YUSUFF ALI, CHAIRMAN LULU GROUP: I'm very happy to welcome his excellency, the Honourable Prime Minister of Australia, the great personality, and he saw each and every product of Australia. And we are very happy to show all this product from Australia. I showed to your excellency, my first visit is in 1983, 8th of September, I visited Australia first to procure the products, including meat, lamb. And excellency, Prime Minister, is very happy that how many years before I started business relation to the great country of Australia, and I am very honoured, and I am thankful to his excellency for visiting and to display and show our Australian products, high quality and very high quality products which Australia is exporting and we are importing. Thank you very much, excellency.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for your very warm welcome here. And thank you as well, a shout out to Austrade and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Australian Meat and Livestock Australia for what is a wonderful exhibition here promoting Australia. What that means is Australian jobs being created, particularly around our regions. Just upstairs at Lulu, we were able to sample Australian lamb, beef, Australian vegetables, Australian supply of products, everything from Bega Cheese through to Arnotts Biscuits, through to Leggos, as well products. And what that means is a promotion of our exports. And I wanted to make sure that my visit here, my official visit to the UAE, was timed with the coming into force of our Free Trade Agreement. On Wednesday morning, October 1, the Free Trade Agreement kicks in. What that does is open up all of the markets of the Middle East through the United Arab Emirates that are an important trading partner for Australia. This is why we need to be engaged in the world. And a shout out to my fantastic Trade Minister, Don Farrell, for the work that he has done. This Free Trade Agreement is comprehensive. It means that 99 per cent of Australian exports into the UAE will be completely tariff free. It also opens up the potential for increased investment from the sovereign wealth funds that are so large here in the UAE. Both of those activities means jobs in Australia, means lifting our living standards. Means particularly jobs in regional Australia as well. It's also a part of our trade diversification agenda. We have worked very hard on making sure that we diversify our trade networks, whether it be the UK, that it had been in operation since 2023, have seen a considerable increase in our exports there. Whether it be the European Free Trade Agreement that we're continuing to negotiate and that I discussed again in New York with Ursula von der Leyen during the week as well. So, this is important to deliver for Australian businesses, for Australian consumers and for our economy. And one of the great things about the Chairman's company, there are 300 supermarkets just like this one. I've encouraged him to come to Australia as well. We need more competition in the Australian supermarket sector, and we've had a little discussion about that as I've been walking around. But this company is big enough to have direct relations with producers, whether they be mango producers, the orange producers, the meat producers the Chairman met in Mudgee, that is still providing Halal certified meat here into this market. I think Australia has the best produce in the world, and I want to see it on the tables of the world's population.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, with your meeting this afternoon, with the Sheikh, with the President, will you be sort of seeking, I guess, details or swapping notes on the Gaza peace plan, given UAE was a party to those talks last week with the President?
PRIME MINISTER: I wouldn't - I don't want to foreshadow all of the detail, but you would, you would expect the answer to be yes, because this is an issue for the Middle East. And just as I had discussions with the President of Jordan, the King of Jordan, when I was there, the Head of State in New York, certainly the Arab League and the role that they're playing in pursuing peace is very important.
JOURNALIST: Just further on that, Prime Minister. Over the course of this whole trip, those that you've spoken to, including Keir Starmer, do you come away with any greater confidence that we are going to see a ceasefire in Gaza?
PRIME MINISTER: I'm certainly hopeful, and President Trump's comments are optimistic. He's someone who has been an advocate for peace and we'll await that. But the world wants to see a ceasefire, wants to see the hostages released, wants to see aid into Gaza, but they also want to talk about the day after and in that that's why the world also wants to see progress towards a two-state solution.
JOURNALIST: What type of role would you see for Australia, and what are the leaders that you're meeting with, like here, what do they see? What do they want to see?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we're not big players in the Middle East compared with other nations that of course, have history. The United Kingdom, speak about the British Mandate, Palestine has all of that history there. The United States obviously has a very critical role to play as well. But Australia has done our part to recognise Palestine, along with other countries, it was a part of our pursuit of peace. And we know that you need to deal with the immediate issues of the ceasefire, but it also needs to be done in a way that ends the cycle of violence. As the two things are connected, people think there will just be a rearmament or a resumption of hostilities, then that makes it difficult to have a ceasefire in the short term. There was a link between the long term solution that is required, the two state solution that Australia has had a long standing position on, indeed that the United Nations envisaged way back in 1947 when they first passed a resolution in 1948 when the State of Israel was created.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, can you explain how being part of a political party conference in Britain and giving some support to the British Prime Minister in that forum is in Australia's national interest?
