The Prime Minister is both coy and acting flippant about a so-called ‘secret’ meeting between Ambassador Kevin Rudd and US President Donald Trump at a Florida golf club.

Let us be kind and refer to the event as being ‘downplayed’, as it seems neither the Ambassador nor the Prime Minister were keen to promote its existence in the press.

If relations between American and Australia were comfy, this brief encounter would be a non-story, but Albanese is on his way to shake the hand of communist Xi Jinping after failing to secure a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump.

Albanese is caught between disingenuous panda diplomacy and a restless eagle building its nest.

This is a situation described as a ‘terrible lapse of judgment’ by former Prime Minister John Howard.

‘I think that it’s a very bad thing, very bad thing, that he’s still not had a face-to-face meeting with the new American President […] I’m not saying that he should insult or ignore the Chinese, far from it … but heavens above. Trump has been the President of the United States since the 20th of January this year, and our Prime Minister hasn’t had a meeting with him.’

It is well within the realms of possibility that Albanese has been kept at arm’s length deliberately as punishment for disparaging comments made by both Albanese and Mr Rudd. This is a sin Mr Howard is also guilty of, having previously described Trump’s behaviour as not ‘compatible with democracy’.

‘Everything we’re witnessing in America tells us is that their political system is far inferior to ours. In a parliamentary system, Donald Trump would never have got to the leadership of the Republicans, and I don’t think Kamala Harris would ever have got to the leadership of the Democrats. We wouldn’t have gone through the agony the Democrats went through regarding Joe Biden.’

We may wonder how Mr Howard considers these earlier comments now, given Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by both Pakistan and Israel, and may be again over his role in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He succeeded where the statesmen failed.

While Australia may not have weathered a Biden figure, we did suffer through the Rudd-Gillard debacle and the broad church laughing stock of Turnbull. Mr Howard is right, Trump never would have made it through the factional swamp of Australian politics, and some are wondering if that means the conservative party is doomed to collapse as the Tories are in the process of doing.

The Trump Administration has given Albanese plenty of space to remediate his earlier mistakes.

He has taken this generous opportunity to indulge in what Labor perceives as China’s fast and easy money. Not very bright, our Prime Minister. Communist China is the nation America is most concerned about and the reason the White House is instructing Australia to pull its weight in the defence partnership. Climbing into bed with Beijing prior to an American deal is reckless.

America spends a fortune maintaining freedom of navigation in the Pacific (protecting Australia’s shipping routes) from China’s overt aggression and territorial disputes.

Our trade lines are not under threat because Australia is a Western nation removed from Asia, it’s a general Chinese-expansionist problem where Beijing struggles with the idea that there are international laws.

Even when Obama was President, our Pacific neighbours were begging the Democrat regime to help them defend against Chinese violations of territorial waters. A lack of strength a decade ago led to a situation where China has smothered coral atolls with concrete and built advanced missile bases in disputed waters from which they can launch a Pacific war.

In 2013, China insisted it had no intention of militarising these reclaimed reefs. I don’t claim to be an expert but take a look at the runway on Fiery Cross Reef and decide for yourself if this is ‘militarised’.

There are dozens of other reefs with similar bases and warships cruising around in the background, while environmental destruction of the region falls on deaf ears at the United Nations.

Where are the Greens championing their policy of de-escalation when it comes to China?

They panic over The Great Barrier Reef but have little to say about the enormous environmental destruction caused by a communist regime obsessed with militarisation. Indeed, one Greens Senator was reluctant to criticise China for conducting live-fire exercises off the Australian coast, preferring to blame the situation on our ties to America. Let’s turn that logic around, would it be acceptable for Australian forces to park a warship inside the Spratly Islands and perform a few drills the next time China talks to North Korea?

It is fair to ask, do the Greens care about the environment or are they more concerned with protecting the political reputation of collectivist regimes?

Honesty about communism would make an environmental election pitch tricky. Let’s be more like the renewable empire of China! Just don’t look at their poisoned rivers, over-fished seas, urban wastelands, unbreathable air, and dismembered sacred mountains. Australia needs to be more like China!

Before Net Zero socialism started getting involved, Australia’s Western capitalist democracy was one of the best environmental guardians in the world. Not that we got any credit for it.

Returning to the meeting between Ambassador Rudd and the US President. Deputy Liberal Leader Ted O’Brien said:

‘We don’t know if it was just a matter of Kevin Rudd waving at the President. Nobody knows. But what it does expose is the fact we’re even talking about this. It says the Prime Minister needs to meet with the President. I mean, it’s crazy. You know, this is the biggest news we have of an engagement with the President of the United States. Says it all.’

Albanese was dragged, reluctantly, out in front of the cameras to make a few meaningless statements:

‘I’d spoken publicly about this at the time … they had a brief discussion. It’s out there … it’s pretty hard for it to be a secret when you talk about it and get asked about it on morning TV.’

He added, ‘What we need from [the Opposition] is less hyperventilation and more concentration of what Australia’s national interest is … so the Opposition need to decide whether they’re going to continue to just undermine Australia’s national interest, or whether they’ll join Team Australia. That is a decision for them.’

Eventually, the Department of Foreign Affairs offered a few details.

‘Ambassador Rudd met President Trump in the dining room of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on January 11, 2025.’

Of course, there’s another problem for the Liberal Party attempting to wedge Ambassador Rudd between the Prime Minister and US President… The Liberal Party threw Donald Trump to the wolves during the election when they lost their minds over the whole MAGA hat saga.

This was expressed perfectly by our Editor-in-Chief on Outsiders:

‘The Coalition’s embrace of Net Zero, Dutton’s acceptance of Kevin Rudd as the US Ambassador, and the Liberal Party’s antipathy to all things Trumpian would cost them the election. An election, following the Voice to Parliament, they could have easily won.

‘To my dismay, many conservative commentators still don’t get it.

‘So many of them are still obsessed with loathing Donald Trump, and in doing so, I am afraid they are guilty of seriously misleading their readers.’

After running through examples showing Trump’s popularity within the Australian community, he added: ‘Yet at the time, both Labor and conservative commentators and pundits kept telling us the opposite and the fools at Liberal Party HQ listened to them.’

We all remember the insane scene of Peter Dutton falling over himself to get away from Trump comparisons.

It is unlikely the contents of the Rudd-Trump conversation will be made public, that is, if they spoke at all.

Instead, we will have to settle for Rowan Dean’s skit in which he posed as Donald Trump, imagining what the President might have said to Kevin Rudd. ‘I thought Greg was going to be our Ambassador?! Or Gina. Gorgeous Gina. Dig, baby, dig!!!’