Bridget McKenzie has slammed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s “casual approach” to politics, saying it was the reason Australia has failed to secure a meeting with US President Donald Trump at the upcoming NATO summit.

Senator McKenzie went on a scolding rant on Sunrise on Wednesday, saying Albanese had thrown around anti-Trump rhetoric, before saying he should have gone to Florida to sit down with Trump prior to the inauguration.

Albanese’s planned first face-to-face meeting with Trump was on the sidelines of the G7 summit earlier this month in Canada, but it was cancelled due to the conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Iran.

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Albanese had eyed-off a possible meeting with Trump at the NATO summit in The Netherlands next month. However, he pulled the pin on the trip to The Hague after other Indo-Pacific leaders opted out.

Defence Minister Richard Marles, who will represent Australia at the summit, confirmed to reporters he has failed to lock in a meeting with Trump, amid pressure to increase defence spending and tariffs.

Appearing on Sunrise on Wednesday, McKenzie took aim at Albanese.

“I’ve been saying repeatedly that the Prime Minister’s casual approach to meeting President Trump has caught up with him,” McKenzie said, blasting the leader.

“We know that you don’t always have to like your allies, but you should always be respectful to them.

“In the last election, we saw anti-Trump rhetoric being used to win a domestic election and that is having repercussions, I think right now, with our relationship with the US.”

McKenzie explained Albanese’s focus appears to be elsewhere, rather than meeting President Trump.

“It’s on securing the relationship with (China’s leader) Xi Jinping.

“He turned down the opportunity to meet with US Vice President JD Vance, saying ‘I’m the Prime Minister, I only deal with Presidents’, which is really, really poor, I think.

“(He) should take the opportunity to build the personal relationship, particularly when it looks like a meeting between the President, whilst this issue the Middle East is ongoing, will be difficult to secure.”

A meeting with any senior Trump administration officials would likely include talks on Washington’s 30-day review of its nuclear submarine deal with Australia under the AUKUS partnership.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth previously called on Australia to massively boost its defence budget to 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product.

A suggestion Albanese has not appeared to be keen on.

Minister for Housing Clare O’Neil took aim at the criticism.

“If I can just say, if the Prime Minister goes overseas, the Coalition get upset about it.

“If he doesn’t go overseas, they also get upset about it. This is really just noise.

Missed opportunity

“We take this incredibly seriously. If you look at the way that our Foreign Minister Penny Wong have turned around Australia’s global standing over the past three years, it is a great credit to these national leaders of ours.

“I have enormous confidence in the way that they pursue these relationships across China and our other friends and partners around the world.

“We’ll continue to pursue the national interest and the domestic politics here is not relevant.”

McKenzie fired back: “I’ve been really clear, he should have gotten on the plane a lot earlier, like other world leaders did, before the inauguration of President Trump.

“Instead, he chose to play domestic politics and use anti-Trump rhetoric during the election.

“Other leaders went to Florida to sit down with President before he was inaugurated and develop that relationship. That’s what we should have done.

“This is our key ally. Now, we’re in a very dangerous and precarious time globally and we can’t just simply pick up the phone or have that personal relationship, as, (UK Prime Minister) Keir Starmer can.”

- with AAP