PRIME MINISTER: I was really able to take up the invitation of Prime Minister Starmer, and I met with all of the senior ministers in his government, including the Deputy Prime Minister, the Defence Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Health Minister. We were able to pursue discussions about AUKUS as well. The discussion I had with David Lammy yesterday was particularly instructive as well, prior to the meeting that I will have with President Trump on October 20. It is in Australia's interest to be engaged with the world. I have been engaged with the world, and including in that of course, I met with the Leader of the Opposition and some of her key people, including the Shadow Education Minister and others as well.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you just went to the Grand Mosque here, travelled to two countries where migration has been an issue, and migration for some countries has been a matter of criticism amongst populous leaders. So what are your reflections on going to the mosque today, and the importance of embracing Muslim communities.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the visit to the Grand Mosque today was a great moment today. It is an extraordinary mosque, that they are quite rightly very proud of. And Australia is a multicultural nation. I think we need to respect people of all faiths and none. So, I think that I have an attitude of support our multiculturalism, of respecting people of faith, and today was another step along that road.
JOURNALIST: We hear a lot about the headline benefits of free trade agreements. I was just noticing upstairs, you tried the beef up there, that the price of beef and Tim Tams are cheaper here in Abu Dhabi than it is back home in Australia. And I just, I guess, for people back home who hear the big headline announcements for them, go, 'okay, so why is our beef cheaper overseas than it is back at home?' Do you want to just sort of explain that that sort of, you know?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, Lulu import large quantities of our beef, including different levels of quality that they're selling here. It's a source of pride that I think we have the best products in the world, and that they're available around the world, providing income for our farmers, that is very important for them.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER: I didn't translate the costs of the calculations. We need, we've said very clearly. On day two of the election campaign, after I did an interview on the Insiders program -
JOURNALIST: Excellent program.
PRIME MINISTER: I went to a backyard on the north side of Canberra. We spoke about price gouging. We spoke about empowering the ACCC. That's something that consumers are rightly concerned about, it's something that my Government is taking action.
JOURNALIST: As you wrap up your trip, three countries - what is the most important thing you think you've done while you're here, and what difference do you think it's made to ordinary Australians?
PRIME MINISTER: Project Australia's position to the world, but also promote Australia's economic interests. When I engage, including right here is a great example, it's about Australian jobs. It's about making a difference. What happens in the world matters. The Russian invasion of Ukraine led directly to an increasing cost on supermarket shelves in Australia. That's why the pursuit of peace and the engagement that I had, once again with Prime Minister Starmer, who, along with President Macron, has played a critical role in the Coalition of the Willing, has been very important as well. So, we engage with the world because it makes a difference to us. Isolationism does not work. It means that to benefit our economy is what my focus is on, but also to project, obviously, the United Nations, project Australia's values. If you look at the well-attended meeting on social media ban that we will have on December 10 for under 16s. That is something that's now being looked at around the world. Something that I had discussions with the leaders who were there on Friday, was discussed with Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada. What that does is obviously make it more successful, if we can have that sort of measure adopted as well. The work that Penny Wong did at the United Nations about humanitarian personnel being protected as well, that was signed up to by over 100 countries is Australia showing leadership. The meeting that we had with investors in the United States was substantial as well. And the meeting here, just two days before our Free Trade Agreement comes into force, is an important plus for Australia as well.
JOURNALIST: Australians are clearly being ripped off when it comes to meat and other produce. Just judging by the prices up there. You say that Lulu brings in a lot more, a lot of beef, I put it to you that Coles and Woolworths would collectively buy many multiple. Have you actually formally asked Lulu to establish itself as a competitor in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, yes, I certainly have. I want to see more competition. That's one of the things that it can bring. This is a significant company. They are the largest throughout the Middle East. Egypt, here, the neighbours, they're the second largest in Saudi Arabia. And so this is a significant company. We know that Aldi, of course, have come to Australia, but this is a significant player that has an engagement with Australia. And, of course, I want to see what competition.
JOURNALIST: And what form did that invitation take? Just the verbal?
PRIME MINISTER: Just verbal, just an engagement, chatting. That's how you build relationships, is engaging directly with people.
JOURNALIST: In your meeting with the Sheikh this afternoon, are you going to be raising the idea of Tony Blair leading a transition authority in Gaza?
PRIME MINISTER: I'm not going to foreshadow those levels of detail. I look forward to the discussion this afternoon, very much so. And thank you for coming along.