Australian farmers will gain greater market access to the UK in a phased manner over the next 15 years while working visas will also be liberalised under a new free trade deal between the two countries.

The free trade deal – Britain’s first bilateral agreement since Brexit – was unveiled by Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson in London after months of negotiations.

At a joint press conference on Tuesday evening Australian time, the new trade agreement was styled as the “gold standard” and a “win-win”. Johnson also told reporters the UK would be looking for “more” from Australia in terms of climate ambition ahead of Cop26 in Glasgow in November.

While welcoming recent hedged comments from Morrison that Australia intended to reach net zero emissions “preferably” by 2050 – which Johnson said amounted to Australia “declaring for net zero” – the British prime minister also noted it was possible to transition out of coal-fired power “fast”.

Johnson said he and Morrison were as one in “strongly” believing “that you can have a green industrial revolution that drives high-wage, high-skilled jobs”. “You can do both and that is what we are going to work on together,” the British prime minister said.

The UK, the host of both the weekend G7 summit and Cop26, has made clear it regards climate as its top foreign policy priority this year and wants all countries, including Australia, to set deeper targets for the 2030s, setting a credible pathway to net zero by 2050.

Under Joe Biden’s leadership, the US has also called on Australia to cut emissions faster than planned.

While sending a signal that Australia needed to do more ahead of Glasgow, Johnson confirmed on Tuesday that the UK would work closely with Australia to safeguard security in the Indo-Pacific region, including through joint naval exercises in the region.

The challenges associated with China’s rise was a significant focus of the G7 summit in Cornwall last weekend and Morrison will head to Paris after his London program to further engage Emmanuel Macron on regional defence and security issues.

The British prime minister said nobody wanted to descend into a new Cold War with Beijing but “where there are difficulties, which there evidently are, it is vital that allies, the UK and Australia, work together, and that’s one of the reasons why we are sending the carrier strike group out your way”.

Negotiations to conclude the UK-Australia free trade agreement spanned several months with Australia pushing for greater market access for agricultural exports and Britain seeking more liberalisation of working visas.

Details of the in-principle agreement were scant at the Australian end on Tuesday evening. But the UK has agreed to allow more Australian imports of beef, sheep meat and sugar, by increasing tariff-free thresholds and tapering tariffs over time.

Johnson made it clear that phased market access came with significant safeguards. “There is a 15-year transition period, which is a long time to wait for, if you can imagine, our friends in Australia,” he said.

“We are opening up to Australia, but we are doing it in a staggered way … we are retaining safeguards and making sure that we have protections against sudden influxes of goods and also making sure that we adhere to the strongest possible standards for animal welfare.”

The National Farmers Federation president, Fiona Simson, welcomed the breakthrough on transitioning to tariff and quota-free market access for Australian farm exports to the British market.

But she told the ABC her organisation was waiting on further detail before making a judgment on the quality of the deal. “As long as we are putting one foot in front of the other … that is a very good thing,” Simson said.

The Australian government says it has agreed to new provisions on temporary entry “that will support economic recovery, enhance opportunities for business travel, and encourage people to travel and work in each other’s territory, on the basis of reciprocity”.

Working visas will run for three years and the age limit will increase from 30 to 35 years. Australia has also agreed to establish an agriculture visa for workers from the UK. The two leaders characterised the enhanced people movement as a “brain gain” for both countries.

Morrison told reporters in London that Australia went into the process prepared to “wait for the right deal and I think we’ve got the right deal between the UK and Australia”.

“This is just another very big chapter in the story of Australia and the United Kingdom – so that is why I think Australia was the right choice for the UK to be the first to enter into such an agreement, because if you can do an agreement with your best friends first, you can have the confidence to be able to deal with the issues that flow from these agreements,” Australia’s prime minister said.

Morrison pointed to sensitivities in the agricultural sector in both the UK and Australia. “We understand, especially for agricultural sectors, in both countries, that we will have to demonstrate the real benefits for both countries, and we will do that together, for British producers as well as Australian producers – and so that is what friends do.”

The agreement unveiled in London on Tuesday evening is an in-principle deal, not a final text. Australia and Britain will now finalise the legal text of the trade agreement. Assuming there are no problems with the legal wording, the agreement would then be ratified and come into force.