We are going to wrap up Trump’s tariff day there, given that the campaign itself has basically been put on hold to discuss every single angle of this.

No doubt this will continue tomorrow. Is there any more to say on it? No doubt we will find out!

Thank you to everyone who joined along with us today. We truly, truly appreciate your support and trust and we are humbled by how quickly you have jumped in to see what we are doing with this little project.

Thank you.

We will be back tomorrow for Day Seven of this never ending campaign early, if not necessarily bright.

Until then, do good and take care of you. Ax

Peter Dutton has been in Western Australia, which on Trump tariff day may have been a bit of a tactical mistake, given the time delay. Or maybe that was the point, because there doesn’t seem to be much of a cogent message coming out from the Dutton camp on what a Coalition government could have actually done differently, given that Australia, comparatively, got the best deal Trump had going.

Not sure how you do better than that, but hey, Dutton’s message seems to be his sparkling personality and his Temu version of Trump politics would dazzle Trump so much, he would just have a come to Dutton moment and turn it all around.

But as to the actual announcement Dutton had today:

An elected Dutton Coalition Government will support our mining, resources and farming sectors by investing in infrastructure to upgrade agricultural and mining roads critical to getting product to domestic and export markets. 

The American economy under Trump’s tariffs:

Let’s break down what a trade deficit and surplus is. A trade deficit means that a country buys more stuff from another country than that country buys from them. A surplus is the opposite. The reason that Trump seems weirdly obsessed with getting rid of trade deficits, seems to revolve around that fact that the word deficit has negative connotations.

But deficit is not a negative. It just means I like buying stuff from you. I have a trade deficit with my local supermarket. Why? Because I buy stuff from them, and they buy nothing from me. I equally have a trade deficit with all the shops I use. The only place I don’t have a trade deficit with is my employer. I sell them my labor and they don’t sell anything to me.

If I wanted to, I could stop buying stuff from the supermarket or other shops. I could grow my own food. I could make my own furniture. I could cut my own hair. I could provide my own medical care.

If I did this, I would reduce the trade deficit I had with lots of different places. Of course, I would need to spend lots more time on all these things. I wouldn’t be able to sell anywhere near as much labour to my employer. In fact, I would probably have to quit my job entirely.

I’m also not very good at growing food. I’m not good at building furniture. Or cutting hair. Or providing medical care. And because I quit my job, I wouldn’t have an income coming in.

I would end up with poorer quality goods and services and less of them.

Would I be better off. No way.

But I would have zero trade deficits.

Did Anthony Albanese lose his “mojo” last year?

(This assumes Albanese had any mojo, but we will move on)

Albanese:

No.

Q: So, what are they talking about if they think that you sort of wasn’t quite working
last year?

Albanese:

I don’t know. I’m not part of the press gallery group chat.

Q: You talk to them from time to time. You know who they are.

Albanese:

Look, we have been a determined government. We’ve governed in what have been turbulent economic times. The largest energy crisis since the 1970s. We have seen countries around the world with double digit inflation, some of them with double digit unemployment at the same time. Across the ditch, New Zealand is in recession. What we have managed to do is negotiate our way through those turbulent economic waters, keep our eye on the horizon. We now have inflation falling from six down to 2.4. We have unemployment being low.

We have wages that have grown five quarters in a row. We have interest rates that started to rise before we came to government, now they’ve started to fall.
We’ve provided tax cuts for every Australian taxpayer and cost of living relief whilst getting that downward pressure on inflation.

We have, as well, a really positive agenda going forward. I started to make the agenda for the second term very clear way back in October with our 20 per cent cut to student debt, with our making free TAFE permanent, with our Three Day Guarantee for childcare, with our childcare infrastructure investment, with the tax cuts for every taxpayer that are a top up, so that every Australian will get a tax cut, an average tax cut there of $2,500 that they’re worth. So, we want Australians to earn more,
keep more of what they earn. Peter Dutton wants to cut everything except for people’s
taxes.

