Key events
Albanese heads to Indonesia
Global tensions and Indonesia’s developing relationship with China and Russia will likely be on the agenda when Anthony Albanese makes his first overseas trip of his second term, Australian Associated Press reports.
The prime minister will travel to Jakarta today where he will meet Indonesian president, Prabowo Subianto.
Prabowo released a video of his conversation with Albanese after his thumping election win, saying he was “so happy” to see him win another term.
The prime minister told the Indonesian president he wanted Jakarta to be his first visit, not Washington or Beijing.
The first state visit to Indonesia continued a legacy set up by the Howard government, which was symbolic in projecting Australia’s identity as being close to Asia, Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Gatra Priyandita said.
“Albanese is interested in maintaining that image of Australia as being independent of the United States and close to the region,” he told AAP.
“There is great interest in Indonesia’s developing relationship with both Russia and China, with Indonesia establishing some of its first naval exercises with Russia recently, so it will probably be under discussion.”
Reports in April that Moscow was seeking permission from Jakarta for Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft to be based in Indonesia alarmed Canberra.
Indonesian authorities reassured their Australian counterparts that would not be the case, but didn’t confirm if the request had been made.
The prime minister went back on a pledge to attend Prabowo’s inauguration in October 2024, because of a visit to Australia by King Charles.
Dr Gatra said his concern was that the visit would be purely symbolic.
“I haven’t heard much in the context of practical deliverables,” he said.
“It’s very important for Australia and Indonesia to think about strategic co-operation … especially since both Albanese and Prabowo will likely be counterparts for quite some time.”
Catie McLeod
Child killed and three injured in NSW road collision
A child has died and three people have been injured in a collision between a ute and a truck on the New South Wales south coast, the state’s police force has said.
Last night, police said emergency services had been called to Towamba Road in Nullica near Eden at about 4.10pm yesterday, where they found a six-year-old boy who had been travelling in the dual-cab ute had died at the scene.
The driver, a man aged in his 30s, and a three-year-old girl, who was a passenger in the ute, suffered multiple injuries were flown to hospital from Merimbula airport, police said.
A third passenger in the ute, an eight-year-old girl, was taken to South-East Regional hospital in Bega, police said.
Police said the driver of the truck, believed to be aged in his 50s, had been taken to the same hospital in Bega for mandatory testing and to be treated for the effects of shock. Police said police from the southern region crash investigation investigation unit would examine the scene of the collison.
Towamba Road was expected to be closed for part of the night as the investigation began.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories before your regular blogger takes over the reins.
Yesterday Jim Chalmers said policy uncertainty means Australia is in for a lot of economic uncertainty. Today, we report on how although signs of appeasement between the US and China on trade is good news for Australia’s China-dependent economy, many market experts think that the chaos created by Donald Trump is “worse than the 10% tariff”. Reflecting that, perhaps, the ASX200 is set to open down around 0.5% when it opens later this morning. We’ll have more as it happens.
Anthony Albanese will make his first overseas visit since winning the election when he sets off for Indonesia today. The prime minister will travel to Jakarta where he will meet Indonesia’s president, Prabowo Subianto. The summit follows reports during the election campaign that Moscow was seeking permission from Jakarta for Russian aerospace forces aircraft to be based in Indonesia, causing alarm in Canberra.
