Latest news with #Coalition
Sky News AU
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Sky News AU
Labor ‘waited' till after election to announce North West Shelf gas extension
Shadow Environment and Youth Minister Angie Bell questions the timing behind the Albanese government approving an extension of Woodside's North West Shelf gas project. 'We [Coalition] welcomed this pragmatic approach to the North West Shelf extension – I do note, however, that the Labor government waited till after the election to make this decision,' Ms Bell told Sky News Australia. 'You do have to wonder about the timing of it.'
7NEWS
13 hours ago
- Business
- 7NEWS
'Unjustified': Donald Trump's tariff hike risks damaging Aussie steel
Australia risks becoming a dumping ground for cheap steel as pressure mounts for the prime minister to meet with Donald Trump following his 'unjustified' doubling of tariffs on steel imports. Trump on Saturday announced plans to increase tariffs on foreign imports of steel from 25 to 50 per cent to 'further secure the steel industry in the United States'. The decision could impact 100,000 Australian jobs, with the sector exporting more than $414 million worth of products to the US in 2024. Its peak body says it will continue to work with the federal government to push for an exemption from the Trump administration. 'The subsequent disruptions to global steel trade could see Australia become a dumping ground for imported steel,' Australian Steel Institute chief executive Mark Cain said. 'And it could exacerbate the surge in imported low-priced steel that is damaging the industry.' Trade Minister Don Farrell said the tariffs are unjustified and not the act of a friend. 'They are an act of economic self-harm that will only hurt consumers and businesses who rely on free and fair trade,' he said on Saturday. 'We will continue to engage and advocate strongly for the removal of the tariffs.' Opposition trade spokesman Kevin Hogan said the latest move was concerning for Australian jobs. The Coalition expected the US to honour its obligations under both nations' free trade agreement, he added. 'The Albanese government needs to double its efforts to protect our steel industry and local jobs for our steel workers,' Mr Hogan said in a statement. 'This is why it is imperative that the Australian prime minister personally meets with President Trump ... to develop a personal rapport with the United States president and protect Australian industries.' Labor has sought to temper expectations on whether it can land a deal with the US to remove the tariffs, like it did after nine months of lobbying in the first Trump administration. The US imported 289 product categories in 2024, costing $US147 billion ($A229 billion), with nearly two-thirds of those aluminium and one-third steel, according to Census Bureau data from the US International Trade Commission. The 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium were among the earliest implemented following Mr Trump's return to the White House in January and came into effect in March. Australia will continue to push for Mr Trump to drop his tariffs after a US federal court blocked his Liberation Day taxes on imported goods from going into effect. Goods from Australia are subject to a 10 per cent baseline tariff, while all steel and aluminium imports to the US face 25 per cent tariffs before Mr Trump's latest announcement. The New York-based Court of International Trade found the US president had overstepped his authority by imposing the tariffs.
Sky News AU
18 hours ago
- Business
- Sky News AU
Gas to play significant role in renewables transition
Natural gas is expected to play a significant role in Australia's transition to clean energy as Labor advances plans for new gas-import terminals. It follows Labor approving a four-decade extension of the North West Shelf project in Western Australia. Some in the Coalition are welcoming Labor's move to prioritise fossil fuels as a backup to renewables. Environmental campaigners fear increasing gas supplies will make it harder to meet Australia's climate goals.
ABC News
a day ago
- Business
- ABC News
After 45 years watching politics, here's my last wish for this government and its big mandate
"Dear government, don't be terrible." There was no greater sin in journalism, back in the day, than using the personal pronoun in your copy. It has proved a good rule to follow over the past 45 years. Not just in a style sense but in terms of the state of mind in which you write: it's not about you, it's about your readers, or viewers even. When this column resumes in July, it will be contemplating more global matters, instead of Australian politics. But the transition, the fact that this is the last column on Australian politics, suggests a small amount of indulgence or reflection may be allowed. Political reporting can often have a Postcards from the Edge feeling about it: a report from a very different jungle to the one most normal people inhabit, with hopefully a bit of translation and explanation thrown in for good measure about how and why politicians act as they do. But this particular column aims to turn things around a bit: a postcard sent back to our pollies, with a few reflections drawn from four decades of having to watch them in action, close up. First, as an indulgence taken purely on behalf of readers, let us agree that the federal Coalition can be put aside. That seems only fair, given that the Coalition seems so determined to be irrelevant. Please come back, opposition MPs, when you've remembered what you are there for, or possibly when you have something more intelligent to say. In the meantime, try not to embarrass us all with your apparent complete lack of reflection on why you may have not only been rejected by the electorate, but now represent less than a third of the House of Representatives. You have stumbled around, splitting and reunifying, slagging each other off, on matters of "high principle" which seem to be completely malleable to the number of positions various parties get on the frontbench. Instead, let's focus on the new government: the one that has won an exceptionally large number of seats in the House of Representatives and which is probably already doing stuff that's affecting us voters. All governments are new after an election, whether they realise it or not, whether they have been in power for years or not. There are inevitably some different bums on seats. But more importantly, the context in which the government of the day is thinking about issues will have totally changed: both the economic and global circumstances, and the political circumstances. What new governments can do with their numbers in the House and in the Senate is regularly discussed. But what they are able to do (important distinction) or