Q: We see in the Oz today where Peter Dutton was [the planned victim of an alleged terror plot]. We know we know harassment [against MPs] has doubled since 2021. You have been in Parliament since 1996, do you feel more anxious about your personal safety now than ever before?

Albanese:

I have reached out to Peter Dutton this morning and it is a fact that the number of threats that have been made to Parliamentarians has increased in recent times and that has been reported on by the appropriate authorities.

I myself have been the subject of a range of issues, at least one of which is before legal processes at the moment. There was a pretty serious incident. So what I have confidence in, though, is the Australian Federal Police and the authorities to do what they can to keep us safe, but that is one of the reasons why you have seen an increase number of security measures put in place because we do live in times that unfortunately we have seen around the world as well, but here as well, these threats be made.

They shouldn’t be – there’s no place whatsoever in politics for any of this, and I have ensured that any time any member of Parliament, regardless of who they are, have asked for support, they have received it.

Q: Here in the NT, our most at-risk populations in aged care are First Nations people in remote communities. Why aren’t we investing there?

Albanese:

Good news. We are. Last time I was here, we were in Darwin and then in Maningrida where we announced I think it was $12.6 million to build new beds for residential aged care residents out in Maningrida. That town in particular, I think, is a greatest testiment to the work that we have done in the urgent care clinics to integrate that with other primary health measures that we fund federally because as a health hub there in Maningrida, they have two nurses on call overnight, they found a way to use the urgent care clinic funding to boost access there.

It’s over the road from the residential aged care facility and we’re now investing as part of, I think it’s $800 million, nearly a billion dollars in total in First Nations investment in aged care this term.

But particularly here in the NT. We’re up to hundreds of millions of dollars in investment and in building new beds in particular.

So I think we’re at Pearl because we’re building new beds out there. We’re in Maningrida, Nhulunbuy for the same thing.

Anthony Albanese is asked a question about whether him knocking back a request for infrastructure funding for the Darwin Port in 2013 is one of the reasons the NT Country Liberal government sold the port to a Chinese owned entity. (Both parties are now committed to buying it back)

The NT Liberals sold the port to raise money for its own budget, under a program that the Liberal party put in place federally, where Tony Abbott encouraged privatisation from the states and territories in exchange to access a federal infrastructure funding pool, so not sure how the logic flows here, but here is what Albanese has to say:

No is the short answer. When I was the Infrastructure Minister, we delivered record infrastructure funding for the Northern Territory including at the Port.

When I was the Minister, the railway line didn’t go to the Port. We delivered that. And on the way here, I went along this little road called Tiger Brennan Drive. Do you know what Tiger Brennann Drive was before I was Minister? It was a goat track.

What I did is converted it to the road that everyone here at the press conference has just driven on. Not only did we promise it, we funded it and I opened some of it while I was the Minister.

That was the most important road project for connecting up Darwin and Palmerston. That’s my record as a minister. And I don’t, with respect to Mr Styles, I actually don’t remember him.

There’s a lot of people ([I have spoken to] through ministerial positions.

Can I say this about the Port of Darwin – what a long bow that is. I, as infrastructure shadow Minister in 2015, and then in 2016, when the Port of Darwin was flogged off, 2016, April 2016 is when the incentive payment of $19.5 million was forwarded to the NTCLP Government as an incentive payment to flog off the port, the key date wasn’t any meetings in 2013, the key date for the privatisation of that asset was the Joe Hockey budget of 2014 that put in place an asset recycling program that provided an incentive to state and territory governments to flog off public assets.

That was the key date for that. We responded appropriately for – for ports around the country. I have addressed the National Ports Conference here and if you speak to the people who run the National Ports, they will say that I, as minister, was one of the first – I was the first Infrastructure Minister Australia’s had with that title, but I also attended all of those National Ports meetings, we delivered infrastructure including the road networks to upgrade which were important for productivity-lifting at those ports.

