Marooned in paradise: Albanese and the summit that could not have come at a worse time

November 5, 2026 — 8:56am

St John’s, Antigua and Barbuda: Nothing showed the utter isolation of Anthony Albanese and his fellow Commonwealth leaders quite like their retreat on the final day of their gathering in the Caribbean.

The leaders stepped onto chartered boats to reach a private island where they could talk at a luxury resort secluded from everyone else at the Commonwealth meeting in Antigua and Barbuda.

Albanese did not choose the venue. As prime minister, he was right to join the other leaders at a forum Australia has supported for decades. He did not stay on the private island – his hotel was the same seaside resort as his British counterpart, Andy Burnham – and he headed for the airport to get home as soon as the retreat was over.

But the gathering at Jumby Bay Island sent all the wrong signals about the Commonwealth leaders when so many of their citizens are suffering from declining living standards.

And that is a problem for Albanese when the Reserve Bank says its latest interest rate hike will feel like a recession to many households.

What possessed the Commonwealth to do this? The leaders were on an island where Oprah Winfrey is rumoured to own a private chateau. A modern “cottage” at one of the hotels, with space for four people and a private pool, costs $US8200 per night (about $11,700) for those who want to book it for this Monday.

You want to look out of touch to voters? Go to Jumby Bay.

The entire exercise highlighted the shocking waste of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, known as CHOGM, when so many people in its 56 member states live below the poverty line.

Yes, some Antiguans were glad to see the money flow into their small nation, but the gathering lifted their country’s population by about 5 per cent overnight. The talk about climate action would have ended quickly without the national desalination plant run from an electricity grid powered by diesel generators.

If there is money to be spent in Antigua, it could be spent on the roads, the schools and the homes. While the beaches are every bit as beautiful as they look on Caribbean travel websites, the country is not wealthy. Who knows if the cash from hosting CHOGM will trickle down to those at the bottom? In any case, the country is hedging its bets on a search for supporters: the most impressive new housing in the capital, St John’s, is funded by China Aid.

The Antigua meeting was an extravagance in hard times. It is no wonder the UK Foreign Office commissioned a study after the last CHOGM, in Samoa two years ago, to think seriously about scaling back these meetings.

One top UK adviser involved in that review, Ben Judah, told Politico last week that the Commonwealth Secretariat was a “broken institution” and should take a new approach. Judah was an adviser to David Lammy, who was foreign secretary at the time of the Samoa summit.

One idea in the Foreign Office review was to hold the meetings every four or five years, perhaps aligning them with the Commonwealth Games. That looks like an idea Australia could support. The core Australian interest in the Pacific is already addressed at the annual Pacific Islands Forum. Sending prime ministers to CHOGMs in the Caribbean and Africa is not as important.

Albanese was, on balance, right to go to this Commonwealth summit. Australia has played its part in the institution for decades. Albanese met Burnham as well as Canadian prime minister Mark Carney. As Carney said earlier this year, middle powers should work together at a time when America is an unpredictable ally and the old global order is splintering.

“If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” Carney said. That message could guide the Commonwealth to becoming more ambitious or useful. Even Carney, however, was prudent about how long he spent in Antigua: he flew in on Monday night and left on Tuesday night, skipping the retreat because he had to oversee a budget at home.

Albanese should have been equally cautious about spending too much time away. In a remark caught on camera, he told King Charles why he was there: because the King had asked him personally. There were other reasons, of course, including the ambition to secure votes around the world to put Australia on the United Nations Security Council.

The trouble is that Albanese was in Antigua from Saturday night to Wednesday night. Who in Australia would be any worse off if he had arrived in Antigua a day later and skipped the private island retreat at the end? Nobody.

When the Commonwealth leaders issued their statement at the end of the gathering, it looked inconsequential. There was some adjusted language on slavery and some fine words about climate. There was nothing to justify the exorbitant use of time and money on so many days at so many resorts by so many leaders.

Unfortunately for Albanese and the government, he cannot skip the next few summits. He has to attend the UN Climate Change Conference in Turkey, even if it would have been wiser to avoid co-hosting the event. Then he has to fly to the East Asia Summit in the Philippines on November 16-18 and go on to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in China on November 18-19. Then there’s the G20 with Donald Trump in Miami on December 14–15.

All prime ministers face demands to spend more time on global problems, and most fall into the habit of travelling to more summits. But the political danger rises sharply when times are tough. Albanese, caught in a mid-term slump with low growth and high inflation, already faces a backlash over his travel. It will probably get worse.

Spending too much time on the global stage will weaken Labor at home. If this means Albanese loses more of his personal standing in the polls, or struggles to be heard when he tries to convince voters he has an answer on the economy, then the cost to the prime minister and the government is simply too great.

There is no time now to change the plans for 2026. There is still time to be ruthless with the diary for 2027.

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