LIVE

Thu 3 Apr

Australia Institute Live: Day Six of the 2025 election campaign. As it happened.

Amy Remeikis – Chief Political Analyst

This blog is now closed.

Key posts

The Day's News

10.21 AEDT

How did Trump come up with the tariff rates?

US journalist James Surowiecki has a very credible theory on how the Trump administration has come up with these tariff rates (as Greg Jericho pointed out earlier the explanation of ‘non-monetary trade barriers’ combined with tariff rates didn’t make any logical sense)

Surowiecki has calculated that Trump’s acolytes have taken the trade deficit America has with nations and just halved it as a tariff rate. That is why Australia only has the ‘baseline minimum’ of 10% – because the US exports more to Australia than Australia exports to the United States.

10.13 AEDT

Alice Grundy

Alice Grundy
Anne Kantor Fellows Research Manager

We have just heard a teaser from Anthony Albanese that Labor would establish a ‘critical minerals strategic reserve’

Australia has a track record of allowing multinational corporations to profit from local resources, tax free. 

Research from The Australia Institute shows this is true for salmon, liquid natural gas and coal, to take just three examples. 

What guarantees can the government offer that critical minerals will be taxed appropriately so all Australians benefit?

09.55 AEDT

David Littleproud claims Peter Dutton could do what rest of the world, experts, the courts and logic has failed to do and change Donald Trump’s mind and save the world.

Nationals leader David Littleproud doesn’t really know what to do or say in response to the Trump tariffs.

He lands on the ‘relationship needs to be reset’ which is code for ‘elect us and we will do it!’ but given these are worldwide tariffs, Australia got off fairly lightly, and the restrictions on beef are because Australia won’t compromise on biosecurity measures that stop things like Mad Cow Disease and rabies from entering the supply chain, what exactly does Littleproud think a Coalition government could do here? Littleproud thinks that Peter Dutton could convince Trump of ‘the impact of this’ on the whole wide world and that Trump – DONALD TRUMP – would magically have an epiphany and suddenly change his mind.

Perhaps Littleproud is imagining he, Barnaby Joyce and Dutton could all visit Trump on the same night as the ghosts of trade past, present and future and lead Trump to his own Scrooge moment. Actually scrap that. Littleproud and Joyce working together? Could never happen.

He tells the ABC:

There’s a bit of confusion about exact details on some of this. We’ve been a rules-based trading partner and those rules within the WTO should apply and when we were in government, we got form. We took China to the WTO. We even took Canada to the WTO on wine. So you should stick to the process and respect the process.

But again, what we want to do is actually reset the relationship with President Donald Trump. You’re not going to change his mind unless you can get a reset, get in the door or even get him to pick the phone up.

If we reset the relationship, not only this is about Australia, but this is about getting the world back to an equilibrium of a rules-based order.

If we’re elected in four weeks, a Prime Minister Dutton would be on a plane near immediately to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump, to have this out with him. And to make sure he understands the impact this will have, not just on the world, but a consequence on the United States as well. This is inflationary for the whole world, and there needs some leadership, strong leadership, you can do that if you’ve got a relationship. That relationship needs to be reset.

Maybe Littleproud could write Trump a really nice song and have Dutton sing it? That might do it!

09.45 AEDT

Everyone please spare a thought for Australia’s richest woman and Trump cheerleader, Gina Rinehart, whose Hancock Agriculture wagyu beef exports to the US may now be banned.

Turns out the face eating leopard party will just eat faces! Who. Could. Have. Known.

09.41 AEDT

Trump tariffs include barren Australian territorial islands ‘tariff on penguins’

For those looking for the full list of tariffs, here is the chart that Donald Trump showed in the press conference.

This includes the Australian territory of the Heard and McDonald Islands, which is a volcanic group of barren islands in part of a protected marine park in the Antarctic zone, which can only be accessed by sea and takes two weeks to reach from Australia. Nothing lives there except birds, penguins and beatles.

09.32 AEDT

There was a ‘five point plan’ to responding to the US tariffs Anthony Albanese spoke about in that press conference. This is all contingent on Labor winning the election though.

