Nineteen veterans from the Battle of Britain sat in the House of Representatives and were introduced to Mr Cameron at the conclusion of his speech. Mr Cameron, Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten all drew on Australia's shared military history ranging from Gallipoli and the Battle of Britain to the modern effort aimed at destroying Islamic State, also known as ISIL. Mr Cameron praised Australia's tough stance on the issue of foreign fighters joining ISIL extremists in Iraq and Syria and foreshadowed his own new counter-terror legislation such as banning extremist preachers to be introduced in Britain, much of which matches Australia's plans. But he said a "new pressing challenge" was getting IS material wiped from the internet. "There is a role for government in that, we must not allow the internet to be ungoverned space but there is a role for the internet companies too," Mr Cameron told MPs and senators in Canberra.

He said he expected internet companies to live up to their "social responsibilities" and said while progress had been made there was more to do. Mr Cameron also unveiled new plans to bar suspected British foreign fighters returning home from the Middle East – a move that goes considerably further than anything the Abbott government has planned to tackle that aspect of the problem. Under the British plan, returning suspected fighters would be subject to special "exclusion orders" that would stop them re-entering Britain unless they give themselves up at the border and submit to a full investigation as well as possible conditions. They would have their passport cancelled and be put on a "no-fly" list. These exclusion orders would last up to two years. Mr Abbott, asked whether this was "a step too far" for Australia, avoided giving any indication of whether he might adopt a similar approach.

He said the government's "absolute intention" was to detain and prosecute returning fighters. "The only safe place for someone who has been brutalised and militarised in this way is one of Her Majesty's prisons," he said. The Tory leader urged MPs to guard against protectionism and called for work to begin on a new EU-Australia free trade agreement at this weekend's G20 summit in Brisbane. Australia's Trade Minister Andrew Robb has completed trade deals with Korea and Japan since the Coalition's election to government and is widely expected to announce a new deal with China in coming days. The leaders' speeches were all filled with warm references to Australia and Britain's shared cultural history but the stand out moment came when Mr Cameron made a "shirt-front" joke as he praised Australia's efforts to fight Ebola in West Africa.

"Only last month your Foreign Minister [Julie Bishop] strode across the room towards me at a summit in Italy. I wondered for a moment whether I was heading for what I'm told we now need to call a 'shirt-fronting'," he told MPs to laughter.



"But, no, Julie, who is a great friend of Britain, said that Australia would add 100 beds to our Ebola treatment facility in Sierra Leone. Typical Australia, always there with action not words," he said. Mr Cameron's praise of Australia's response to the Ebola crisis was in contrast to Labor's, with the opposition attacking the Coalition's response as too slow. And it says the $20 million pledge to fund a private company to staff a British hospital in Sierra Leone does not go far enough. Mr Cameron also spoke at length about the strength of democratic freedoms, the rule of law and the free press, in what could be considered a veiled swipe at China and Russia. China's President Xi Jinping is scheduled to address Parliament on Monday and India's newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver a speech on Tuesday. Follow us on Twitter