This week in Australian foreign affairs: Albanese welcomed King Charles III and Queen Camilla to Australia; Albanese attends 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Samoa; Marles in Indonesia for inauguration of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, and more.

On 21 October, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomed King Charles III and Queen Camilla to Australia. In a speech to Parliament House, Albanese commemorated the King’s travels to Australia, beginning first in 1966, and talked of the quiet yet deeply personal interest Queen Camilla has taken in Australian in her work over the years. While in Australia, the King and Queen “honoured fallen Australians at the Australian War Memorial, visited Parliament House and learned more about Australia’s unique environment and the impact of climate change on our ecosystems at the National Botanic Gardens.” They attended a Fleet Review of the Royal Australian Navy and visited the Sydney Opera House and a community barbecue in Western Sydney. Additionally, the “Queen assisted volunteers at OzHarvest to prepare meals and spent time hearing from women’s safety advocates about their vital work at Government House.” This was the first visit to Australian by the King as sovereign.

Albanese announced on 23 October that he will attend the 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Samoa from 24 to 26. This will be his first visit to Samoa as prime minister. He will be joined by Minster for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong. Australia will “support Samoa as host of a uniquely Pacific CHOGM — the first to be hosted by a Pacific island country.” A key focus of the meeting will be on addressing climate change and the sustainable management of oceans. According to the statement, “Australia is working with the international community to pursue security and economic opportunity in a net zero future. Albanese will join representatives from more than 50 countries to work with Commonwealth members to address global challenges.”

Over the weekend, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles travelled to Indonesia to represent Australia at the inauguration of incoming Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto. Marles expressed Australia’s thanks to outgoing President Joko Widodo and his administration for “our strengthened bilateral ties. Key milestones include elevation of bilateral relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2018, entry into force of the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in 2020 and signing of the Defence Cooperation Agreement in August 2024.”

On 22 October, Marles joined Minister for Defence Industry and Capability Delivery Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy to announce new investment agreement with the United States to acquire state-of-the-art long-range missiles. The US$7 billion “acquisition of the Standard Missile 2 Block IIIC (SM-2 IIIC) and Standard Missile‑6 (SM-6) is a significant milestone in the Government’s rapid progress in boosting the long-range capability of Navy’s surface combatant fleet,” the statement reads. The missiles will be deployed “across Navy’s Hobart class destroyers and in the future, the Hunter class frigates. This follows the recent successful test firing of a SM-6 from HMAS Sydney.” The SM-2 IIIC brings “active seeker technology and significantly enhanced defensive capabilities against missile threats,” and will provide Australia with extended range air defence capability against air and missile threats, an offensive anti-ship capability and for the first time, a terminal ballistic missile defence capability.”

Marles and Conroy joined together again on 25 October to announce the first large-scale demonstration of advanced capabilities, during Exercise Autonomous Warrior 2024 in Jervis Bay, NSW. “Over the past month, hundreds of uniformed personnel and industry participants from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have operated 30 asymmetric capabilities from across the three countries.” Exercise Autonomous Warrior is the “first Australian-based exercise under the AUKUS Pillar II Maritime Big Play initiative – a series of integrated trilateral experiments and exercises aimed at enhancing advanced capability development, improving interoperability, and increasing the sophistication and scale of autonomous systems in the maritime domain.” Some of the “capabilities trialled included the long-range loitering strike glider OWL-B; the uncrewed surface vessel Bluebottle; the extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle Ghost Shark; and the large uncrewed underwater vehicle Speartooth.” Japan joined the AUKUS partners as an observer of the Maritime Big Play series.

On 23 October, Wong announced a new high commissioner to Tuvalu, David Charlton. Charlton is currently working in the Pacific region as Executive Director of the Australia – Pacific Partnerships for Aviation Program (P4A). He also served as Acting Head of Mission at the Australian High Commission in Kiribati in early 2023. Additionally, Wong announced the appointment of Ms Olivia Phongkham as Australia’s next High Commissioner to Niue. “Phongkham is a career officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and was most recently posted as an adviser to the PACER Plus Implementation Unit in Samoa.” Further appointments include Kate Logan as Australia’s High Commissioner to Canada, Lynette Wood as Australia’s Ambassador to France, and Julianne Cowley as Australia’s Ambassador to Italy.

Wong joined Conroy and Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Tim Watts to announce the bolstering of food security in Africa. The program will be announced at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and the Partnership will use Australian expertise to support the climate resilience of farming communities in Africa. “Delivered by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) over a six-year period, the first year of $11.9 million in funding will contribute to the development of new bilateral research projects and training programs, in close collaboration with local partners.” The “Partnership will allow ACIAR to expand its operations into Northern and Western Africa, as well as deliver capacity development and innovative partnerships across the continent.”

Dr Adam Bartley is the managing editor for AIIA’s Australian Outlook and weekly columnist for The Week in Australian Foreign Affairs. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and non-resident fellow at the Elliot School for International Affairs, the George Washington University. Adam also has positions as post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation RMIT University  and as program manager of the AI Trilateral Experts Group. He can be found on Twitter here.

This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.