Australian federal election 2022 live: Albanese to return from Tokyo; Dutton running ‘unopposed’ for Liberal party leadership

Prime minister Anthony Albanese has addressed the media from Tokyo, before he returns home, and has spoken about some of the discussions had during the Quad meetings.

On Joe Biden and his relationship with the US president he said:

I renewed my acquaintance with President Biden and I appreciate his invitation to visit Washington soon. President Biden, the United States, is our most important ally. Australia will continue to develop a strong working relationship with the US administration and, in particular, we talked about improving our engagement and our mutual position with regard to climate change and the need for global action.

There are many consistencies in Australia’s national security positions but there are some differences with the former Australian government, particularly when it comes to climate change.

On India and his relationship with Narendra Modi:

With prime minister Mohdi we had very constructive discussions. I have visited India both as a backpacker, but also as a leader of parliamentary delegation.

I was pleased that the prime minister invited me to visit India soon as well. We will work on many dates there. The relationship with India, which will grow to be the third largest economy in the world in coming years, is a very important one for Australia and the diaspora in Australia, of course – a growing one as well.

We talked about the potential for education exchange, particularly the potential for Australian universities taking advantage of the change position of India and co-locating in India serving both students locally based in independenta that could spend some time in their home country of India studying at Australian-based universities and then, perhaps, complete half of their degree as well in Australia.

And on Japan and Fumio Kishida:

To prime minister Kishida I just think he was an extraordinary host of this Quad leaders’ summit. I very much look forward to working with the prime minister on issues, including on national security issues and defence cooperation.

The prime minister will visit Australia later this year. We discussed potential programs and some initiatives that could arise from that leaders’ summit, which is an annual event between Australia and Japan.