Anthony Albanese has confirmed the Sydney Quad meeting will not go ahead, after US president Joe Biden pulled out of his Australian visit to deal with domestic issues.
Early Wednesday morning Albanese was still hopeful the meeting with the leaders of India and Japan could proceed with a senior representative from the US, but hours later he confirmed the event was off.
Instead, the Quad nations are expected to have a sideline meeting at the G7 summit in Hiroshima this weekend, with all four leaders still attending.
While a meeting is yet to be locked in for the Japan gathering, Albanese said it was “appropriate that we talk”.
“The Quad is an important body and we want to make sure that it occurs at leadership level and we’ll be having that discussion over the weekend,” he said.
Biden’s visit to Australia, with a historic stop to Papua New Guinea having been confirmed in recent weeks, had been long anticipated and would have included an address to the parliament.
Instead, Albanese will hold a bilateral meeting with Biden in Japan, and has been invited to the US later this year for a state visit.
It is not known when Biden will be able to reschedule his Australian trip.
The postponement, due to hostile negotiations with the Republican-heavy US Congress over the government’s debt ceiling, comes at a delicate time in the US’s engagement with the Pacific region.
The visit was supposed to help cement the US’s renewed interest in the Indo-Pacific and help quell regional concerns over the Aukus agreement.
In a radio interview speaking on the postponement, Albanese stressed Biden’s commitment to the Quad arrangement.
“President Biden emphasised the importance of the Quad,” he said.
“He was very disappointed at some of the actions of some members of Congress and the US Senate. We long ago passed the time where opposition parties tried to hold up supply in Australia … but that effectively is what you’ve got in the US at the moment.
“And obviously the domestic priority for the president, understandably, is to play a role in resolving those issues.”
Albanese confirmed that the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, would still visit Australia next week for a bilateral meeting and to make a public address in Sydney.
“I look forward to welcoming him to Sydney. He made me a very welcome guest in March and he is the host of the G20 this year,” Albanese told ABC Radio Brisbane.
But Albanese indicated that the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, was no longer likely to visit Australia. He noted Kishida had visited Perth late last year, and Albanese would attend the G7 summit hosted by Kishida this weekend.
Formally called the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, the US, Japan, India and Australia relationship was formed during the international response to the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, officially meeting for the first time in 2007.
It was disbanded in 2008, although the history of Quad 1.0 remains contested, with some blaming the Australia government under Kevin Rudd for pulling back in a bid not to upset China, while others point to the US’s own go-slow approach for the break.
It was revived at the 2017 Asean summit at a ministerial level, while Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister and Donald Trump was US president. Further meetings were held between the four nations, including among defence personnel, and “leaders’ summits” have been held since 2021.
The Quad was instrumental in creating the concept of the “Indo-Pacific”, instead of the Asia Pacific, in a nod to the ties between the nations between the Indian and Pacific oceans.
