CHALMERS IN DC AS TARIFFS LOOM
You may have noticed a fair amount of noise coming out of Washington DC over the past few weeks and I’m afraid that’s where we’re starting again this morning.
You’ll be pleased to hear though, that it’s not an immediate return to the endless rhetoric from the US president. Instead, it’s Jim Chalmers who’s got our attention.
The treasurer posted on X earlier this morning that he has concluded his meeting with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett in the US capital. Chalmers said he’d had a “really productive and positive meeting” with the pair which involved “a wide-ranging discussion, from the flow of capital to critical minerals and trade”.
A lot of recent attention has obviously been paid to the last word in that sentence and Bloomberg highlights talks with US officials about avoiding President Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium were “a key part of the Chalmers agenda in Washington”.
The Australian treasurer and Bessent also addressed the Australian Superannuation Investment Summit on Tuesday, convened by US ambassador Kevin Rudd, which Chalmers previously said was aimed at bringing together some of Australia’s largest super funds with leading figures from the US investment community.
Asked at the event how well Australia was placed to avoid Trump’s tariffs, Bessent replied “so far so good”, although he clarified he wasn’t the US trade representative, Bloomberg flags. Chalmers also said he wasn’t expecting to resolve the issue during his trip.
It’s worth noting that Donald Trump said on Monday that his tariffs on Canada and Mexico would be starting next month, despite previously suspending them. “We’re on time with the tariffs, and it seems like that’s moving along very rapidly,” the Associated Press reports Trump saying during his press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron.
At the time of writing, Chalmers had also used his trip to meet with US business leaders such as Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser. He is also expected to meet with JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon before he heads back to Australia.
On the theme of navigating the Trump administration, The Sydney Morning Herald says US trade adviser Peter Navarro has “criticised countries for targeting American technology firms with digital services taxes to prop up their own industries”.
The paper goes on to say “Australia does not have such a tax and was not named by Navarro” but quotes analysts who reckon the news media bargaining code would be regarded by the White House as discriminatory.
As the Albanese government continues to try and navigate Trump and the potential economic impact of his second term in office, the AAP highlights the Australian Bureau of Statistics is releasing its first inflation data since the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cut interest rates.
The newswire says while the RBA is more interested in the quarterly statistics than the monthly, the next quarterly data is not due to be released until April 30 — four weeks after the board’s next meeting. Therefore, AAP states, “Wednesday’s data for the month of January will provide the next best insight into whether disinflation is continuing apace”.
AMP chief economist Shane Oliver is quoted as predicting: “January monthly CPI data is likely to rise to 2.8% year-on-year as the energy rebates continue to roll off, with trimmed mean inflation also rising slightly to 2.8% year-on-year from 2.7%.”
LABOR TRIES TO GO ON THE ATTACK
Some of the above, you’d think, would factor into the government’s planning for a budget due on March 25, which Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese keep telling us they’re definitely working towards.
Is it actually going to happen? “Not a fucking chance,” is what one minister said on Tuesday, The Australian Financial Review reports. Apparently internally “there is no expectation” a budget will be handed down next month.
The paper reports speculation within government is now focussed on Albanese going to visit the governor-general straight after Western Australia goes to the polls next Saturday, meaning a federal election for April 12.
“In the meantime, the carpet bombing of Peter Dutton will only escalate,” the AFR writes, saying the government was “worried” about the opposition leader. Which, look, if they read any of the polls (insert my usual disclaimer on polls), you’d expect them to be.
Anyway, yesterday we got Labor saying Dutton has questions to answer over the timing of shares purchased on the cusp of a Rudd government bank bailout, the ABC reports. The opposition leader’s spokesperson said the scrutiny came from “the Albanese government’s dirt unit” and denied Dutton had any sensitive information when he made the purchases, which were promptly declared.
Today, the Nine newspapers have a feature claiming Dutton “has made $30 million of property transactions across 26 pieces of real estate over 35 years”. The piece states: “Since buying his first home at 19, Dutton has made property purchases totalling $12 million and sales of $18.8 million in transactions that he has frequently declared to parliament late, partially, and in two cases, not at all.”
The Sydney Morning Herald overnight also led on the fight over the Housing Australia Future Fund, with the paper saying figures released today will show 358 homes have been completed, 5,465 are under construction, and planning is underway for another 7,833 under the program.
Elsewhere, the AAP and Guardian Australia highlight the questions Dutton is facing over his planned public service cuts.
AAP also highlights Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt has challenged his opposition counterpart Michaelia Cash to a National Press Club debate. “No more weasel words, no more delay, front up and tell the Australian people what you intend to do to their jobs and wages after the election. I challenge Michaelia Cash to come out of hiding, reveal her secret plan to cut wages and debate me,” Watt said.
Finally, The Australian has splashed its website with pictures of Albanese playing cricket with breakdancer Raygun (Rachael Gunn), apparently meant to illustrate its lead story which says energy chiefs have warned a post-election hung Parliament would be a “nightmare” and a “quiet menace” responsible for “horrific” policy outcomes.
The newspaper also reports on new Climate 200 polling which claims independent MP Allegra Spender is on track to comfortably retain the eastern Sydney electorate of Wentworth. The article says the polling “indicates the uphill battle Peter Dutton faces in reclaiming inner-city teal seats”.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
The SS United States began its final voyage last week as officials prepare to eventually sink the ship off Florida’s Gulf Coast.
