How can we trust the United States to deliver on AUKUS when the President does not respect the agreements that underpin the democratic systems in his own country?

On a call with NBC today, “When asked whether he has been presented with plans to allow him to seek a third term, Trump said, ‘There are methods which you could do it.’” 

This kind of talk, consistent with other proposed or real breaches in the international rules-based order, is part of the reason why Australians think Trump is a greater threat to world peace than President Xi or President Putin, as Australia Institute polling showed. 

The government is trying to let us all know that it has debt under control and that it has “lowered debt”.

And well… not really. The key line from the government is “gross debt in 2024-25 is $177 billion lower than what was projected at the time of the last election”.

What they are really saying is that in the March 2022 Budget (the last one by Josh Frydenberg) the Treasury estimate for gross debt in this current financial year of 2024-25 was $1,117bn or 44.9% of GDP, whereas in last week’s budget the estimate for this year is now $940bn – thus the $117bn difference.

But remember we are just talking about the difference between reality and a projection. Back in March 2022, things were still looking pretty grim coming out of the pandemic. Every forecast was rather pessimistic – on fact overly pessimistic. And what has happened is the recovery has been better than expected. So, has the government reduced debt? Not really, it’s just that the projections in March 2022 were very wrong – and to be honest, understandably so.

Both sides play silly buggers with forecasts not coming true. If a government forecasts a deficit and something changes – like a spike in iron ore prices – and so they raise more revenue than expected, they claim great budget management has delivered a surplus. If things go the other way and the projections are too optimistic, the opposition claims the government has lost control of the budget. It’s all rather stupid.

Just remember we have low government debt compared to most advance economics. We are still rated AAA by all credit agencies (yes the ones who helped cause the GFC) and the interest rates the government has to pay when it borrows money is currently lower than they had to pay back in 2006-07 when we had no net debt at all. In other words, no one sees our debt as a worry that the government will not be able to pay its bills.

Australia Institute executive director Richard Denniss has a piece in The Monthly talking about the election, where he also writes about tax:

Not all countries are as afraid to tax the fossil fuel industry as Australia, or indeed to tax property owners, retirement savings or billionaires. But if those elected to our parliament were brave enough to simply collect the average amount of tax, as a share of gross domestic product, collected by OECD countries, then the result would be an extra $135 billion per year in revenue. If we wanted to tax in the manner of Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, we would collect an extra $330 billion per year. To be clear, if we did nothing more radical than copy the Nordic tax system we could afford to pay for the entire AUKUS program with one year’s worth of extra revenue. Just imagine the real problems we could solve.

But there are other things to consider with the prime minister living in Sydney as well – Peter Dutton living in Kirribilli means lots of business for the airlines, the VIP fleet and taxis, moving public servants from Canberra for briefings.

That means lots of travel allowance for his personal staff whether they are based in Sydney or Canberra and probably means he would have most Cabinet meetings in Sydney including Expenditure Review, National Security and other cabinet sub-committees  – again lots more public servants travelling Canberra to Sydney and back again, which is lots of travel allowance for those public servants.

Then there is the infrastructure – cabinet room facilities have to be duplicated in Sydney. So it’s not just a change of address.

Meanwhile, Peter Dutton has signalled that he wants to live in Kirribilli House, not the Lodge. ‘I think you’d take Sydney any day over Canberra’ he said in an interview for Sydney’s KIIS FM radio.

It is all highly on brand for the opposition leader, who has made an obvious strategy of wooing Sydneysiders and indulging in Canberra-bashing already. Some have called NSW ‘the state to watch’ in this election.

Promising via a Sydney radio interview that he will live in Sydney rather than Canberra is an easy and zero-cost way of showing preferment. This signalling matters especially for Dutton as a Queenslander, but previous prime ministers, particularly John Howard, have made a point of staying at Kirribilli House instead of The Lodge where possible. Malcolm Turnbull preferred his own harbourside home in Point Piper, though he attracted plenty of criticism for this.

It’s not all about politics. Australian politicians have long complained that the Lodge is an international embarrassment. Paul Keating complained that neither The Lodge nor Kirribilli were appropriate for his young family. The Lodge was thoroughly renovated in 2015, but this did little for its reputation. In 2018 the University of Canberra and the Gallery of Australian Design ran an architecture competition to see if members of the public had better visions for a lakeside residence fit for Australia’s head of government. Polling from the Australia Institute has previously shown that more than half of Australians expect their leader to live in The Lodge. When Anthony Albanese chose to establish himself there, it sent a clear signal about the value of the national capital for the country as a whole.  

Yesterday Peter Dutton said if he becomes Prime Minister, he will live harbourside in Sydney, rather than in the Lodge in Canberra, the nation’s capital. 

Australia Institute polling research after the 2022 election found most Australians thought the Prime Minister should live in Canberra (57% agree to 20% disagree). 

After Prime Minister Anthony Albanese moved into the Lodge, Ben Oquist wrote about the significance of the decision: 

It is a message that pays respect to the public service, the diplomatic corps, the Parliament, even the press gallery – all of which form part of the local ecosystem that is Australia’s democracy.

The new PM’s move to The Lodge can also be seen as being part of a bigger revitalisation of Canberra being pursued by the incoming government. 

BCA chief executive Bran Black: “Well, I think it’s very clear from the ACCC report that there is no price gouging. It goes back to the point that I was just making.”