The CLP made a decision to flog off that port, we opposed it at the time. The Commonwealth government provided an incentive. We opposed the asset recycling program was one of the key elements that led to the flogging off of the Port of Darwin

Q: Is the Federal Government prepared to use nuclear subs against China.

Albanese:

We are building and are going to have nuclear-powered conventional-armed submarines. We don’t want to use weapons against any country. We want peace…

…We want peace and security. We don’t have – Australia does not have, nor are we accessing nuclear weapons.

Q: Elon Musk has been put in charge of running the ruler over the submarine production in the US and the AUKUS deal. How concerned should Australia be? And is the US really still reliable national security partner?

Anthony Albanese:

I’m confident about AUKUS because I had those firsthand discussions with the President of the United States and also with more than 100 members of Congress and the Senate during my state visit to the United States.

I’m also confident that people when they make an assessment know that this is in Australia’s national interest but also the national interest of the United States.

Q: Are you concerned it will cost more with these tariffs in place?

Albanese:

I support the existing arrangements we have with the United States.

Q: The President said countries on the 10% baseline tariff can negotiate a better deal. Difficult times for Australia given the election care-taker period. How will the Government manage that between now and the 3 May?

Albanese:

That of course is a factor, that’s just a reality, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t continue to engage and we are continuing to engage with the United States on a daily basis. I welcome the President’s comments overnight. I have seen them. He has spoken about, of course, the change that was made, the – a day ago when he made the 10% change. This is – this is a new statement by the President. We welcome it. We believe that reciprocal tariffs on Australia should be zero. Very clear.

Anthony Albanese and Anika Wells are in Darwin making their aged care announcement which we previewed a bit earlier ($60m for 120 aged care beds) and Anika is again talking about how she made a promise to Jan, an aged care worker, last time she was in Darwin to do something about Jan’s 100 person waiting list.

Wells:

I promised Jan we would go away and do some more work and see if we could help her and today we return with $60 million worth of good news to build 120 new aged care beds here in Darwin. That will be on top of the $40 million we have already invested in building more residential aged care facilities here in Darwin this term.

What that process looks like now is we will open EOIs, we have already been talking to providers who have the kind of experience and capability to be able to deliver this facility. We have had significant interest and we’ll continue to work through that. It is part of the agenda that the Albanese Government has had for aged care this term. It was the very first bill that we put through the 47th Parliament.

We have now invested more than $35 billion in fixing the aged care crisis this term.

That looks like $17.7 billion in wage rises for our aged care workers who have long been undervalued and we need those people back in the sector and like the PM said, because he keeps a close eye on this and I appreciate his support, they are flooding back to the sector.

Not sure what that will do for the immediate waiting list, but let’s see.

Last night the RBA Governor Michele Bullock gave a speech at the Chief Executive Women Annual Dinner.

Unlike usual speeches by the RBA governor it was not really about the economic picture, but more about her journey as a woman in economics (which tbh is far too rare).

But she did open by adding in some things about the economy:

“Inevitably, there will be a period of uncertainty and adjustment as countries respond to the ongoing tariff announcements by the United States administration. It will take some time to see how all of this plays out and the added unpredictability means we need to be patient as we work through how all of this could affect demand and supply globally. [ie no I will not listen to The Australia Institute and convene an emergency meeting of the board even though right now the market is pricing in a 73% chance to 2 interest rate cuts, 50 basis points, in May – and it will likely rise today]

Financial market and economic volatility can be expected as this process unfolds. But there are two points I want to make on this. First, we’re not currently seeing the same degree of impact as previous market events like in 2008 for example. [Well, that is good, things are not as bad as when the entire financial system in the northern hemisphere went to hell in a hand basket. Phew.] And second, the Australian financial system is strong and well placed to absorb shocks from abroad. [No one is suggesting our banking system is about to collapse it’s the economy we are worrying about]

We are closely monitoring financial market conditions here and overseas – as we always do. We continue to engage closely with our fellow financial regulators in Australia, and our central bank counterparts overseas, sharing information and working together. We are carefully considering several factors including the response of our trading partners, additional counter-responses from the US, the response of our exchange rate, and adjustments in other financial markets. [But you’ll have to wait till two weeks after the election to find out]

