Coming off a low benchmark for chats with newly inaugurated US presidents, the first phone call between US President Joe Biden and PM Morrison was a raging success. It was “warm and engaging“, and focused on the 3 C’s: COVID, climate change and China, Morrison said. Morrison said he wasn’t pressed on setting more ambitious carbon emission reduction targets, but there was talk of working together on new technologies. Morrison extended an offer to pop over for a drink with the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS alliance to be marked later this year. In return, Morrison hopes to secure an invitation to Biden’s climate change summit in April.

Also up for a chat with the PM yesterday was Alphabet (Google’s parent) boss Sundar Pichai. Afterwards, Morrison said the company was in a “more positive space” after last month saying it would pull its search engine from Oz if we went ahead with a code that would force it to pay for Australian news content.