The Associated Press reports the ageing 1,000-foot vessel, which broke the transatlantic speed record on its maiden voyage in 1952, is being sunk in the hope it will become the world’s largest artificial reef.
The ship is heading from south Philadelphia’s Delaware River to Mobile, Alabama, for prep work before finally heading to Florida.
AP reports: “Officials in Okaloosa County on Florida’s coastal Panhandle hope it will become a barnacle-encrusted standout among the county’s more than 500 artificial reefs and a signature diving attraction that could generate millions of dollars annually in local tourism spending for scuba shops, charter fishing boats and hotels.”
Apparently, the process of cleaning, transporting and sinking the vessel could take at least a year and a half and the ship could end up costing the Florida county more than US$10 million (A$16 million).
Say What?
Good luck, you have my full endorsement!
Elon Musk
The billionaire has wished Vivek Ramaswamy good luck in his attempts to become Ohio’s next governor. You’ll remember Ramaswamy was supposed to be running whatever DOGE is with Musk, but quit hours after Donald Trump’s inauguration, leaving the controversial businessman to cause chaos all by himself.
CRIKEY RECAP
Albanese’s leadership of the ALP was born in the scarring experience of the 2019 election, when Labor went in heavy favourites to defeat Australia’s worst-ever prime minister, Scott Morrison, and came off second best courtesy of attacks on Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen’s ambitious reform program. Ever since, Labor has been resistant to any kind of major reform that might generate political blowback. Albanese’s strategy has been to use caution and moderation to secure multiple terms in government in order to bed down Labor reforms. Problem is, those reforms have been few and far between, and it looks like Albanese may end up leading the first single-term government since before WW2.
Peter Dutton, in contrast, is a novel kind of Liberal leader. He’s not a Liberal at all but a Queensland LNP politician, and it shows — he’s abandoned the free market, small government shibboleths of the NSW and Victorian Liberals who have dominated the party since the 1980s and embraced big government intervention in energy and threatened to use divestment powers against large corporations. But he’s also an overt racist, a peddler of conspiracy theories and fantasies about the threats posed by migrants, an opponent of climate action, and a dedicated culture warrior who has made exploiting social division within Australia his primary political technique.
The effect is a double disenfranchisement of moderate Liberal voters who believe in the importance of climate change and centrist social values, and of economic liberals, who are now politically homeless.
Former ABC chair and Australian media legend Ita Buttrose last week fired off a remarkable letter to Seyfarth Shaw Australia, the lawyers representing the ABC in its current case involving the sacking of journalist Antoinette Lattouf, about the evidence provided by outgoing ABC managing director David Anderson.
In the letter, Buttrose referred to “an audio-visual teleconference meeting” between herself and the firm earlier in the week in which, she claimed, “we discussed evidence I had that completely refuted Mr Anderson’s affidavit”.
Is this going to be the “podcast election”? The second or third so-called “social media election”? Or is it simply that digital campaigning has long been an essential part of politics? Campaigning on the internet, a place where a lot of voters spend too much of their time, is about as normal and unsexy as it gets. So I’m shouldering the normal, unsexy task of traversing the internet you might not already be lurking in, and reporting back.
Today, a recap of the podcasts you’re probably not listening to and the Reddit AMAs you might have missed.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Uni peak body urges pre-election funding boost (AAP)
Three things Lattouf wanted from the ABC — and it would have saved them $1m (The Sydney Morning Herald)
Creative Australia defends quick dumping of Venice artist (AFR)
Oscars 2025: The quirks, record breakers and possible winners (BBC)
AI video of Trump kissing Musk’s feet plays on TVs in HUD building (The Hill)
THE COMMENTARIAT
From Creative Australia to Sydney Writers’ Festival, the direct threat facing the arts is coming from within — Louise Adler (Guardian Australia): When Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2023 showcased Palestinian contemporary writing, there was a media flurry engineered by antagonists. I remember the leadership shown by the former chair of the Adelaide festival who robustly responded to the withdrawal of one sponsor by asserting perhaps they weren’t the sort of sponsor we wanted.
Arts organisations require directors with legal, financial and political expertise. But directors must understand the organisation’s core business. Boards need an appetite for risk, clarity in their mandate and confidence in both the art form and the audience. Artists need to be appointed to arts boards and to be taken seriously.
Finally, government relationships must continue to be at arm’s length, holding fast to the principle of curatorial independence. The long-term sustainability of arts organisations is under threat, once again, from a lack of funding, poor governance, declining and ageing audiences and a lack of courageous leadership.
As Donald Trump upends geopolitics what happens to Five Eyes and AUKUS? — John Lyons (ABC): White’s assessment is blunt: “The sooner we cut our losses and get out of AUKUS the better, and if the Trump administration’s scepticism offers a chance to do so, we should grab it.”
White says that “Trump’s animosity” to the US security and intelligence establishment is much more a problem for the establishment than it is for Trump — and that that is a problem for Australia.
“Trump is already showing how determined he is to radically overhaul them — witness his nomination of maverick Tulsi Gabbard to lead the intel community,” he says.
“There is a real risk that Australia’s old friends in that community will become a liability not an asset. The harder the old intelligence establishment argues to preserve and expand cooperation with Australia, the more sceptical and indeed hostile Trump and his team will become.”