We have broken it down in point form for you:

One: Australia will strengthen the anti-dumping regime (anti-dumping is basically a safeguard against importing and selling goods at well below domestic prices. This can happen in trade wars, where exporters seek to offload their goods for whatever price they can get, undercutting local markets). This will be aimed at steel, aluminium and manufacturing.

Two: $50m in funding will be given to peak bodies like the National Farmers Federation to help impacted industries “secure and grow new markets” for their products. New business and investment missions to ‘priority markets’ will be sent out in the first 100 days of a new Labor government.

Three: A economic resilience program will be established through the national reconstruction fund, with $1bn in zero interest loans for firms to “capitalise on new export opportunities”

Four: The ‘Buy Australian’ campaign will be turbo charged. Government procurement will look for Australian first.

Five: A critical minerals strategic reserve will be established.

09.24 AEDT

Premiers much ado about nothing

Joshua Black
Postdoctoral Research Fellow

In a campaign wrap-up yesterday afternoon, the ABC made a big deal of the “Jacinta Allan-shaped hole’ in the PM’s press conference. Anthony Albanese responded bluntly by pointing out that the Victorian parliament was currently sitting.

There are shades of electoral history here. In 1990, the Hawke Government made its re-election bid knowing that it was in deep trouble in Victoria. The state government of John Cain Jnr was deeply unpopular and the beginnings of a recession were making their mark felt already in that state.

Hawke was re-elected but lost nine seats, for which he blamed Cain and his colleagues.

What the ABC didn’t point out is that it can be dangerous for a leader to rely too heavily on state premiers who are obviously more popular. In 1980, Bill Hayden led the Labor Party, but its campaign material for that year’s election gave him equal billing with Bob Hawke (already popular but campaigning to win his first election to parliament) and Neville Wran, the much-liked premier of NSW. People thought that the party ‘lacked faith’ in its leader.

There were echoes of this in the commentary on Albanese’s use of South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas on Tuesday. The premier joined the PM for a health-themed day of campaigning in a state where the government hopes to hold and maybe even win seats. But as the Australian Financial Review pointed out, the ‘Malinauskas strategy has limitations’.

Albanese clearly hopes that he can walk a fine line between both precedents, using premiers only where they’re wanted.

In the end, Australians actually do know the difference between state and federal elections and weirdly don’t always vote the same way in those elections. So it’s all a bit of a nothing.

09.22 AEDT

Recap of Albanese press conference

Ok, so what did we learn there?

Australian beef exports to the US are probably banned from midnight. The government knew beef was a sticking point (it had been in previous discussions and deals) but is still working out the details (this has since been clarified that it won’t be a banned, it will be a 10% tariff)

A 10% tariff to other goods has been applied, but Australia is considering that light treatment compared to what has been leveled at other nations

There may be exemptions for pharmaceuticals and gold bullion

Australia will not be imposing tariffs against US imports (which makes sense given the trade deficit we have with them)

Greg Norman is once again involved in national affairs

Australia is restarting discussions with the European Union for a trade union, after talks were originally abandoned. “Things have changed” Penny Wong said.

Australia won’t be budging on loosening biosecurity, the PBS or regulating tech giants

‘This is not the act of a friend’ Anthony Albanese said in perhaps the strongest condemnation he has had of the Trump administration to date (we can excuse openly talking about ethnically cleansing Palestinians and turning Gaza into a US run beach resort, but we draw the line at trade tariffs apparently)

Australia is considering taking action at the World Trade Organisation (which will do nothing)

09.11 AEDT

And the last question at this press conference called for this very important issue:

Will Jacinta Allan be campaigning with him?

Yes.

09.10 AEDT

Anthony Albanese says he won’t be talking about what advice Greg Norman gave him about how best to deal with trump, because his advice about having confidential discussions is to keep them confidential.

Look, Greg Norman clearly is someone who is a proud Australian, he is someone who of course lives largely in Florida, he’s someone with connections with the US administration. And we are engaging with Australians who have connections with the United States to advance our national interest

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