are close allies of the US.