Greg Jericho has promised he will go back to bed – after this post.

With Trump backing down on putting tariffs on Canada and Mexico (because it was all a bluff and he just needed to come up with a fake reason to look like he was tough and had “won”) the Australian dollar is back to where it was before yesterday’s
“plunge” .

Key takeaway – unless you are someone mainlining caffeine (and other drugs) through your veins while trading on the foreign exchange market, you really should not worry too much about headlines about the dollar sinking/plunging/falling.

Also remember a falling dollar actually make our exports cheaper to buy.

The crossbench want the Albanese government to fulfill their promises of creating a more even playing ground for independents and minor parties when it comes to electoral spending laws.

So far, David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie say, that is not happening.

The pair spoke to ABC Radio National Breakfast to speak about the issues they have with the political donation ‘reforms’ (anyone who has had a look at the offering know it is not really a reform, but more of a tinkering of the status quo)

Jim Chalmers addressed some of the criticism:

“A change of this magnitude requires the broadest possible support. And I have got a lot of time for both those senators (Pocock and Lambie), but primarily this is about attracting as broad a support as we can…”

Broad support apparently means cutting out most of the crossbench and making a deal with the Coalition.

You can read more about some of those issues, here

https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/electoral-reform-bill-analysis/

And chief economist Greg Jericho, who should be resting after a nasty bike accident over the weekend (he is OK, but he should be in bed!) has also popped in with a post for you:

Ahead of today’s data on Household spending, some news on the inflation front came out yesterday in the Retail Trade figures. (https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/retail-and-wholesale-trade/retail-trade-australia/dec-2024)

While they showed that the volume of retail spending (ie taking inflation into account) was up 1.1% in the 2024, the ABS noted that on a per capita basis the 0.5% rise in the December quarter was the first rise in per capita spending since peaking in June quarter 2022. This follows a flat result last quarter which was preceded by eight straight quarterly per capita volumes falls. Despite the rise, retail spending on a per person basis is down 0.9% (-$34.6) compared to this time last year.

The quarterly figures also give us some info on the price rises.

• Food items rose 4.0% down from 4.3% in the September quarter
• The prices of household goods (think Bunnings and Harvey Norman) were completely flat over the past year (0%)
• Clothing prices were up 1.2% a bit up from the 1.0% in September, but no real change
• Other retailing (hairdressing, car mechanics etc) prices were up 3.6% – that was a jump from 2.6% in September. So if the RBA were looking for ANY reason to keep rates steady that would be it as Other retailing is generally pretty labour intensive so it might be a sign that wage in that sector will rise as well (but seriously, not)
• Café, restaurant and takeaway prices only rose 3.0% down from 3.3% in September – so this is a sign for the RBA not to worry because cafes etc are also labour intensive.
• Total retailing prices rose 2.6%. Up a bit from the 2.4% in the year to September. Higher than the RBA would like, but hardly a sign that inflation is rising to fast.

He also gave you a graph, but I just have to sort out the embedding first and then I will begin popping those up.

Polly Hemming, Director of the Australia Institute’s Climate & Energy program wants to remind you about next week’s Climate Integrity Summit:

With Australia’s future increasingly vulnerable to political uncertainty in the United States, the Australia Institute’s Climate Integrity Summit could not be more timely. As the world’s 13th largest economy and third largest fossil fuel exporter, Australia sits at a crucial crossroads. The summit brings together prominent international and local experts to examine how Australia can insulate itself from geopolitical uncertainty and contribute to stability and decarbonisation in the Asia Pacific region. 

With sessions exploring Australia’s outsized influence in our region and our unique position to support trading partners, regional neighbours, and those most vulnerable to the climate crisis, the summit will map out the international implications of the 2025 federal election. Far from being merely a policy-taker, Australia has both the capability and responsibility to demonstrate leadership and forge genuine international collaboration at this pivotal moment.

Speakers include:

• Antonia Burke, Community Leader
• Craig Foster AM, Human rights activist & Australian retired soccer player
• Senator David Pocock, Independent Senator for the Australian Capital Territory
• The Hon Doug Cameron, Former Senator for New South Wales
• Dr Emma Shortis, International & Security Affairs Director, The Australia Institute
• Dr Helder da Costa, General Secretary, The g7+ Secretariat
• Her Excellency Ilana Seid, Ambassador and Permanent Representative for the Republic of Palau to the United Nations
• Jennifer Robinson, Australian human rights lawyer, Doughty Street Chambers in London (Jennifer Robinson appears by arrangement with Claxton Speakers International.)
• Jonathan Birchall, Lecturer, International and Public Affairs Department, Columbia University & Lead Communications Officer, Open Society Foundations
• Dr Mila Rosenthal, Executive Director, International Science Reserve & Co-founder, Planet Reimagined
• Polly Hemming, Climate & Energy Director, The Australia Institute
• Dr Richard Denniss, Executive Director, The Australia Institute
• Savenaca Narube, Unity Fiji Party Leader & Former Governor of the Reserve Bank of Fiji
• Dr Shanta Barley, Chief Climate Scientist, Fortescue
• Dr Yuki Tanabe, Sustainable Development and Aid Program Coordinator, Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society

The Climate Integrity Summit is a non-partisan event that convenes leading experts in economics, ecology, policy and governance to discuss a credible and achievable climate policy that serves the Australian people and broader global community.

