Election diary: Dutton tries to shake off Trump dust and avoid being trapped on wages

Ahead of Donald Trump’s tariff announcement early Thursday (Australian time), the United States president has become a serious and increasing worry for Peter Dutton’s campaign. Even apart from Labor’s obvious and constant “Trump-whistling”, many voters are apparently seeing a lot of Trump dust on the opposition leader.

Liberal strategists know how dangerous this is, given Trump’s unpopularity with Australians. So Dutton is shaping up.

In a Sky interview aired Wednesday, Dutton positioned himself as ready to take on Trump (or anyone else) if necessary. “If I needed to have a fight with Donald Trump or any other world leader to advance our nation’s interests, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” he declared. “And I’ll put the Americans on notice and anyone else who seeks to act against our national interest.”

It’s a measure of where things are that an Australian conservative leader is putting “the Americans on notice”.

Anthony Albanese – who once said Trump “scares the shit out of me” – suggested his opponent was going over the top.

“Peter Dutton will always dial things up to 11. He thinks this is a contest of who can say the most aggro things. It’s not. It’s not the way that diplomacy works.”

When it comes to Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement – which will feed directly into the Australian campaign – it seems diplomacy hasn’t worked.

Trade Minister Don Farrell told briefings for agricultural and industry groups on Tuesday and Wednesday he was “pessimistic”, suggesting the likelihood of a tariff of up to 20% across the board.

Farrell indicated the Australian government had put an offer to the US, but that was rejected. Australia rejected a counter offer from the US, and resubmitted its original offer.

At Wednesday’s briefing for the red meat industry, Farrell said, “Tomorrow might be the end of the first part of the process but we’ll continue to engage with the Americans to get these tariffs removed, as we did with the Chinese”.

The government is preparing its response, which reportedly could involve taking the US to the World Trade Organisation. Asked about this, Albanese would not be drawn but told the ABC, “What we’re doing is supporting our US Free Trade Agreement, that says that goods and services between our two nations should be tariff-free.

"That’s what we’re doing, supporting our agreement, holding to our word, standing up for Australia’s national interest, and calling for the United States not only to stand up for that agreement, but to stand up to their own interests as well.”

Liberals play it cool on Albanese’s bid for real wage rise

The Liberals had a very bad experience on wages in the 2022 election.

Then-opposition leader Albanese said he’d “absolutely” support a wage increase to keep up with inflation, which was more than 5%.

The Coalition went on the attack, branding him as economically irresponsible. As he campaigned in the following days, Albanese kept producing a gold coin to show how small the rise would be for those on the minimum wage. He still occasionally reprises this party trick.

Labor is once again campaigning on wages, this time advocating a boost to real wages – that is, an increase above inflation, which is now down to 2.4%. (The submission put in on Wednesday to the Fair Work Commission went in from the Labor Party, rather than the government, because we’re in the “caretaker” period.)

The government’s position is clever. It says the wage rise, which would cover about three million workers, should be “economically sustainable”. But it doesn’t recommend a figure.

The Liberals a re trying to stay off the wages sticky paper. To be saying “no” in a cost-of-living election would only spell grief. Instead, they’re keeping their response vague. “We support wage increases”, Dutton said, without being specific about the government’s above-inflation pitch.

As to a figure, “Without further economic advice from treasury and finance, our position is we want higher wages and we want to make sure we have downward pressure on costs”.

“The prime minister is in search of a fight here,” Dutton said, a conclusion that didn’t require much perception, a fight Dutton was determined to try to side step.

Labor’s case received some backing on Wednesday from the Australian Industry Group, which suggested a rise of 2.6%.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry advocated a rise of no more than 2.5%. Asked what sort of difference there was between ACCI and the government, ACCI CEO Andrew McKellar said “that’s very hard to say. They are deliberately being non-specific.”

The ABC is in the Liberals’ sights – again

The ABC is a favourite target for many Liberals, including Dutton. In recent months he has singled out ABC reporters for attention when he didn’t like their questions.

So would he look at its budget? Dutton is leaving the impression he likely would; moreover he is critical of the national broadcaster’s regional service, which even most Coalition MPs praise.

“The approach that we would take is to reward excellence and where we find waste, to cut that waste.

"And there are a lot of regional services for the ABC which I think are underdone,” he said in his Sky interview. He’d been in western Queensland this week looking at the floods “and the ABC could be a much more integral part of that community. But just having it based in Sydney or just being based in Melbourne is not helping people in outer metro areas or regional areas.”

According to the ABC, it has about 600 employees in rural and regional Australia in 56 locations.