should do is discussed less. Having watched many federal elections (14) and therefore many transitions of government, it is never clear that new governments quite understand how their mandates, or more importantly, their scope for action may have changed. It's not just about the number of seats they hold in the House of Representatives and the Senate. It's about the relative power of the other parties and the messages that the electorate seems to have sent. And it's particularly about understanding what constraints that might have been shaping judgements for the past few years — constraints that have become so entrenched you don't even realised they are there — may have shifted or been removed entirely. The 2025 election has been generally seen as a message of a rejection of the fringes — at both ends — and a move to the centre. The prime minister has spoken about the idea of "progressive patriotism" as being central to his campaign "We spoke about doing things the Australian way, not looking towards any other method or ideology from overseas," he said. "At a time where there's conflict in the world, where people are often divided on the basis of race or religion, here in Australia, we can be a microcosm for the world." So there's a nice thought. But whether you want to prosecute a case for a nice thought, or a really complex policy agenda, you need to be both able and willing to sell it. The political landscape for the past 15 years has been treacherous, starting with the hyper-aggressive politics of Tony Abbott's leadership of an opposition which sought to bring down the Gillard government on the floor of the parliament. The biggest thing that the Albanese government has to get its head around is that the ultra-toxic nature of conservative attack politics has fundamentally shifted. Sure, News Corp and its Sky After Dark franchise continues to prosecute a particular message. But there is no clear and effective attack dog politician in the mould of Tony Abbott or Peter Dutton now obvious in the Coalition ranks. And the ideological policy underpinnings which drove them — particularly Abbott — are also in splinters. Think how that political agenda and it associated tactics have affected politics, and the caution of the Labor Party. Labor embraced AUKUS, for example, without any apparent thought or contemplation, because it did not wish to be in a different position on foreign policy, defence and the US alliance to the Coalition. This is not to suggest Labor should immediately abandon AUKUS. It's just that, with the Coalition in disarray, the prospect of Labor being in power for two terms, and US President Donald Trump apparently determined to make the US look like the world's most unreliable ally, Australia now has the space to consider what is actually in our best individual strategic interests. That's a space we have effectively never been in before, given our obsession with Great and Powerful Friends. There are so many other underlying presumptions about political norms generated by the Coalition: the ones on debt and deficits; on personal wealth; on migration and dog whistling on race. Once again, it is not a question of overturning policy, just of having the clear eyes to rewire politics without the fear of these political attacks necessarily cutting through. There's a couple of other ideas that are reinforced by watching a lifetime of political theatre. The first is about only half remembered memories. People speak ad nauseum of golden days when governments, and/or the parliament got things done. From someone who lived and worked through those times: don't get sucked into all the stuff about how social media makes it harder. Believe that none of the tax reforms, the social welfare reforms, the energy reforms, or whatever, were actually easy. Everything was fought, as it is now, tooth and nail, whether that be by the Hawke/Keating governments or the Howard government. The arguments only started to fail when politicians got too tired to keep prosecuting them. When the exasperation with "dumb" journalists or voters got too much. In a famous bit of correspondence originally reported in 2008, the former Hawke and Keating government minister, Gordon Bilney, wrote a letter to a local government bureaucrat once he was on his way out the door. "One of the great pleasures of private life is that I need no longer be polite to nincompoops, bigots, curmudgeons and twerps who infest local government bodies and committees such as yours," it said. "In the particular case of your committee, that pleasure is acute." To those who knew him, it was very Gordon Bilney. But it reflects the exhaustion people in the political process inevitably feel, and which can be the most debilitating limitation on getting things through. One of the smartest people to occupy a senior ministerial advisory post once said that he knew it was time to go when he found himself thinking, when confronted by someone lobbying on a policy: "don't you think we haven't already thought of that?" There's a bit of that air around this government already. And if they are going to be successful in using this term to produce change, that has to change. Another truism that has snuck into politics, particularly Labor politics, is that you can't have conflict in your ranks. Well the finance minister, Peter Walsh, publicly advocated for a completely different set of tax reforms to those of the Treasurer during the Hawke years and the government did not fall. A range of opinions is a good and healthy thing, and keeps a government (particularly one with a big majority) vibrant and credible. So just accept — even welcome — some friction, particularly the sort of high class friction provided by figures like Ed Husic, who has demonstrated more decency, bravery and class on the vexed issue of Gaza than anyone else in the Parliament. You are not all managing factions now, or a Labor Party conference. You are speaking for all of us in a world where opinions are rapidly changing. Not being a terrible government means considering just what opportunities you have to change the conversation now that you are not wedged so savagely from the left and right. A despairing Abraham Lincoln, desperate to get a general who would aggressively prosecute the war on the Union's behalf wrote to General "Fighting Joe" Hooker in 1863 in words which Australian voters might borrow in a letter to a government which has a once in a generation capacity to produce change: "Beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories." And that is all that I can wish for Australian governments to deliver to its people, as I end four decades of keeping watch on what our governments do in our name. Laura Tingle finishes this week as 7.30's political editor. She starts as the ABC's global affairs editor in coming weeks.
