Albanese flies to Caribbean for summit as households brace for rate pain

Anthony Albanese is travelling to Antigua and Barbuda for the 28th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

Mr Albanese will advance Australia's bid for a seat on the UN Security Council in 2029.

Climate, AI regulation, trade and reparations for slavery will also feature in talks.

The prime minister will advance Australia's campaign for a seat on the United Nations Security Council when he meets Commonwealth leaders in Antigua and Barbuda this week, leaving colleagues to face the fallout of a widely anticipated interest rate rise on Tuesday.

As Coalition figures accuse Anthony Albanese of "jetting off" to the Caribbean while Australians struggle with the cost of living, the prime minister said his attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) came at the personal request of King Charles.

"[CHOGM] provides Australia an opportunity to work with some of our closest partners on shared challenges, including climate change, the preservation of our oceans, trade and investment, and the rise of AI," Mr Albanese said.

"It's also an important opportunity for Australia to advance our campaign for a seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2029-30."

The availability of leaders from 56 nations will also give Mr Albanese an opportunity to speak to key negotiating blocs ahead of summit season, with COP 31, APEC, G20, and the East Asia Summit all in November.

Mr Albanese will hold sideline talks with UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney, and is expected to meet several Pacific and African leaders.

While Mr Albanese and Mr Burnham briefly met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September, their first official meeting is set to focus on AI, fuel security amid war in the Middle East, and ballooning British backpacker numbers.

Under a 2021 Morrison-era free trade deal, a rule forcing British backpackers to work in rural and regional Australia was scrapped, leading to a near doubling of UK working holiday-makers.

The government has already directed a "go slow" on processing UK working holiday visas, sitting at about 80,000 per year, but will still allow UK citizens to bypass rural and regional work.

Labor has also introduced a backpacker visa lottery, capping second-year visas at 45,000 and third-year visas at 5,000.

The agreement has been partly blamed for worsening labour shortages in rural Australia and persistently high Net Overseas Migration levels.

CHOGM is one of the few multilateral forums without the presence of the US or China, but geopolitics will still loom large over the summit.

Over the past two decades, China has poured billions into the region, funding major infrastructure projects across the Caribbean, including Antigua's main port, airport and cricket stadium where CHOGM events will tee off.

Last week, the Trump administration announced it would invest more than $US340 million ($484 million) across 15 Caribbean nations, focusing on digital infrastructure, health care and regional security.

In a pre-CHOGM speech, Commonwealth Secretary-General Shirley Botchwey called for far greater trade cooperation and social mobility among Commonwealth nations, whose combined economies are worth nearly $30 trillion.

"I believe passionately in the Commonwealth's potential to benefit its members and their people today and in the future. And that full potential is still untapped," she said.

Ms Botchwey also called for "bold and urgent change" in the international system amid "a new era of fracture".

"What's clear is that business as usual in international affairs will no longer cut it," she said.

Despite Antigua's distance from the region, there are many intersecting issues that Caribbean and Pacific leaders want to discuss this week, including climate change, the legacy of colonisation, and to a lesser extent for the Pacific, the impacts of slavery.

Rising sea levels pose an existential threat to low-lying Caribbean nations, which are more susceptible to natural disasters, and whose economies rely heavily on tourism.

Australian mining magnate Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest is also planning to sail into Antigua's port on the "Fortescue Green Pioneer", the world's first dual-fuel vessel capable of running on green ammonia.

During the 2024 CHOGM in Samoa, leaders acknowledged the "common historical experiences" of colonisation, dispossession of Indigenous peoples, and slavery and committed to '"inclusive conversations" to address the harms of those legacies.

Mr Albanese described the practice of black birding (which saw tens of thousands of Pacific Islanders coerced or kidnapped into indentured labour) as "a sorry chapter in Australia’s history" but said his focus was on the future.

The current Burnham UK government, like the Starmer government before it, has ruled out paying reparations for slavery.

Caribbean and African leaders will, however, want to continue discussions on reparatory justice this week.

CHOGM is expected to tee off on Sunday with a leader's cricket match at the Viv Richards Stadium in St John's, named after the legendary Antiguan cricketer who is the summit's official envoy.

The prime minister won't be playing, but will attend the match.