A key focus for us is how all this uncertainty is affecting decisions made by households and businesses in Australia.[One would hope so]

All of this – together with our usual detailed analytical work and scenarios – is helping us build a fuller picture of the possible impacts as we prepare for the next Monetary Policy Board meeting on 19-20 May. There are a lot of moving parts. We are bringing all this together to form an objective assessment of what it means for the outlook for domestic activity and inflation here at home. [Be patient, we’ll get around to it]

We are mindful of not adding to the uncertainty, [their entire statement last week was about how uncertain they were of everything and so they did nothing] and to that end, it’s too early for us to determine what the path will be for interest rates. [lulz, the market is pricing in a 100% chance of at least one rate cut.] Our focus remains on our dual mandate for price stability and full employment. [in which they believe full employment is a situation where there are more people unemployed than is currently the case – have fun explaining that one to your friends]

After yesterday’s big gains today expect things to fall. Why? Well as a suggested yesterday, mostly traders are sheep and things only went up yesterday because when Trump announced the 90 pause everyone just assumed that was amazing great news and forgot that putting a 125% tariff on the second biggest economy in the world, which is China, is the type of thing that would normally have sent the stock market crashing.

Today they all remembered that and also got the added bonus that actually the tariff is 145%.

So the ASX is expected to fall – down 1.5% on future trading

And if you are wondering what Futures trading is, just think “bet”. So gamble responsibly.

The Coalition are still vowing to cut the public service to where it was three years ago, despite population grown as well as the fact that review after review (and experience) showed how bad the public service cap was for services.

(Things are still not great when it comes to services, particularly Services Australia – so imagine how much worse it could get)

James Paterson told RN this morning:

We will cap the size of the Australian Public Service and reduce the numbers back to the levels they were three years ago through natural attrition and voluntary redundancies

Meanwhile, the United States is giving up one of its most effective soft power tools – Hollywood – under Trump.

AAP reports China is putting a ban on US movies:

China says it will immediately restrict imports of Hollywood films in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s escalation of US tariffs on imported Chinese goods, targeting one of the most high-profile American exports.

Industry analysts said the financial impact was likely to be minimal, however, because Hollywood’s box office returns in China have declined significantly in recent years.

After three decades during which China imported 10 Hollywood movies per year, Beijing’s National Film Administration said Trump’s tariff actions would further sour domestic demand for US cinema in China.

“We will follow market rules, respect the audience’s choices, and moderately reduce the number of American films imported,” the NFA said on its website on Thursday.

Hollywood studios once looked to China, the world’s second-largest film market, to help boost box office performance of movies. But domestic movies increasingly have outperformed Hollywood’s fare in China, with Ne Zha 2 this year eclipsing Pixar’s Inside Out 2 to become the highest-grossing animated film of all time.

Chris Fenton, author of “Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, and American Business,” said limiting US-made films was a “super high-profile way to make a statement of retaliation with almost zero downside for China”.

Hollywood films account for only five per cent of overall box office receipts in China’s market. And Hollywood studios receive only 25 per cent of ticket sales in China, compared with double that in other markets, Fenton said.

Trump did not jump to Hollywood’s defence. 

“… I’ve heard of worse things,” the president said when asked about China’s restrictions.

Many Hollywood celebrities supported Trump’s Democratic opponent in the 2024 election.

One entertainment industry source predicted that big Hollywood blockbusters, which continue to attract moviegoers in China, may still reach the big screen. Walt Disney’s Marvel superhero movie Thunderbolts, which kicks off the summer blockbuster season, recently received permission to debut in China on April 30.

It was not clear if China would approve the entry of other major releases this summer, such as Paramount’s Mission Impossible — The Final Reckoning, which may mark Tom Cruise’s last appearance in the long-running franchise, Warner Bros’ new Superman movie from filmmaker James Gunn, and Marvel’s new take on The Fantastic Four.