Well overnight we saw a big change in Trump’s market manipulation strategy….oh sorry “trade policy”. He paused for 90 days (but really who knows) the new tariffs which he announced a week ago and which came into effect a day ago on all nations except China. This is rather meaningless for Australia because by “pause” Trump means just putting a blanket 10% tariff on all imports, which is what Australia already had.

This is not some masterful gambit by the big-brained President. It is an acknowledgment that his plan was tanking the US stock market, and even worse was sending US Treasury bond yields soaring. That is bad because it not only was going to cause interest rate in America to rise, and also increase the cost of paying US government debt, but it signalled that global investor were no longer treating the US currency as a safe harbour.

So, he reversed his position. This has nothing to do with anyone wanting to do a deal. The entire world knows with Trump all you have to do is make it sound like you will do a deal, let him tell his gullible supporters that he has won and then you go back to doing what you were doing.

By keeping the tariff at 10% Trump has still made everything more expensive for US residents and businesses. It’s just that things are not as bad as they were yesterday, so not surprisingly the market soared.

The big upshot though of this is that no businesses will ever move operations from China or Vietnam or India or anywhere to the USA. Why would you? Big companies make decisions for the next 2 decades, Trump couldn’t even keep to his policy for a week. There is no reason to move a factory from Vietnam to the USA when before you have even started building the factory the reason for doing so is completely gone.

Because traders are sheep, the ASX looks set to open strongly – maybe up 6%. This is more about perception than reality. Nothing has changed for Australian companies and given the increased tariffs on China, you could argue things are worse. But because the US market soared, everyone will assume the Australian markets will – at least initially – soar, and so that will happen.

Anthony Albanese has spoken to Cairns radio 4CA about the tariff ‘pause’ Trump has given nations (who are now inline with the baseline 10% that Australia received originally).

On the tariffs, Albanese said:

This is an act of economic self harm from the United States that has hurt its economy, which is why we’ve had a change overnight from President Trump. But it’s also having an impact on the global economy. These tariffs are totally unwarranted.

My Government will always stand up for Australia’s national interest and that includes defending our biosecurity regime. The truth is, of course, that our beef is the best in the world.

We’re not frightened of competing with other countries because we just are much better at it. We have a number of local advantages, of course, in that, and that’s why it’s so much not the act of a friend, what we’ve seen from the United States.

And overnight we’ve seen this change. What it does is show how important it is that my Government have continued to engage in a considered, adult, mature way, including with the Trump administration.

We didn’t reach for any panic buttons. We got the best deal in the world. But we continue to say that what we want and what we expect is for goods to come into Australia at zero. That’s what we’re delivering. And we want our goods to go into the United States at zero because that’s what our free trade agreement says should occur.

And the relationship is a really important one. I mean, some of the decisions that have been made, of course, Norfolk Island, 29 per cent, a rather bizarre decision about Heard and McDonald Islands, which is only inhabited by penguins, I’m not sure what they trade. It is a very uncertain world that we live in and that is why I’m absolutely certain now is not a time for cuts. Now is not a time for chaos. Now is not a time for inexperienced people coming into government. Now is the time for us to have a steady hand on the ship of state.

New research has revealed that real wages have been held back in Australia in recent decades because workers’ power to negotiate has been persistently and consistently eaten away.

The research, by The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work, reveals that until recently, government policies reinforced economic trends that eroded workers’ power.

This erosion normalised low wage growth in Australia for both union and non-union workers.

The report – The Curious Incident of Low Wages Growth – found that of the 16 key developments in the labour market over the past half century, 14 reduced workers’ power, one increased the power of female workers only and just one increased the power of all workers.

From 2014, the majority of federal legislation buttressed this trend and further reduced workers’ power.

Since the election of the Albanese government in 2022, almost all federal legislation impacting wages has done the opposite. It has increased workers’ power. And this may continue, with the government seeking a pay rise above the rate of inflation for low-paid workers in its submission to the Fair Work Commission’s annual wage review.

“These findings dispel the idea that governments can do nothing about wages,” said Professor Emeritus David Peetz, Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow at The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work and author of the report.

“This report solves the mystery of why wage growth has been so low, despite a tight labour market and a brief surge in inflation.

“Why was there no wages explosion? The answer is that workers have lost a lot of power since the last wages explosion in the 1970s. Almost every change in the economy has taken away workers’ bargaining power.

“From 2014 to 2022, most government policies took away workers’ bargaining power. That changed in 2022 when policies shifted the pendulum back some way towards workers. Now, wages have begun to turn around.”

The Greens are announcing their renters’ right to solar policy today, which would see renters be able to install solar panels on their rental homes, with the upfront cost paid for by the government (and landlords eventually repaying, either upfront or at the sale of the home)

The Greens say there is nothing to help renters access cheaper renewable power on offer from the major parties and this policy would ensure more renters could see lower power bills as well as reducing emissions.

From the release:

The Greens’ plan would allow renters to request an average-sized solar panel system, up to 8kW, to be installed at their rental properties. Landlords would only be able to refuse on reasonable grounds, including restrictive body corporate rules, engineering challenges or local energy congestion constraints.

The solar systems and installation would be paid for through a new $10 billion fund established through the publicly-owned electricity company Snowy Hydro.

