Starmer speaks to Australian counterpart after ‘historic election win’
Sir Keir Starmer has spoken to Anthony Albanese after the Australian leader won a second term with his centre-left government.
The Prime Minister congratulated Albanese on Sunday morning for his “historic election win” after he became the first Australian prime minister to win a second consecutive three-year term in two decades.
“Australia and the UK has a strong and enduring friendship, and the Prime Minister said he looked forward to working with Prime Minister Albanese in the years to come, including through increased trade and economic security for working people in both countries,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.
They discussed defence and security, including shared support for Ukraine and agreed to “increase ambition” on the Aukus submarine programme.
Starmer said he would ask his Aukus adviser, Sir Stephen Lovegrove, to travel to Australia in the coming weeks to discuss the programme further. Aukus is a trilateral naval security alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
During a victory speech in Sydney, Albanese suggested his Labor Party government has increased its majority in the next Parliament by not modelling itself on US President Donald Trump’s administration.
The party branded Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton “Doge-y Dutton” and accused his conservative Liberal Party of mimicking Trump and his department of government efficiency run by billionaire Elon Musk.
Dutton lost his parliamentary seat of 24 years in the Labor landslide, with analysts arguing that mirroring Trump switched from a political positive for Australian conservatives to a negative after the US president imposed global tariffs.
Parallels have been drawn to the recent Canadian election, in which opposition leader Pierre Poilievre also lost his seat.
Poilievre had been regarded as the favourite to become Canada’s next prime minister and return his Conservative Party to power for the first time in a decade until Mark Carney’s Liberals won the vote after Trump’s global trade disputes, including a threat to make Canada the “51st US state”.
By Helen Corbett, PA Political Correspondent