Grattan on Friday: Dutton says he could handle Donald Trump, but can any Australian PM?

In the Trump age, how the next government, whether Labor or Coalition, will handle foreign affairs, defence and trade is shaping as crucially important.

It’s a weird time when your friends become almost as problematic as your potential enemies, but that’s the situation we face.

As many have observed, Donald Trump’s long shadow hangs over our election, at a time of multiple other uncertainties. Australia, like other countries, has already felt the brunt of the president’s tariffs policy, and the government is bracing for what may be worse to come with the next round of Trump announcements in early April.

So what face would a Peter Dutton government present to the world? And how would he handle Trump?

On Thursday at the Lowy Institute, the opposition leader brought his international policies together. He presented a mix of bipartisanship and differences with the government. Some of the latter weren’t so much fundamental disagreements as claims Labor had failed and the Coalition would be more competent or effective.

The most frustrating part of Dutton’s speech and answers to questions was the same old problem. For crucial details, particularly on defence spending but also on the future of foreign aid under the Coalition, we were told we’d have to wait for announcements that always seem over the horizon.

Dutton says as prime minister he wouldn’t resile from taking on the United States when necessary. With fears about US drug companies spearheading a war on Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, he declared, “I will stand up and defend the PBS […] against any attempt to undermine its integrity, including by major pharmaceutical companies”.

In arguing that, in general, he’d be able to deal with Trump, Dutton invoked the previous Coalition government’s success with Trump Mark 1 (though Mark 2 is very different), and the power of AUKUS to anchor relations. His early priority would be to visit Washington.

The question Australians should ask themselves is this: “Who is better placed to manage the US relationship and engage with President Trump?” I believe that […] I will be able to work with the Trump administration Mark 2 to get better outcomes for Australia. I will talk to [Trump] about how our national interests are mutual interests.

But, as he acknowledged, “Australia’s national interests do not always align perfectly with the interests of partners – even of our closest allies”. The way Trump is operating at the moment, it may be that a PM of either stripe will find him impossible on certain issues.

Dutton was once an uncomplicated hawk on China. Now, he is a mix of hawkish and dovish. It’s true things have changed greatly in Australia-China relations in recent times, but another reason for Dutton’s more nuanced position is highlighted by the line in his speech that “Australia has a remarkable Chinese diaspora”. The opposition leader has an eye to the vote of Chinese-Australians.

Dutton now walks a line that is critical of China militarily, but anxious to promote and expand the now-restored trading relationship.

Currently, there are two major, hot conflicts in the world: the Ukraine war and the violence in the Middle East.

On Ukraine, the Coalition and Labor are at one in their backing for President Volodymyr Zelensky, although Dutton criticises aspects of the government’s delivery of support. But they are at odds over Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s willingness to contribute to a peacekeeping force.

“Australia can’t afford the multibillion-dollar sustainment price tag for having troops based in an ill-defined and endless European presence,” Dutton said.

The “multibillion-dollar” price tag was overegged, but many would agree there are sound arguments for not deploying Australian forces on such a venture. On the other hand, if an Albanese government did so, you can bet the commitment would be relatively token.

The big gulf between Labor and Coalition is over the Middle East. This has grown from a marginally different reaction after the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israelis to a major disagreement now.

Dutton claims Labor “has viewed our relationship with Israel through a domestic policy lens and with a view to its political imperatives” – that is, the Muslim vote.

Based on what Dutton says, a change of government would bring a substantial recalibration of Australia’s Middle East policy. One of Dutton’s “first orders of business” would be to call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “help rebuild the relationship Labor has trashed”. He added:

Israel will be able to count on our support again in the United Nations. And given UNRWA [the Palestinian relief agency] has employed terrorists from Hamas who participated in the 7 October attacks, the organisation will no longer receive funding from a government I lead.

The Coalition repeatedly says Australia needs to spend more on defence. It has announced $3 billion to reinstate the fourth squadron of F-35 joint strike fighters, but not said the size of the defence envelope it believes is required. Dutton said:

We need to do nothing short of re-thinking defence, re-tooling the ADF, and re-energising our domestic defence industry, and that’s exactly what our government will do.

That sounds like a massive task, and so it’s more than time we saw the plan and cost of it. Would the Coalition be willing to go to around 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence spending, as the Trump administration wants? That would require a lot of sacrifice in other policy areas.

The Australian Financial Review this week reported Coalition sources saying it is weighing up boosting defence spending to at least 2.5% by 2029.

When the Coalition talks up its record in defence, one should also remember the failures, chief among them the delays and chopping and changing in its submarine program. A sub-optimal performance has been bipartisan.

Dutton was questioned on his position on aid to Pacific countries. Should Australia step up given the void left by the US shutting down aid? If a Dutton government did that, would it mean an overall aid increase, or cuts in the aid budget elsewhere?

This was left as another black hole, although he did say the Australian government should make representations to the US for the reinstatement of particular aid programs the US had cut.

I don’t agree with some of the funding that they’ve withdrawn, and I think it is detrimental to the collective interests in the region, and I hope that there can be a discussion between our governments about a sensible pathway forward in that regard.

Good luck with that.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion the overall aid program would be an easy target for the Coalition in the search for savings.

When leaders talk, what they don’t say can be as important as what they do.