Albanese’s trip to the UN was more than selfies with leaders. Now he needs to convince voters

September 26, 2026 — 10:50am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

New York: Anthony Albanese has never been consumed by foreign affairs.

He is not a student of geopolitics in the way some predecessors were. He does not appear particularly curious in the grand architecture of international relations.

But he does like making influential friends. He loves sitting down with other leaders, finding common ground or passions and building relationships that might be useful later.

In a world where Australia has little capacity to impose its will, that is not nothing. And it is the foundation of Albanese’s middle-power strategy.

His week in New York has brought that into a sharper focus. He argued the international order is under great strain that superpowers are increasingly prepared to bend or ignore its rules, and that countries such as Australia need to work with other middle powers to stop the system collapsing into one governed by power alone.

The political problem is that the more Albanese engages with the world, the more carefully he must explain why he is doing it.

There is a fine line between an Australian prime minister using international relationships to advance the........

© The Sydney Morning Herald