High alert as Obama lands in Sydney

FORMER US president Barack Obama has touched down in Australia for a private speaking engagement.

He arrived at Sydney Airport at lunchtime yesterday ahead of an event at the Art Gallery of NSW hosted by the New Zealand United States Council.

A motorcade of vans, SUVs and more than a dozen police motorbikes, transported Mr Obama from the airport to a hotel in Sydney’s CBD.

Police helicopters swirled above the building as he was driven into it.

Mr Obama flew in from New Zealand where he had met Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and former leader John Key.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was due to “catch up and have a chat” with the former US president who’s on a week-long tour of New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Japan.

Mr Obama attended a function for just 350 guests at the Art Gallery of NSW yesterday.

It’s not the first time he’s sat down with Mr Turnbull. In 2016 the pair posed for a series of selfies during the thenCommander-in-Chief’s last official bilateral meeting in Lima.

He’s off to Tokyo tomorrow.