Melissa Clarke: As we've heard, the Prime Minister's come home early from his trade tour in Asia. He was there trying to shore up further supplies of fuel and also of fertiliser. Global Affairs Editor Laura Tingle was travelling with the Prime Minister and is in Kuala Lumpur. Laura, the Prime Minister left Kuala Lumpur ahead of schedule last night because of the fire at the refinery in Geelong. Can you take me through what he's been able to achieve while he's been touring around South East Asia?
Laura Tingle: Yes, Mel. There's been a lot of specific deals, very much focused on addressing our supply chain problems in both energy and fertiliser, which have emerged as two really vulnerable areas for us because we essentially don't produce any of our own. In a visit to Brunei, he's been able to secure agreements on urea, fertiliser-grade urea, and subsequently it was announced that Brunei is part of a deal also involving South Korea to get us 100 million litres extra diesel. So that's good because diesel is obviously one of the petrol products that is most vulnerable at the moment. And then he moved on to Malaysia. There's been a deal, which I suspect was probably already in the making, to expand halal meat exports to Malaysia, but there's also more fertiliser deals, as the Minister's been pointing out, coming from Indonesia. So there are specific deals, but I think the other part of this is that both sides of our trade relationships are vulnerable. So the Prime Minister's been emphasising the importance of Australia, for example, to Malaysia on LNG, and everybody's scrambling to get these deals lined up outside normal sources at the moment. And I think it's been good for the Prime Minister to be talking to his counterparts in other countries while they all work out how they can best get around the sorts of unprecedented blockages that have all flown on as a domino effect from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Melissa Clarke: And Laura, you spoke to the Prime Minister while he was in Kuala Lumpur. What did he tell you?
Laura Tingle: Look, I think he was outlining some of these things to me, Mel, but he was also just reflecting on what's clearly, I mean, politicians never want to alarm people or sound too worried, but clearly the government is deeply worried about where this is going, which is understandable. And he reflected in the interview on just the sorts of issues that are affecting the globe and particularly our economy.
Anthony Albanese: We are preparing for the potential for issues to continue to be around for some time. And one of the things that we know and Australians know is that this is a turbulent period in which there have been moving parts. And in the morning, we wake up and find out that statements or declarations have been made overseas that have an impact here. Now Australia is not a party to this conflict, but we're impacted by it just as our region is.
Melissa Clarke: The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese there, he was speaking to our Global Affairs Editor, Laura Tingle.