This line is being spouted by everyone from Coles and Woolworths to conservative media, but the reason the ACCC found no price gouging is it wasn’t looking to see if there was any! Why wouldn’t they do that? Well because it is not illegal to price gouge! The ACCC has no power to look at prices, and so it doesn’t!

As the ACCC report states:

We have not sought to determine whether the prices or margins of ALDI, Coles, Metcash (or its banner stores) and Woolworths are excessive. Having or exercising market power, or charging high prices, or obtaining high margins, is not prohibited by the CCA.”

Supermarkets (or anyone else) is free to charge as much as they like – so long as they are not doing so in cahoots with another “competitor”. So if Coles can get away with raising price well above what they need to maintain a decent profit, they are free to do so, so long as they have not spoken to Woolworth s and both agreed to do it. Of course it is clear the grocery market is so dominated by Coles and Woolworths that they don’t need to collude. They know what is best for the both of them. This is why for example they take it in turns having products on “special” Coles will have Coke on special one week and Pepsi the next, and Woolworths will do the opposite.

The entire point of a price taskforce is about making price gouging illegal and empowering a body to examine prices. This is something we have been calling for and is a necessary measure given the duopoly and profit margins of the Coles and Woolworths is such that they have lost the right to demand they be treated like other companies. Food is a vital good – and the actions of Coles and Woolworths demand greater regulatory oversight:

How is Wall Street reacting to Trump’s Orwellian named ‘Liberation Day’ (when the US tariffs, which the US consumers and importers pay) kicks in?

AAP reports:

Wall Street stocks ended sharply lower on Friday, with selloffs in Amazon, Microsoft and other technology heavyweights, after US data stoked fears of weak economic growth and high inflation as the Trump administration ratchets up tariffs.

US consumer spending rebounded less than expected in February while a measure of underlying prices increased the most in 13 months.

Adding to concerns, a University of Michigan survey showed consumers’ 12-month inflation expectations soared to the highest in nearly two-and-a-half years in March, and that consumers expect inflation to remain elevated beyond the next year.

That data fuelled fears that a rush of tariff announcements from US President Donald Trump since taking office in January will boost prices of imported goods, drive inflation and deter the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates.

Inflation and tariff worries sent shares of Wall Street’s most valuable companies sharply lower, with Apple, Microsoft and Amazon all losing ground.

As for the whole ‘added a journalist to the bombing Yemen group chat on Signal’ thing, Richard Marles is still not talking about that either.

Pete Hegseth has spoken on that and I will leave him to answer those questions. We have a very close security relationship with the United States. We do share a lot of information with the United States, in a very secure environment and that is really important for our awareness, for our own security. We make a real contribution to America’s as well. That information sharing has been one of the key parts of the alliance over decades and it will continue to be so. It is deeply important for us.

As for the Canadian approach of you know, standing up for your own nation against one that is sliding further and further into authoritarism while also undergoing a digital coup by an unelected oligarch, Marles says:

The alliance remains fundamentally important in terms of our bilateral relationship but the way in which we are going about both pursuing that relationship but our relationships more generally is in respect of Australia’s national interest. That is where we are focused. What you can be sure of, in terms of Anthony Albanese and an Albanese government, is we will put Australia first at every point. There is not going to be any deal that the Leader of the Opposition is talking about. We will be focused on our national interest and any arrangements that we do, with any country including the United States, will have Australia’s national interest the at forefront and that is the way in which we are going to conduct our affairs.

While other allies begin to muscle up against Donald Trump’s desires (which vice president JD Vance said was the reason that the US was going after Greenland ‘because we can’t just ignore the president’s desires’ – as if Trump’s ‘desires’ haven’t landed him in court time and time again, often finding that those ‘desires’ broke laws), Australia is continuing the ‘no comment’ approach.

Canadian prime minister Mark Carney, who is also in election campaign mode, released a video statement recently that his nation’s “old relationship with the US is over”. Canada is one of the five eye countries with Australia, and following Trump’s aggression towards its traditional ally, it has stood firm against him, with reports Carney wouldn’t even take Trump’s phone calls for weeks.

The pair spoke on the weekend for the first time, with both sides describing it as “constructive” but the issue of tariffs is still looming. Canada has promised retaliatory tariffs with “maximum impact” if the US follows through on its threats, and given the oil, mineral fuels and machinery and tech parts Canada exports to the US, it has a few cards of its own.

Trump has since softened his language against Canada considerably.

Richard Marles was asked about America’s second couple’s disastrous trip to Greenland (Usha Vance wanted to take their son to a dogsled race, but then JD muscled in on the trip and insisted on going, which meant no dogsled race and essentially no trip – no one in Greenland wanted to meet the Vance’s, so they were stuck on a military base the US controls for one night and then went home) and stuck to the no comment line:

I am not about to give a running commentary on where the Vice President of the United States goes and what is being said there. We are focused on our own capabilities, our own relationship with the United States and we will continue to do that.

…There is a lot of water to go under the bridge before any of that occurs. We have a very close relationship with the United States, certainly in respect of defence. Across the board also. In relation to defence and security, the alliance is our – is the cornerstone of our national security and we’re very focused on it. I was in Washington just over a month ago speaking with Pete Hegseth, my counterpart. It was a good meeting in terms of our ongoing defence and relationship with the United States. We are confident about how that will play under the Trump Administration.