Albanese-Xi meeting is the first step on long march

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.

In this podcast Michelle and politics editor Amanda Dunn discuss the significant thaw in Australia-China relations that’s come with the Albanese-Xi meeting, held on the sidelines of the G20 in Bali. The last such top-level meeting was between President Xi Jinping and then PM Malcolm Turnbull in 2016.

It’s now a question of whether this breakthrough will lead to serious follow-through, with a relaxation of China’s damaging restrictions on a range of Australia’s exports.

Meanwhile next week, the prime minister will be back into the hurly-burly of domestic politics, with the government battling to secure its controversial industrial relations bill through the Senate before Christmas. All eyes are on Senate independent crossbencher David Pocock, from the ACT.

This final sitting fortnight of the year will put the parliamentary stamp on the anti-corruption commission and also see a free vote in the upper house on a bill (already through the House of Representatives) to allow the ACT and Northern Territory to legislate for voluntary assisted dying.