Prime Minister in Queensland for annual bilateral with New Zealand Prime Minister

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is preparing to spend the weekend in Queenstown, New Zealand, where he'll meet Kiwi Prime Minister Christopher Luxon for their yearly bilateral meeting.

Transcript

00:00The Prime Minister is arriving here in Queenstown in New Zealand tomorrow and he'll be welcomed

00:07with a traditional Maori ceremony.

00:10The main event he's here for is the annual talks with New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher

00:15Luxon.

00:16It'll be the second that the two will hold together as Prime Ministers.

00:20Aside from that, he'll also be meeting with members of the business community and Mr Albanese

00:25also flagged the other day, potentially attending an ANZAC memorial as well.

00:30But look, he's really only going to be on the ground for something like 24 hours, so it

00:34will be a pretty whirlwind trip.

00:38As I said, the main event is those talks tomorrow and we can expect aside from tourism and trade,

00:43which are two really important industries to both countries, that defence will be a key

00:48focus of those discussions, potentially things like defence spending.

00:53Of course, there's been the big push from the United States for countries to spend more,

00:57but potentially defence procurement as well.

01:00An expert I've been speaking to was saying that the Kiwis could be interested in that

01:05contract that Australia awarded to the Japanese company earlier this week to build the warship,

01:11saying that the Kiwis might be keen to acquire something similar.

01:15Aside from that, there will be discussions about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and

01:21potentially Palestinian statehood as well.

01:23Both Prime Ministers have been in discussions about that and you'd have to imagine with the

01:28developments we've seen out of Israel today and their plan to take over Gaza City, that

01:34the Prime Ministers will speak about that too.

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