Afternoon Update: Australia lobbied UK to avoid Indigenous leaders in 1999; SA premier calls algae ‘natural disaster’; and the case against coffee snobs

Patrick Dodson before meeting with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in October 1999. Photograph: Matthew Fearn/PA

Good afternoon. Papers released from Britain’s National Archives have revealed Tony Blair’s government was privately lobbied by Australia not to meet a group of Indigenous leaders who came to the UK in late 1999, including Prof Marcia Langton and former Labor senator Patrick Dodson, describing the delegation as “troublemakers”.

A memo written by Blair’s foreign affairs adviser, John Sawers, refers to an apparent intervention by the then Australian high commissioner, Philip Flood, comparing the situation to John Howard meeting Northern Ireland republicans. The memo suggested: “Can’t we plead diary problems?”