MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Blair present at Melbourne Games closing ceremony

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie flew into Melbourne Saturday for the first leg of a seven day diplomatic odyssey which will also take in New Zealand and Indonesia.

The Blairs went straight to the Melbourne Cricket Ground to watch the Commonwealth Games athletics finals, and will meet British athletes and witness the event's spectacular closing ceremony on Sunday.

The trip to Melbourne was a record breaking flight across the world. The chartered British Airways 777 jet registered the longest non-stop passenger flight by any aircraft, taking 18 hours and 55 minutes to make the 9,200 nautical mile journey from Brussels to Australia.

But PM Blair's trip will also see him make a major foreign policy speech to the Australian parliament on Monday, and address a climate change conference in Auckland, as the first British Prime Minister to visit New Zealand since the 1950s.

The Prime Minister's visit to the Indonesian capital Jakarta takes him to the heart of the most populous Muslim country in the world - and a democracy defiant of Islamic extremism.

Mr Blair earlier this week spelt out his vision of an "activist" or interventionist foreign policy, and his official spokesman described the Prime Minister's marathon mission as the "illustrated guide" to it, demonstrating global interdependence.

The spokesman said: "This illustrates the interdependency of foreign policy, whether it's terrorism in Asia or a natural disaster like the Tsunami, or economics link or co-operation on an issue such as Iraq or climate change this is an illustrated guide to our common interests."

In his Canberra speech, Mr Blair will stress the importance of global alliances. The two leaders are key allies of Washington in its fight against terrorism and the Iraq war, each having sent troops to Iraq despite widespread opposition to the invasion at home.