Ep. 29: PM Morrison visits the Trump White House; prisoners in Iran; energy security; a visit by Fiji’s PM; climate change

On this week’s episode, Allan and Darren focus on Prime Minister Morrison’s official state visit to the United States this past week and his meetings with Donald Trump at the White House. What is a “state visit”, what could the PM hope to achieve, and what landmines did he need to dodge? In light of a rather extraordinary press conference in the Oval Office, how did Morrison perform overall? And who is Australia’s chief diplomat: the PM or the Foreign Minister? The conversation then turns to Iran and reports that three Australians are imprisoned, as well as the recent attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil production facilities and what this means for Australia’s energy security. The episode concludes by covering the Fijian PM’s recent visit to Canberra and, in the week of the global climate strike and a UN climate summit in New York, how Australia’s position on climate change issues affects our multilateral diplomacy.

As always, we invite our listeners to email us at this address: [email protected] We welcome feedback, requests and suggestions. You can also contact Darren on twitter @limdarrenj 

We thank AIIA intern James Hayne for his help with research and audio editing, and XC Chong for research assistance. As always, we’re grateful to Rory Stenning for composing our theme music.

Relevant links

Trump holds bilateral meeting with Australian PM in Oval Office (video), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leyogCcxEX4

Daniel Flitton, “Trump, Morrison, the media, and heading what you want to hear”, Lowy Interpreter, 23 September 2019: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/trump-morrison-media-hearing-what-you-want-hear

Ben Doherty, “Australia left with few diplomatic levers after three citizens detained in Iran”, The Guardian, 12 September 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/12/australia-left-with-few-diplomatic-levers-after-three-citizens-detained-in-iran

Andrew Robertson, “Australia's fuel supplies vulnerable if Middle East conflict cuts supply”, ABC News, 19 September: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-19/australia-remains-vulnerable-to-running-out-of-fuel/11527492

Julie Suares, “JB Chifley: An ardent internationalist”: https://www.mup.com.au/books/jb-chifley-hardback

Shany Mor, “Nobody understands democracy anymore”, Tablet Magazine, 13 August 2019: https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/289489/nobody-understands-democracy-anymore