LATIKA M BOURKE: Australia not invited to US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace signing in Egypt

Australia was not invited to attend Donald Trump’s official Gaza peace signing ceremony in Egypt overnight and did not ask to attend, Government officials have confirmed.

This is despite the Government’s claim that its decision to recognise Palestine played a key part in the US President’s personally-brokered ceasefire to bring the war in Gaza to an end after two years of fighting.

Mr Trump lavished praise on the more than 20 leaders who showed up, saying he appreciated their attendance, particularly those who rang and requested to be included, such as Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Those in attendance included Egyptian host, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the head of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari, the leaders of Azjerbaijan, Armenia, Cyprus, the Arab League as well as the Secretary General of the UN — an organisation Mr Trump berated for not helping resolve the conflicts including the Gaza conflict.

Other leaders attending included Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italy’s Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, France’s President Emanuel Macron, Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

“These people all came with like 20 minutes’ notice and I think it’s fantastic,” Mr Trump said.

“And it’s such a compliment to what we’re doing because what we’ve done is something very unique and very special.”

He described the group assembled as representing the wealthiest and most powerful group of nations.

Mr Trump said Canada’s Mark Carney had called to request a place at the summit.

“He knew the importance of this, he said: ‘I want to be there,’” Mr Trump said.

“So many people have done that; they called, they heard about it. And these are not people that can do that very easily.

“They have pretty big schedules to put it mildly. The most powerful people. And I appreciate you being here, it’s fantastic.”

A notable inclusion in the line-up was the socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who is at loggerheads with the Trump Administration over Spain’s low defence spending.

Spain’s defence spending is roughly the same as Australia’s as a percentage of GDP, at around 2 per cent. Mr Sanchez, like Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, is refusing to raise Spain’s defence spending to the new NATO threshold that Mr Trump has demanded of 3.5 per cent.

Spanish officials believe that countries that have agreed to that pledge are fibbing and will never meet the pledge. Few NATO members have set out exactly how they plan to ramp up their defence spending, as many countries struggle to record any meaningful economic growth.

But Mr Trump, who has raised the idea of throwing Spain out of NATO and imposing tariffs on the European member state, put their differences aside.

“Are you guys working with him with respect to the GDP?” Mr Trump appeared to ask the other European leaders before telling Mr Sanchez, “We’ll get close, we’ll get close, fantastic job you’re doing.”

When asked if Australia was invited, The Nightly was directed to an interview Foreign Minister Penny Wong conducted on the ABC.

The Foreign Minister was asked if Australia sought to be involved in the peace conference at a government or official level.

Senator Wong said: “Look, we’re not involved at that conference, but we certainly will engage and we certainly will be looking at what occurs.”

The Labor government has repeatedly said it is not a central player in the Middle East.

But last week, the foreign minister and prime minister both sought to claim some of the credit for President Trump’s breakthrough by claiming that their recognition of Palestine at the recent United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York contributed to the momentum toward the breakthrough.

The opposition’s foreign spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said the snub showed the truth.

“Prime Minister Albanese and Foreign Minister Wong’s attempts to claim some credit for President Trump’s Middle East peace deal have been exposed as a complete fantasy,” she said.

“The fact Australia doesn’t have a seat at the Gaza peace summit underlines just how irrelevant Labor’s foreign policy and diplomatic influence is.

“For two years, Minister Wong’s approach to the Middle East has been divisive, inconsistent, and damaging to our alliances. She’s alienated Israel, confused our allies, and emboldened Hamas.”

Australia’s recognition of Palestine was done in conjunction with France, Canada and the United Kingdom and others.

While it brought Australia into line with the majority of the international community, it was a significant break with the United States and earned a public rebuke from the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio who said that the governments were simply responding to domestic political pressures.

After recognising Palestine in his UNGA debut, Mr Albanese flew to London to share a stage with centre-left prime ministers Keir Starmer and Mr Carney.

He also met Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, but unlike the left-leaning leaders, did not seek to be involved in Mr Trump’s peace signing ceremony, one of the crowning achievements of Trump’s ten-month-old Administration.

Mr Albanese is currently on holiday and will return to work when he flies to Washington, DC to meet Mr Trump at the White House next Monday.

Bryce Wakefield, CEO of the Australian Institute of International Affairs said Australia had no need to attend.

“It’s hardly necessary for Australia, a country with stretched diplomatic resources that has signalled its priorities lie within its own region, to drop everything to attend an impromptu summit called by Trump,” he said.

Mr Albanese is in any case slated to meet him in October.

“Unlike Spain and Canada, there isn’t much evidence of real strain within our bilateral relationship with the United States.

“ Australia can thus better afford to run a foreign policy that leaves aside the photo-ops and sycophancy.”