Australian PM Albanese to visit Indonesia in first overseas trip since re-election

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s newly re-elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday he would visit Indonesia next a week to underscore a key bilateral relationship.

Albanese said he would meet with President Prabowo Subianto on May 14, a day after his new government is sworn in.

“That is … a signal to our region of the importance that we place on this region. We will in the fastest growing region of the world in human history,” Albanese said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Albanese described Subianto as a “good friend of mine on a personal level as well as our countries being close.”

“We have no more important relationship than Indonesia. We have an important economic relationship with them. They will grow to be the fourth largest economy in the world. We have an important defense and security relationship with them as well,” Albanese said.

Albanese’s center-left Labor Party won a second three-year term in an emphatic election victory on Saturday.

Newly-elected Australian prime ministers typically make their first bilateral visit to Asia, usually Indonesia. But Albanese’s election rival Peter Dutton, leader of the conservative opposition, had proposed breaking from tradition by making his first overseas trip as prime minister to the United States to strike a better tariff deal with President Donald Trump.

Australia was hit during the election campaign with a global-minimum 10% tariff on exports to the U.S. despite trading with its bilateral free trade partner at a deficit for decades.

Media reports last month that Russia had told Jakarta it wanted to base long-range warplanes in Papua, the most eastern Indonesian province, were also raised as a security issue during the election campaign. Indonesia has told Australia that no such Russian base would be allowed.

Cementing Australia’s bilateral relationship with Indonesia is critical, according to Natalie Sambhi, a policy expert with the Sydney-based Asia Society Australia educational institute.

“Indonesia is our closest strategic partner in the region. Visiting again is just sending that message home that Indonesia really matters to Australia and that we have to work together given our proximity as emerging middle-powers in the region,” Sambhi said.

Albanese will travel to Alberta, Canada, in June to attend a Group of 7 summit and is expected to meet Trump during a U.S. bilateral state visit while in North America.