Key role for Australia in Biden's final Quad summit

President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at ASEAN 2022
Anthony Albanese will take the Quad agenda forward once Joe Biden leaves office, an expert says. -AAP Image

The Quad leaders summit may be a "final victory lap" for US President Joe Biden but Australia will still have a crucial role to play, experts say.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will meet with leaders of the US, Japan and India in the US state of Delaware for the fourth in-person meeting of the Quad.

While security and stability in the Indo-Pacific will dominate discussions, the summit will be the last attended by the outgoing US president before November's election.

Anthony Albanese will have one-on-one talks with the US president ahead of the Quad meeting. (Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS)

The Quad had brought a united front in the region despite the perception it had not delivered tangible results, the Lowy Institute's Southeast Asia Program director Susannah Patton said.

"The Quad in many ways is the centrepiece of the Biden administration's Indo-Pacific strategy, so it's important to the US they do this final victory lap and finish on a high note," she told AAP.

"This summit in the US is an effort by the Biden team to show (the Quad) is working and bringing the four countries together and there is coherence among those partners to have a willingness to present an alternative vision to China."

While Australia may be the smallest of the Quad nations, Ms Patton said it would have a critical role given its proximity to Pacific nations and China.

"Australia will definitely be important because Albanese will be one of only two leaders still there to take the agenda forward, and there's a lot of appreciation for the role Australia is playing in the region and the Pacific," she said.

"Australia's position as a country within the Indo-Pacific is something that contributes to those conversations."

Joe Biden has been a champion of the Quad and US engagement in the region, Anthony Albanese says. (Dean Lewins/AAP PHOTOS)

The Quad meeting will come after Mr Albanese holds one-on-one talks with Mr Biden.

Ahead of the summit, the prime minister said security in the region would feature highly in the talks between Quad leaders.

"We will be discussing ways in which we can provide further support in the region, to developing nations, including the action that we are taking together on climate change and supporting their energy security," he said.

"President Biden has been a great friend of Australia. He's been a champion of the Quad, he has been a strong advocate of an increase of US engagement in our region in the Indo-Pacific region."

The upcoming Quad meeting would not differ greatly from previous summits but it was important the group demonstrate real outcomes, United States Studies Centre research fellow Tom Corben said.

"The stock placed in the Quad as a bellwether of US strategy in Asia can be overstated," he told AAP.

"It is now beyond the point for flashy statements and it's time for concrete action."