‘An element of trust': Inside Xi and Albanese's warm, funny private lunch in Beijing

The Age

12 hours ago

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has feted a rare intimate lunch with Chinese President Xi Jinping as a moment of 'trust' in an ambitious new phase in relations, after years of Australia pursuing a more limited policy of stabilisation.
Revealing details of the event for the first time, the prime minister also used an interview to shift his gaze to the domestic agenda, with Labor to pursue pre-election pledges to wipe 20 per cent off student debt and enshrine penalty rates in law, and rush through new laws to boost childcare centre safety after shock allegations of a child abuse in Melbourne and Sydney.
However, the prime minister said he would not seek to pass a contentious super tax hike in the first fortnight of parliamentary sessions of the 48th parliament.
Instead, Labor's 17 new MPs will deliver their maiden speeches, led by Ali France and Sarah Witty , who respectively toppled former Coalition leader Peter Dutton and ex-Greens leader Adam Bandt.
Albanese demanded the Coalition get out of the way of his agenda after it described his week of high-level talks in China as 'indulgent' and a 'working holiday'.
In an interview on his flight back to Australia, the prime minister provided details about a private banquet that Xi organised after the pair's formal bilateral talks. Until now, he had not spoken at length about the private meal that analysts have said was a treat few foreign leaders were handed when they travelled to Beijing.
'He was very personal. It was a very personal discussion,' Albanese said of the lunch in Beijing's Great Hall on Tuesday.
'We got to know each other a lot more; a lot more about our backgrounds, our upbringing, our views, a lot more about everything … There was humour.