The panels will be listed as an asset on Snowy Hydro’s balance sheet with a caveat placed on
the title of the property.

Landlords could elect to pay this amount off early if they choose, otherwise Snowy Hydro will be entitled to be repaid the amount owing when the property is sold or its ownership transferred.

The interest rate would be whichever is lower between the annual change in either the Consumer
Price Index (CPI) or Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings (AWOTE).

One of the unnoticed campaigns this election is the Queensland senate race. The LNP’s Gerard Rennick lost his spot on the LNP ticket, so he has quit the party and is running as an independent. Labor thinks that could split the conservative vote and the Greens and Labor are both looking to take advantage.

Queensland Labor’s senate team is on the road about to do a 650km tour of the Greatest Nation on Earth with Murray Watt, Anthony Chisholm and Nita Green and candidate Corinne Mulholland to visit Caboolture, the Sunshine Coast, Gympie, Maryborough, Bundaberg, Calliope and Rockhampton.

Why those towns? Well, they rely a lot on public service jobs, and the plan is to make some hay from the Coalition’s public service cut policies.

And being Queensland, Labor is linking Dutton’s plan to Campbell Newman (who is still despised) and his disastrous public service cuts in 2012. Queenslanders have long memories, which is what Watt, Chisholm and Green are counting on.

Angus Taylor and Jane Hume have called a press conference for mid-morning to discuss the revamped future fund plan (which is an offset fund).

That should be fun.

What about how we are handling our security arrangements with the US, given, you know *gestures* everything.

Marles:

Our security relationship with the United States is a different thing. I mean, unlike the Liberals, we’re not putting defence on the table here.

We really negotiate and have our relationship with the United States under the banner of the alliance on its own terms and, in fact, you know we’re optimistic about that going forward.

I met with my counterpart more than a month ago now in Washington, and had a really positive conversation about how we can walk forward together with the United States in terms of pursuing the alliance. The alliance has been in place since 1951. We have been fighting side by side with the United States since the First World War. It is a profoundly important defence relationship which really has transcended administrations in Washington and for that matter governments in Canberra, and we will continue to pursue that because it’s very much in Australia’s interest.

Defence minister Richard Marles is asked whether China and Australia will be working more closely in opposition to the trade policies of the United States.

He says:

Well, no, and it’s about pursuing Australia’s national interests, not about making common calls with China. So we’re not doing that. But we are focused on building markets and diversifying our trade, as I said. We have done a lot more in South-East Asia, for example, with countries like Indonesia which is, you know, a massive market that’s going to grow right next to us. We’re about to sign a new trade agreement with India which is the biggest country in the world now.

With every done a trade agreement with the UAE which is the gateway to the Middle East, an important market for Australia.

We have doubled our trade with the UK over the last three years. So we’re focused on diversifying our trade and, yes, we stabilised our relationship with China and that’s a good thing, but fundamentally what we’re doing is diversifying our trade around the world and building Australia’s economic resilience.

That’s really, you know, been the lesson, not just in the last couple of weeks, but really over the last five or 10 years about the importance of making sure that we have got strong diversified trade around the world and that’s our

On child care, Bridget McKenzie is asked what her plan is for child care:

Q: Do you actually have a comprehensive child care policy because if you’re building new child care centres in regional areas, presumably you need to attract the workers to staff those facilities. Would you support a rise in wages for child care workers, would you support a 3-day guarantee for low-income families to actually go to those child care centres? (Which is Labor’s policy)

McKenzie:

Well we as a Coalition made very clear our child care policy, but when you go specifically to regions, we don’t want to build massive day care centres, we have often got smaller regional centres that actually need a more creative, a more dynamic and flexible…

Q: Don’t they still need well-paid workers?

McKenzie:

Of course, everyone needs well-paid workers, but if you’re a dairy farmer, you need quite a specific child care support, so you can go and do the cows between 6:00am and 8, and again between 5 and 7. So when we’re out in the regions, we have been talking a lot about the funding drought and the child care drought that’s occurring in our regional centres and it’s not because we have got – in some places it’s because we got massive waiting lists for existing centres and in other places, it’s because red tape is tying up existing council offices to be able to be used for child care centres, we have been able to actually make commitments in, say, smaller communities in the seat of Parkes with Jamie Chaffey where a small investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars, not millions, not billions, actually frees up up to 40 places in those smaller towns because they’re just for the lack of space being tacked on to the existing buildings.

So we need a creative and tailored approach in the regions because, as you know, we’re not all the same.

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie is questioned about integrity of how any future projects would be chosen for funding by a future Coalition government (sports rorts looms large)

McKenzie tells the ABC:

It’s a legislated fund with an independent analysis of the impact of any government’s decision-making on the state of the regions, that will be tabled in Parliament, and this information will inform ministers on where they need to invest that money.

Now, you talk about child care – I mean, we don’t even have child care centres in many regional centres. That’s the problem. When we see Labor Governments come to power, as we have seen under Anthony Albanese, in their very first budget, they cut $10 billion of regional programs from the Federal Budget. They have also cut, delayed and cancelled regional road projects right across the country. So that’s what happens when the Labor Party gets in and it doesn’t matter who holds seats, they just cut it to regional Australia