Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced that Sydney will host QUAD leaders’ meeting on May 24th. His statement to this effect follows.
“My first act as Prime Minister was, on the 23rd of May last year, to travel to Tokyo for the Quad Leaders meeting. I met with President Biden, Prime Minister Modi and we were hosted by Prime Minister Kishida.
“That was an important meeting for Australia to work with our very close partners in the region and it was a very positive way for me to begin my Prime Ministership. I am pleased today to announce that Sydney will be the host of the Quad Leaders meeting for 2023 and that meeting will be held here on 24 May 2023.
“Prior to that and around that there will be various events, the details with the three leaders that will be announced. But the hosting of this Quad Leaders meeting there at the Sydney Opera House, Australia’s most recognisable building, will be a chance for us to work co-cooperatively with the United States, Japan and India but also will be an enormous opportunity to showcase this beautiful city in this wonderful country to the entire world.
“For the days before, during and after, there will be a world showcase on this city and on our nation of Australia. This, I regard as a real opportunity for us, which will have spin-offs.
“We will be discussing the global economic environment that we know is under pressure due to global inflationary pressures. We know that we live in a more insecure world with strategic competition in our region, with the ongoing impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But we also know that our friends are ones which we have such a strong relationship with. And during the hosting of the meeting at the Sydney Opera House, it will be an opportunity to discuss all of those issues and our common interests, our common interests as democracies, as vibrant economies, as countries who want to work with each other for our common interests in the Indo-Pacific region.