Albo's domestic silence tested to the limit on tour
The Prime Minister has assiduously stuck to his policy of not commenting on domestic issues while overseas, but that has been tested on his latest trip.
Days after being elected prime minister in May, 2022, Anthony Albanese flew to Tokyo for a meeting of the quadrilateral security dialogue where he invoked Bob Hawke’s London convention.
No prime minister had made a serious attempt at implementing the policy of not commenting on domestic issues while overseas since Hawke. Albanese’s predecessor, Scott Morrison, would take questions on the theme of the trip first, but the travelling media pack would invariably move on to domestic questions at some point during the press conference if there was a big story back home.
It was also not a blanket rule under John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott or Malcolm Turnbull.
Albanese has assiduously stuck to the policy, but it has been tested during his trip to Jakarta for the ASEAN summit in recent days.