The Age
a day ago
- Politics
- The Age
Coalition of the unwilling: Climate wars will soon eclipse reunification relief
That gets close, but, in truth, Ley didn't even go that far. All she agreed to was that the Coalition would support an end to the moratorium on the building of nuclear power plants. She emphatically did not agree to finance and build seven nuclear power plants. Not even one. On the other three areas that Peter Dutton's Coalition had taken to the election and that Littleproud insisted remain, Ley has agreed but so hedged them with conditions that they are almost meaningless. Loading And what of Littleproud's other early demand – that Nationals' members of a Coalition shadow cabinet should not be bound by the principle of solidarity? He quickly abandoned that when it was roundly rejected. He achieved nothing he couldn't have accomplished with a quiet conversation behind closed doors, as is customary between the Libs and Nats. All he's managed to do is make himself a laughingstock with a limited leadership lifespan. And diminish the entire Coalition in the process. So far, the Liberals have done two things right since the election. First, they elected a woman as leader. Second, that woman handled the Nat spat with calm and steely grace. But the really hard part lies ahead, and the Coalition ruction was the opening act. 'It wasn't a fight about four policies,' says a Liberal. 'It was really about us being totally fine with them running all over us in three or six months' time when we reach a policy on climate change.' The climate wars are over. And the Coalition lost. But it will have great difficulty in accepting this fact. The Liberals have undertaken to review their policy; it will be traumatic. Ley will want to bring the party to a recognition that climate change is not only real but a reality that the party must embrace in its policies: 'You won't see any climate denial from Sussan,' says a Liberal from her camp. 'It's about respectful engagement, so voters understand that we are believers.' The pollster Jim Reed of Resolve Strategic says that this is an irreducible minimum for any party that hopes to win power. 'In the early to mid-2000s we regularly asked a question in our polling – do you believe in climate change? Very quickly, over two or three years, it became redundant,' he tells me. 'Speaking to tradies in focus groups, a no-nonsense group who, in the past, would have had some of the doubters in it, today, they say 'yes, and we can see it happening, we see the effects.' The ship has sailed.' Yet climate disbelief runs deep in the surviving members of the Coalition. In the Nats, certainly. Littleproud says he supports the pre-existing Coalition commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050. But Barnaby Joyce, Matt Canavan, Michael McCormack, Colin Boyce and Llew O'Brien, at a minimum, will fight to defeat it. Loading But climate scepticism also runs strongly through the ranks of the Libs, as Andrew Hastie reminded us this week: 'I think the question of net zero, that's a straitjacket that I'm already getting out of,' the new shadow minister for Home Affairs told the ABC. 'The real question is should Australian families and businesses be paying more for their electricity?' Other Liberals, even climate sceptics, think it's time for the party to bow before the electoral reality. 'Some of the colleagues still haven't absorbed the magnitude of our loss,' says one who, like Hastie, is a frontbencher from the party's conservative side. 'When they walk into the House, and they're confronted with the wall of Labor MPs, it will be a reality check for them. We'll see the final numbers and see what we have to do if we want to get back into government – it'll be of the order of 30 seats or around a 7 per cent swing.' A daunting prospect and extraordinarily difficult to accomplish in a single term. 'I can't think of a single seat in the country that we'll be able to win without a commitment to net zero.' Liberal Zoe McKenzie points to a statistic that should rivet the party's attention. Of the 151 seats in the House, 88 are metropolitan. Of those, the Coalition occupies just eight. This is, in effect, the banishment of the Liberal Party from the cities of Australia. Even if the Coalition can hold those eight and win all the other 63 city seats in the parliament, it would hold a total of only 71. In other words, it's mathematically impossible for it to win a majority, which is 76, without returning to metropolitan Australia. And belief in climate change is the price of admission to city seats. McKenzie, factionally non-aligned and freshly elected to a second term in the seat of Flinders covering Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, hopes that the party retains its net zero commitment. As it debates the policy, she wants the party to 'keep the voices of the ghosts alive,' meaning all the moderate Liberals who lost their seats in recent elections. The former MPs who'd be arguing in favour of net zero and climate-friendly policy. Loading Overarching all of this is the larger question of the party's political philosophy. Fundamentally, the Liberals have to decide whether they are the party of Robert Menzies or Rupert Murdoch. Menzies was a great pragmatist, principled but not ideological, who adapted to his times. He was preoccupied with the concerns and interests of the suburban middle class, not the capitalist class but the ordinary men and women of aspiration. Murdoch is a right-wing populist interested in pressing always further rightward to build constituencies favourable to his own business interests. The Liberals have to choose. Once they decide whether to continue following the Murdoch pied piper to electoral irrelevance or to rediscover the Menzian attachment to middle Australia, all their other choices will become clearer. And the Nationals? They are now reduced to four senators. The same number as One Nation. And, like One Nation, the Nationals won a touch over 6 per cent of the national primary vote for the House. 'We, as Liberals, would never allow One Nation to determine our policies,' points out a Lib. So, his logic runs, why should the party accept the Nationals' terms?
