In these unprecedented times of tariff shocks, backflips and profiteering, the shadow of United States President Donald Trump is casting a pall over the world, with wide-ranging ramifications for the Australian election campaign.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton finds himself in an uncomfortable position, writes Dr Lesley Russell.
Lesley Russell writes:
The Australian federal election campaign is competing for media oxygen with President Trump’s “Liberation Day” imposition of tariffs on trade with the United States (since paused), and a daily succession of appalling stories about the Trump Administration’s “shock and awe” policies.
These include: the firing of thousands of public servants and their expertise at federal agencies; interference with the work of universities and cultural institutions; the withdrawal of federal funding for research; deportation of people rounded up off the streets; thoughtless interference with the work of public agencies by the stooges of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE); and endless rants about subsuming Canada and Greenland into the United States.
Everyone is reeling – those directly affected and those watching from afar. Soon it seems we will all – literally – be paying the price for the policies of Trump’s resurgent second term.
In polls taken before the tariffs announcement, 60 percent of Australians said Trump’s election is bad for Australia and half of Australians (51 percent) think it’s a bad thing for the world.
Surely now, as part of election campaigning, Australians will be looking to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton for outlines of how they will address Trump’s policies – the impost that tariffs will impose on various industry sectors, the threats that are likely coming for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the withdrawal of US research funding on specious grounds, the dramatic cuts to international aid, and the ongoing military relationship, including AUKUS.
While some of us might wish that Albanese’s responses were more hard hitting, in the vein of the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, for example, it seems that he is playing a straight bat, with no outright retaliations but no compromises to be made on key issues like the PBS and biosecurity.
Dutton, on the other hand, seems to be trying to walk both sides of the street.
He has stated that “I will be able to work with the Trump Administration Mark 2 to get better outcomes for Australia” (which, for a transactional Trump, means giving way on something) while simultaneously positioning himself as being tough enough to stand up to Trump, something he would do “in a heartbeat”.
Anyone who has observed Trump’s modus operandi recognises these are two conflicting statements.
Revealing
The election campaign is revealing Dutton in a very Trumpian – and thus very concerning – light.
Dutton’s fallback position on any issue is divisiveness. We saw this most strikingly in the lead-up to the referendum on The Voice, when he also promulgated misinformation and questioned the impartiality of the Australian Electoral Commission.
He has a long history of using immigration policy to stoke division and immigration intakes will clearly be in his sights should the Coalition win government.
He has proposed reducing permanent and student migration numbers and cutting the refugee and humanitarian intake by 31 percent, down to 13,750 places a year. Like Trump, Dutton has called for a ban on refugees from Gaza, arguing that these people are a national security risk.
Dutton has plans to cut some 41,000 public service jobs, but was unable to say where or how these cuts will be made. Like DOGE, he said he would cut down on “waste and rorts” – which is almost always code for just cutting, indiscriminately. Then he backtracked this week, promising not to slash the jobs through forced redundancies but would instead attempt to achieve that reduction over five years through a hiring freeze and natural attrition.
As outlined in a recent Croakey article, eliminating so many public servants and failing to appreciate the role of “backroom” staff would have serious and expensive consequences for effective and efficient government.
Dutton also says he will take a razor to “wasteful government spending” on education, health and the ABC if elected. His statement: “So we support the work of the ABC but it needs to be done in an efficient way, and that’s a commitment that we make,” does not sound like good news for the national broadcaster.
He has gone further, echoing the Trump lines about the value of a federal Department of Education that doesn’t run schools and employ teachers and restricting the “woke agenda” in schools.
Under Dutton it appears that the Coalition will effectively abandon action on climate change by walking away from setting pollution-reducing targets, possibly taking the 2035 Paris Agreement targets off the table, and with an (uncosted) energy scheme that will delay the shift away from fossil fuels to clean energy.
In the lead up to the election, Dutton was clearly influenced by some of Australia’s richest and most powerful business people.
In the wake of Trump’s victory last November, conservative billionaire Gina Rinehart, a close friend of Dutton, said she wanted to see Australia “watch and learn” from Trump and his “full throttle repudiation of all things left”.
“I do hope Australia watches and learns as they see that cutting government tape, cutting taxes, and cutting government wastage lifts people up, and lifts living standards,” she said back then.
As an exporter of wagyu beef, she will be penalised by Trump’s tariffs. She said (ahead of the tariff announcement) that trade tensions should prompt the Australian Government to cut taxes and fees on farmers and to cancel the Paris Agreement that commits Australia to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.
And now there are complaints from Rinehart about Dutton’s gas reservation plan and reports that she is disappointed that Dutton has failed to adopt a more overtly pro-business agenda on industrial relations and tax.
Wedged
As the history of this relationship shows, Dutton is trying to be all things to all people; as in his purported working relationship with Trump, he is trying to walk both sides of the street. An article on the ABC News website described this as Dutton being “caught in a Trump-shaped wedge”.
He is trying to hang on to voters on the conservative right – the Trump fans (polling from last November shows that could be some 30 percent of mostly male Liberal/National Party voters) and those whom Clive Palmer is courting with his “Trumpet of Patriots” (which has Dutton in its sights) – while recognising that the bulk of voters are increasingly worried about Trump.
Both Albanese and Dutton know that, with compulsory voting, Australian elections are won in the middle, and the middle doesn’t want an Australian version of Trump.
Recent polling from the John Curtin Research Centre shows the majority of Australian voters aged 18-44 (this covers Gen Z and millennials) say Australia would not benefit from a leader like Trump. Just 23 percent say Australia would definitely or probably benefit. This finding plays out across all social, economic and political groups, including among Coalition voters.
This same polling of younger voters shows that their sensibilities are much more progressive than those of Dutton and Trump. A vast majority agree that people from all backgrounds should be considered as part of the nation (84 percent) and that immigrants contribute to our society as much as people born in Australia (71 percent). A smaller majority (58 percent) agree that society should focus on equality and inclusion rather than tradition and discipline.
However, there are lessons here for politicians of all stripes: 62 percent of these voters disagree with the statement that “Government and media generally provide accurate information to the public.”
And the level of trust in politicians is low, with net trust (those who trust minus those who don’t) in negative territory for Albanese (-17), Dutton (-33) and Trump (-11).
Shockingly, more Australians surveyed trust Trump “a great deal” (14 percent) than is the case for either Albanese (9 percent) or Dutton (8 percent). Perhaps this is because Australians see their politicians up close and Trump through a media lens that may be distorted?
The election campaign still has some weeks to go; between now and election day there will be much personal lambasting, many political statements, some winning points and some gaffs.
But if Dutton is to have a chance with Australian voters, he must do something immediately and positively to address this Cathy Wilcox cartoon.
Author details
Dr Lesley Russell is a member of Croakey Health Media, a contributing editor and author of The Health wrap column. She has worked as a political advisor on health to Democrats in the US Congress and the Labor Party in the Australian Federal Parliament. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Leeder Centre for Health Policy, Economics and Data at the University of Sydney.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on the Trump Administration
