Andrew Bolt is now having a coronary over the Greens, so I hope Adam Bandt and co are having a drink in celebration.
He is OUTRAGED that Labor won’t put them last, but demanded the Liberals put One Nation last.
I don’t know…racism and xenophobia and whatever else it is PHON is offering up these days is probably worse than saying everyone deserves an affordable home and landlords shouldn’t be able to ruin tenants lives and also wouldn’t dental in Medicare be great, and also genocide is bad – but what would we know. We don’t live in a multi-million dollar property complete with a built in studio so we never have to worry ourselves with commuting to work.
But like a true diva, Bolt did announce his change in circumstances in very dramatic fashion – he said he was quitting Melbourne and moving to the ‘bush’ in 2020 – until it was revealed the bush was the Mornington Pennisula.
Hello and welcome to US servitude day, where everyone becomes convinced that Donald Trump applying tariffs to goods his nation imports to prove a non-existence points somehow means we all just have to kowtow to him a little harder.
Trump is calling it ‘liberation’ day. The announcements will start coming in around 7am Australian time and there are some feverish fingers on keyboards and very agitated voices already.
So first, let’s take a look at what Australia exports to the United States, and what could therefore have tariffs applied to it under whatever Trump’s administration announces.
It is pharmaceutical products which have most people worried, given the issues American drug giants have had with Australia’s PBS (which subsidises the cost of certain medicines in Australia) over the years.
But the Trump administration have also had issues with Australia’s biosecurity conditions for meat and poultry imports, as well as the News Media Bargaining Code (which has the tech bro oligarchs all up in arms). There is sort of a unity ticket between Albanese and Dutton on not compromising on those three areas, given the importance of the PBS and Australia’s own agricultural industry. The News Media Bargaining Code is probably one of the only areas where Murdoch diverges from Trump on policies, mostly because News Corp is a beneficiary. So there is some united rah-rah, although that hasn’t stopped Dutton from attacking Albanese over Australia being included in the global tariff assault Trump is inflicting on friend and foe alike – even though there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to what he is doing.
Australia imports much more from the US than it exports. We are, as they say in the global economic game, in a trade deficit with the United States and have been since Harry S Truman was president.
How much is this going to matter? Well it matters that Australia’s “exceptional friend” the United States is applying trade tariffs to allies, which has all the hallmarks of starting a global trade war, because of ideological issues he has with free trade and the belief that no one can move without America.
But as has been pointed out time and time again, nations have begun looking elsewhere for their trade arrangements pretty much since the first Trump presidency, when he first went on a tariff bender, and that has seen China (the original target of Trump’s tariffs) benefit. In fact, trade started to deviate away from the US during the global financial crisis, when American markets weren’t looking too crash hot and many nations have found other homes for their products (Mexico being an exception).
So again, it is more about the wider issues of what does this mean for Australia’s relationship with the US, given the strategic ties governments from both the Coalition and Labor have made with the US and how our leaders now handle that (and everything else that is coming) given the Trump take over of American institutions and increasing authoritarian crack downs on the US population?
We probably won’t get the answers we should today, but we should hope that we at least start getting the questions.
You’ve got the entire Australia Institute brains trust with you to help guide you through the day – and me, Amy Remeikis at the helm. It is going to be at least a six coffee day. And it’s Thursday. The worst day of the week even without all of this.
Would Australia retaliate with tariffs if the US presses ahead?
Ed Husic is asked this question at the press club and responds with”
Just asking the question itself and with the possible consequence shows how challenging the environment is before us, I appreciate that is a massive understatement.
If we start down this path, it takes years, if not decades to unpick. We have an opportunity to sidestep all that work that will be required. The reason I say that is because you have witnessed, as we all have in the last 24 hours, the dialogue between our Prime Minister and the US President on this issue with respect to steel and aluminium.
There has been an agreement to consider what, if at all, should be effecting our country. We have been a steadfast ally of the US for generations, our people have fought side-by-side. We forge very close relationships. We do important strategic work together and investments in defence come with the closeness of those relationships. That is really important. The trade surplus we have with the US is factually, in a concrete way very important. These are the things we will work through with the US. It is way too early for us to be engaged in speculation, though I appreciate what drives your question. We will work through these issues.
The reality is, there are only a couple of places in the world that make aluminium. Australia is one, Canada is the other. The others are Russia, China and the Middle East. I reckon a country that is a strong ally, that has a strong relationship with the US and that is across from the Pacific and that has been providing product that has been in high demand on the west coast, there is a lot of compelling reasons why we can work together without the imposition of tariffs.
Election speculation is going to dominate the parliamentary sitting and will until a date is set. The date isn’t that important – we know we are in a faux election campaign, and we know that the election has to be held by mid-May. The most likely dates are May 3 or May 10, but truly – it doesn’t matter. The election campaign began almost as soon as the year ticked over to 2025 and it won’t slow down just because a date is called.
But before we get there, there is a couple of parliament sittings (and a budget!) to get through.
This sitting will deal with the stronger hate crime laws the government previewed last week, in response to anti-Semitic attacks. Labor will also move to replace the child care activity test with guaranteed access to childcare at least three days a week as part of its wider plan to make childcare universal (they will need to win a couple more elections for that to happen). That’s been fast tracked – Labor wants to make childcare one of its points of difference at the next election.
And there are still the nature positive laws to get through. Even though Labor doesn’t want to negotiate with the Greens to change what they have put forward (at this stage).
Here is a quick overview of what the Institute sees as some of the issues with the bill:
