PM tours UAE mosque, pleads with Middle Eastern grocery giant to set up shop in Australia

1 week ago 8

Anthony Albanese has used the end of the longest overseas trip of his prime ministership to make a public plea for a Middle Eastern grocery giant to enter the Australian market in a bid to bring down supermarket prices as he toured one of the world’s biggest mosques alongside partner Jodie Haydon.

Albanese arrived in the United Arab Emirates on Monday, when he exchanged notes on the war in Gaza with the country’s leader as the opposition continued to blast him for agreeing to deliver a keynote address at the British Labour Party conference in Liverpool.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Jodie Haydon visit Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Monday.

While in Abu Dhabi on a refuelling stop before returning to Australia after an 11-day trip across three nations, Albanese and Haydon visited the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, which is capable of holding about 7800 worshippers.

The gleaming white marble complex was opened in 2007 and is the resting place of the Emirati founding father Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.

Albanese later met Zayed’s son, the current UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who was one of the Middle Eastern leaders invited by US President Donald Trump to discuss the war in Gaza on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last week.

Albanese said it was a “great honour” to be at the mosque, the largest in the UAE.

“You get the feeling when you are here about the human experience and how humble we are before the glory of God,” he said.

The government, which held on to seats with large Muslim populations despite anger over the government’s handling of the war on Gaza, recently released a report by the special envoy for combating Islamophobia containing recommendations for legal change to protect religious minorities.

After the mosque visit, Albanese visited a nearby branch of the Lulu Hypermarket, one of the biggest retail chains in the Middle East.

The store was packed with Australian products such as Tim Tams and Arnott’s Shapes to celebrate the imminent start of the Australia-UAE free trade agreement.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during a visit to Lulu Hypermarket, which imports Australian goods to the UAE, in Abu Dhabi.

After sampling imported Australian beef and mangoes, Albanese was pressed on why some imported Australian meat products were cheaper in the UAE than Australia.

Standing beside Lulu Group chairman M. A. Yusuff Ali, Albanese said he had urged the Indian billionaire businessman to expand its operations into Australia.

“One of the great things about the chairman’s company, there are 300 supermarkets just like this one,” Albanese said. “I’ve encouraged him to come to Australia as well.

“We do need more competition in the Australian supermarket sector, and we’ve had a little discussion about that as I’ve been walking around.”

Lulu Group runs more than 175 supermarkets in the UAE, and hundreds in total across the Middle East and Asia.

Asked whether he had formally invited the company to enter the Australian market, Albanese said: “Yes, I certainly have.”

The Australia-UAE free trade agreement, Australia’s first trade deal in the Middle East, will take effect on October 1.

Struck in September 2024, the agreement will allow almost all Australian exports into the UAE tariff-free once fully implemented, saving Australian exporters up to $204 million a year.

Albanese said he would speak about plans for post-war Gaza in his meeting with the UAE president as he expressed hope that there could soon be a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

“We know that you need to deal with the immediate issues of a ceasefire, but it also needs to be done in a way that ends the cycle of violence,” he said.

The UAE, which established diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020 in a landmark deal brokered by the Trump administration, could act as an important player in post-war Gaza.

Australia officially recognised Palestine as a state during last week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York, and Albanese has expressed openness to Australia playing a role in a peacekeeping effort in Gaza.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said Albanese had “crossed a line” by speaking at the UK Labour conference on the final day of a three-day visit to Britain the day before.

“In fact, he didn’t just cross a line, he flew to the other side of the world to give a partisan political speech on behalf of a political party in another country,” she said.

Victoria Starmer, wife of the British PM, with Anthony Albanese’s fiancee Jodie Haydon and former prime minister Julia Gillard at the UK Labour annual conference in Liverpool.

“That is totally unacceptable.”

Albanese said it was in the national interest for him to appear at the Labour conference, saying he met an array of senior ministers and held important discussions on AUKUS ahead of his October 20 trip to the White House to meet Trump.

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