Doorstop - Kuala Lumpur

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: I've just had the enormous pleasure of meeting young people from throughout the ASEAN region who are receiving support with the Australian Leaders Dialogue Program that we have with ASEAN, bringing together people from all of the countries of ASEAN to engage with each other, and importantly, as well, to engage with Australia. They visited Parliament House just a few weeks ago, and I got to see them there when they were walking around Parliament and engaging in Canberra. At the end of the day, what the world needs is more interaction, more cooperation, more engagement on peace and security, dealing with the challenge but also the opportunity of climate change. And these are young people who are optimistic about the world's future and who are helping to create that better future for the entire region.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what will your message be to ASEAN this afternoon, particularly about responsibility for regional security?

PRIME MINISTER: My message this afternoon to ASEAN leaders is that we need to uphold the international rules and norms. We need to as well, engage with each other. This is the fastest growing region of the world in human history. If we have more cooperation, more engagement, more free and fair trade, then that represents an opportunity for the entire region. From Australia's perspective, what we want to do is to be more engaged in this region. In recent years, we've doubled our trade with this region, that means more jobs for Australians, more economic activity in Australia, as well as a more prosperous and secure region. We have three pillars of our foreign policy - our engagement and alliance with the United States, our engagement with our region, but also our support for multilateral forums - and that's why this positive engagement is so important. The fifth Australia-ASEAN Summit this afternoon will be an opportunity for that. It will also build on the bilateral meetings I have this morning with the leaders of the Philippines and Thailand, and last night as well, there was an opportunity for me to engage with the leaders in our region. We have a new Prime Minister of Thailand who I was able to meet informally with last night. These relations are all important for Australia as we go forward.

JOURNALIST: There are growing prospects that China may back off what's on its rare earths export controls as part of a US deal on Thursday. Do you anticipate they'll change anything about the critical minerals deal we signed to the White House last week?

PRIME MINISTER: Our deal is a good deal for Australia and for the United States. Critical minerals and rare earths as an opportunity for Australians to benefit Australians to have more jobs, to have more, not just resource extraction, but value adding as well with processing. This is all important for Australia as we go forward, and we will engage, and I think, continue to see more investment, which is about setting ourselves up for success in coming years and decades. These rare earths and critical minerals are what will power the global economy this century, and just as Australia has benefited from resources in the last century, such as iron ore, that will continue, but we need to diversify our trade and where we get that economic growth and activity from, and that's why we're doing this.

JOURNALIST: President Trump is in Tokyo, and he's meeting with the new Prime Minister. You met her the other day. What did she have to say about AUKUS? And are we looking at the possibility of JAUKUS?

PRIME MINISTER: AUKUS is an arrangement between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and we're very much focused on delivering that and getting that right. And significant advances have been made in that, as President Trump made clear. The meeting I had with the new Japanese Prime Minister was very positive and constructive. I'll see her again. She will be at APEC. She has invited me to come to Japan. Of course, some Mogami frigates that we are purchasing from Japan are going to be very important. And that process, as well, is a separate one, where we not only will be purchasing frigates, we'll be producing frigates as well in Western Australia, with the support and know how as well of our friends in Japan. All of this is very positive going forward. Thanks very much.