Peter Dutton also said:

When you look at what the Prime Minister is doing on energy policy at the moment which is a train wreck, they have created a housing crisis through their migration and economic policies. Look at what they have done in the economy, they have created an economic crisis.

It is utterly incredible how much power the Albanese government apparently has – creating a global inflation crisis even before they were elected, which impacted most nation’s economies and led to populist far right politicians gaining massive footholds in democracies – just incredible!

And while Labor can take no credit for actually improving the housing affordability crisis, it seems Dutton also wants Labor to take ownership of the 10 or so years the Coalition was in power, because apparently nothing could be done about housing by the Coalition while they were in government, but it is very, very important to do something now. What that something is in regards to the economy, energy and housing is, is still unclear as the Coalition have voted against most policy offerings from the government (and yet both sides still blame the Greens for being ‘wreckers’) but it is SOMETHING.

Lucky politics just happens in a vacuum and there is never ever any historic context for this stuff, huh?

There are a lot of politicians speaking about ‘social cohesion’ and the need to hold the nation together, which is of course, very worthy and something we should all be working towards. But it also needs to flow ALL ways. And at the moment, as Australia Institute board member and lawyer Josh Bornstein points out, it is not a fair playing field at the moment.

Peter Dutton continues:

I think we can win the next election but there is a lot of hard work between now and then.

We have a Prime Minister who is living in a parallel universe at the moment. The Prime Minister says families have never had it better off because inflation is off but all of the prices are up. For people in the Jewish community and across the country, Australians are watching their Prime Minister, knowing he is out of his depth and he is not up to the task, particularly in relation to law and order and keeping our country safe. The first charge of a Prime Minister is to keep our people safe. The Prime Minister has failed at that basic task. People in Jewish communities are really living in fear at the moment and yet in the Prime Minister’s discussion yesterday with his Caucus, he never mentioned anti-Semitism once, even though it is a national crisis in our country and it is indicative of further problems across society. I want to make sure that we can take the decisions that are required, including minimum mandatory sentencing for people who commit terrorist attacks. I want a clear message to be heard by anybody who has evil in their heart, that we have absolute zero tolerance for anti-Semitism.

Dutton does not speak about any other hate crimes, including Islamophobia, which has also increased, according to the Islamophobia Register Australia. As the Jewish Council of Australia have repeatedly pointed out, only addressing one aspect of hate in Australia does nobody any favours, nor make anyone safer.

Peter Dutton has addressed the joint-party room meeting with the cameras present (which is standard for both major parties for the first sitting day – and for when they feel the need for some extra coverage of the message) and he has laid out the Coalition’s ‘plan’ for the election campaign.

I hope everyone has had a good break because there is a lot of hard work ahead. Thank you to each and every one of you for the hard work you have undertaken in your electorates. We have all heard the message across the country, and it is not the Prime Minister’s message that this is a year of optimism and the people are very happy with where the government is at. It is not that situation at all. There are families who thought 2.5 years ago this was going to be a government for them, a Prime Minister who understood their concerns, it has been anything but that. There are families who are hurting all over the country. There are 27,000 small businesses now who have failed, there has been a 3-fold increase in the number of manufacturing businesses that have closed over the last 2.5 years and it is not getting better. We do know that the government has lost its way. We know the Prime Minister is not up to his task and we know there are many families suffering because of it. Food is up by 12%. Rents are up by 17%. Electricity is up by over 30%. Gas by over 30%. This government has no answers for them. I think there is momentum for change. People do want to get their country back on track and that is what we want to do. With your support we can do that. We have an opportunity to, as John Howard and Peter Costello did, to get into government, to clean up Labor’s mess and make the decisions which are necessary to help families not to hurt them.

Fun fact: even before World War II Australian politicians were hacking the media. The nation’s second prime minister, Alfred Deakin, was found to be the anonymous correspondent who wrote for the London Morning Post, giving an incredibly detailed insight into Australia’s government on the eve of federation. The correspondent was always found to be bang on about what the government planned to do, or the thinking behind certain decisions…because it was being written by the prime minister of the time.

The Parliamentary Library goes into some detail about all of that, here

Parliament doesn’t start until midday on Tuesdays because of the party room meetings – where all the political parties get together and receive a little rah-rah from their leaders, while discussing what will happen in the parliamentary week.

For the government it is what bills will be put forward, while the Coalition and Greens discuss which way they will vote on those bills. There is also the chance for MPs to raise issues or questions. Following the meetings, there is a background briefing held by each of the parties. The meeting’s minutes are read out and then journalists ask if certain issues were discussed or if anyone raised questions. From that background briefing, the journalists then go off and make phone calls to sources about what actually happened in the meeting, or who might have been the ones to raise issues.

It’s a strange little Canberra quirk of making it all off-the-record background and from what I can gather started during World War II when John Curtin would hold off-the-record background briefings with the journalists of major mastheads and broadcast stations on Australia’s involvement in military operations. From there, it became part of the fabric of parliament – and now state parliaments do the same thing.