They are not ready as an alternative government. That is becoming clearer and clearer and in discussions I’ve had with you, Raf, you’d be aware that I was always of the view that when people focus on what the alternative, what the choice is in this election, going forward with a positive agenda or going backwards to the chaos, the leftovers of the Morrison government, they would choose to vote Labor and that’s what I hope on the 3rd of May

Anthony Albanese took some calls from ABC Melbourne listeners a little earlier this morning with one caller, Alan, wanting to know:

A few years ago we upset our French colleagues by cancelling a submarine contract. Why don’t we cancel the US submarine contract and go back to France again? If that means scrapping AUKUS as well, then so be it.

Albanese:

Because we believe that AUKUS is in the interest of defending our nation. We think it’s in Australia’s interest. And whilst we regard this as an act of self harm by the United States when it comes to their economy, what I’m not prepared to do is do anything that is not in Australia’s interests.

Yeah, that’ll learn them!

Given Anthony Albanese falling off a stage has momentarily diverted attention away from the tariffs, let’s take a look at what AAP’s Lukas Coch saw:

Anthony Albanese has just had a small stumble off a stage at a Mineral and Energy Mining Union conference event, which has caused GREAT excitement among some media networks.

He was walking on the stage and seemed to misjudge where the stage platform ended and the floor began at the back of the stage while moving for a photo with some delegates. (He seems fine)

That sound you hear is the Sky headline generators whirling up; ‘can’t stand on a stage, can’t stand up for the country!’

The former NT Country Liberal Party Chief Minister Adam Giles who now heads up Gina Rinehart’s agricultural baby, Hancook Agriculture, has stood up for Australia and Australian industry by criticising the Australian government for “whinging and moaning…like a petulant child” in response to the Trump tariffs.

The Nightly reports Giles believes it is “great to see (the US) government standing up for its own manufacturing industry”.

It’s a pity we don’t do the same in Australia,” he said.

Instead we implement electricity policy that drives up costs of operations and make ourselves uncompetitive internationally, then close down our industries. The whinging and moaning is like a petulant child, with a government acting in a mendicant mindset.”

The ‘whinging and moaning’ is pointing out that there is no reason to level taxes on Australian goods being imported to the US as there is a trade deficit and also, Australia doesn’t have tariffs on the US goods.

And protecting bio security. And Australian sovereignty. And I don’t know? Just standing up for Australia?

A timely reminder that after losing the CLP leadership and government, Giles had a short lived show on Sky where he interviewed Australian neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell, which at the time (2018) was too far even for Sky.

Earlier this morning, while in his safe space (Sydney radio 2GB) Peter Dutton was asked who his favourite ABC journalist was.

Ben Fordham: Who’s your favourite ABC journo?  

Dutton:

My favourite ABC journo… I might have to go back a fair way Ben to identify that. Look, I think there’s are some good journalists… 

Fordham: 

What none are alive? What David Speers, Sarah Ferguson, Laura Tingle, who’s your favourite? 

Dutton: 

Well, I think there are some good journalists at the ABC, but I think there are some who frankly are just partisan players and people see that on their TV screens every night. Again, the ABC is using taxpayers’ money, so use it wisely. But I think Australian families at the moment are looking at their Prime Minister and scratching their head about how bad it could get over the next three years if there’s a Labor Greens government, which would see funding increases to all sorts of causes, but not those that would help families… and just finish on this note Ben, I think there are a lot of families and a lot of pensioners and a lot of people at the moment who are weighing up the difference between the two parties.

The Prime Minister is promising a 70 cent a day tax cut in 15 months’ time. We’re saying 25 cent reduction in every litre of petrol that you put into the tank – about $14/15 dollars a week just for one tank. If you’re filling up just one car, that’s a big difference, and I think there are many other reasons why we’ll ask for the Australian public to support the Coalition at the next election.