Australian PM Albanese receives Global Citizen award amid Manhattan media frenzy

New York: Anthony Albanese sipped a beer as he mingled with actor Keanu Reeves and actor/singer Cynthia Erivo in the receiving room ahead of the Atlantic Council’s Global Citizen Awards in New York.

After a manic week battling Manhattan traffic, United Nations motorcades, schedule changes and impromptu news conferences, this was one event Albanese was able to make it to early.

And why not? The grand ballroom of the $4000-a-night Waldorf Astoria, which takes up an entire block on Manhattan’s ritzy Park Avenue, is a place you want to linger if you can.

The PM was there to collect his gong for advancing global citizenship by strengthening international alliances, particularly in the Indo-Pacific.

The Washington think tank’s global citizen program was conceived in 2010. But speakers seemed aware that in 2026 – the age of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Pauline Hanson – globalism can often be a dirty word.

Albanese was seated beside the Atlantic Council’s chairman, John Rogers, who used his opening address to presage some of the points the Australian PM would make in his speech about the changing world order.

“The old rules no longer command the same authority, while the new rules have yet to be fully established,” said Rogers, who is also executive vice president of Goldman Sachs. “We are living in between world orders, and that is the defining challenge of our time.”

It was a lengthy opening gambit, and even Albanese began to flick through photos on his phone by the end.

Among those seated at the PM’s table were Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, former prime minister (and former ambassador to the US) Kevin Rudd, Rudd’s wife Therese Rein, Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla, former US treasury secretary and Goldman Sachs boss Henry Paulson, and American Securities chief executive Michael Fisch.

Elsewhere in the room: Australia’s current ambassador to the US, Greg Moriarty, outgoing consul-general Heather Ridout, parliamentary observers to the United Nations Dorinda Cox (Labor) and Scott Buchholz (Coalition).

The PM and Erivo chatted briefly.

They enjoyed an entree of heirloom carrot and baby gem lettuce salad, prime short rib main and cherry mille-feuille for dessert. Two members of the Australian delegation described the food as just “OK”.

But the Global Citizen Awards are no consolation prize. Last year’s winners were French President Emmanuel Macron, Argentinian President Javier Milei and, perhaps controversially, FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

When it came time to step on stage to collect his gong, Albanese was introduced by Marape, who was spotted running his speech past Wong in the minutes before the big moment. “Albo”, Marape told the crowd, was a friend, a “fair dinkum Aussie” and a man who understood that leadership was about people, not power.

The mostly American audience listened quietly and attentively to Marape’s warm and gracious words – which could not be said for every speech of the evening.

Albanese delivered his Mark Carney-lite pitch about the rapidly changing world order; one in which Australia would “seek to build the order that replaces the old … while preserving the rules that matter most”.

He name-checked his Labor predecessor Paul Keating, in particular the former PM’s observation that “the only reward in public life is public progress”.

“It has not been unnoticed in Australia that an Australian getting an Atlantic Council award … says something about your organisation,” Albanese said. “You understand that all of the world matters.”

It was mostly a serious speech that did not attempt to charm the crowd with self-effacing humour, a la Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who also received a global citizen award on Wednesday night.

Stubb – dubbed “the Trump whisperer” in Europe for his friendship and golf course time with the US president – joked about his college years in South Carolina and Finns’ notorious shyness.

But it was actor and singer Cynthia Erivo who was always going to steal the show. The Wicked star – who is only an Academy Award away from entering the rarefied territory of an EGOT winner – queried whether she deserved her award, but affirmed the importance of art in bettering humanity.

“We see the worst of humanity when we fear each other – when we shun what we don’t understand, what we don’t recognise. We all recognise music,” she said.

“I pick the roles that force me to learn about the human condition – about loss, about change, about identity, about pain, about joy, about beauty, about love.

“If I don’t make the choice to keep learning, I shortchange myself – but most importantly, I shortchange you. How can I share what I don’t understand?”

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