Prime Minister meets with US President Joe Biden at Whitw House
Anthony Albanese has dined at the White House, in a low-key gathering with his partner Jodie and Joe and Jill Biden. Tomorrow will be a day of talks with the president and his cabinet secretaries who've prepared a swag of new energy and infrastructure projects to implement in Australia and the pacific.
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00:00 The world waits for no one, unless they're the President of the United States.
00:07 Mr. President, are you urging Israel to delay its ground invasion, sir?
00:15 An answer worth waiting for, but dinner with guests from down under beckoned. This only
00:24 a warm-up to tomorrow's White House gala.
00:27 I was inspired to bring together the vibrant Australia spring and crisp American autumn.
00:34 Never far from anything on this visit, China's a constant theme.
00:39 China has a head start and that means we have to work a little harder and a little faster.
00:44 At a critical minerals roundtable, Anthony Albanese's thrown another $2 billion down
00:49 for cheap loans and investments to accelerate mining and processing of lithium, cobalt and
00:55 other rare earths. The government's fund now stands at $4 billion with more incentives
01:01 for local manufacturing on the way.
01:03 At a minimum, components for electric vehicles including batteries.
01:08 The Prime Minister's pushing hard now to break a Congressional gridlock over laws needed
01:13 to share AUKUS submarine secrets with Australia. In return, Australia's promising laws to share
01:19 its own military technology too.
01:22 A ballast for our argument of why this legislation's required to be passed by the Congress and
01:29 the Senate.
01:29 The President's men and women are apparently all in.
01:33 We continue to share, continue to provide briefings and information to Congress so that
01:40 they fully understand what we're trying to do here.
01:42 All senior administration figures involved with AUKUS maintain Congress will approve
01:47 what's needed so Australia gets the submarines as promised. Then again, to admit otherwise
01:53 would amount to a concession. The project may be as good as dead in the water.
01:58 Perhaps as a counterweight to those uncertainties, a pile of new announcements is being stacked
02:03 up around this visit. An expansion of fibre optic networks in the Pacific and possible
02:09 space launches from Australia will be added to tomorrow's talks inside the White House.
02:15 [BLANK_AUDIO]