Topics: US election; Australia-US relationship;
08:05AM ACDT
7 November 2024
Sonya Feldhoff: Simon Birmingham is the [Opposition] Leader of the Senate and Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister. Good morning to you.
Simon Birmingham: Good morning. Good to be with you.
David Bevan: Simon Birmingham, does the Albanese government have some serious bridge building to do with Donald Trump?
Simon Birmingham: Well, the Albanese government has a job to do, and that job is to put Australia’s best interests first and get the best possible outcomes from President Trump and his incoming administration. The coalition proved previously that we could work effectively with a Trump administration, that that Australia could get really strong policy outcomes from working with the Trump administration. And that’s the test that falls upon the Albanese government today.
David Bevan: Yeah, that’s their job. But the question is, do in order to do that job, do they need to seriously build some bridges?
Simon Birmingham: Well, David, they need to seriously build relations. And the test they’ll face in the coming weeks and months once Donald Trump then takes office again from January next year, is whether they have effectively and are effectively building those relations.
Jules Schiller: Do you think Kevin Rudd should be our ambassador, someone who has called Donald Trump nuts?
Simon Birmingham: We have said very clearly, we want to see Kevin Rudd succeed because it’s in Australia’s best interests for him to succeed-
Jules Schiller: But should he be there, though?
Simon Birmingham: Yep. Can I finish? Anthony Albanese said he wasn’t going to make Kevin Rudd ambassador. He chose to do so, and he chose to take, if you like, the calculated risk to do so knowing that Donald Trump was already a candidate for the presidency when he chose to do so. So, it falls upon Anthony Albanese. No one person is bigger than Australia’s national interest. But we want to see Kevin Rudd succeed. Anthony Albanese and Kevin Rudd will need to be big enough, if you like to make the assessment themselves as to whether that success can be achieved and whether he is getting the type of access and achieving the type of influence that is in Australia’s best interests.
David Bevan: It would be a gesture that would resonate with somebody like Donald Trump to remove Rudd and replace him with somebody else.
Simon Birmingham: Well, David, Australia’s choice of ambassador or high commissioner to any country around the world is rightly Australia’s choice. It’s not the choice of the other government.
David Bevan: Of course it is. No no no no no. Nobody’s suggesting it. I mean, this is- we’re a sovereign nation. We choose who represents us. But you’re choosing somebody who’s going to try and cut a deal with the other guy. Now, if the other guy doesn’t think much of our guy, would it be a diplomatic, diplomatically wise thing to find somebody who would be different, a clean slate, given Donald Trump’s character?
Simon Birmingham: David, we wouldn’t have been as reckless as to choose somebody whose previous remarks had been as ill-disciplined to serve as ambassador. But the reality is, Kevin Rudd has done a good job, including with Republicans while he’s been there. And he’s got outcomes in terms of the delivery of AUKUS and the way in which certain defence export barriers have been reformed. And they’re positives for Australia. And so, we don’t want to rush to prejudge. The points we’re making are that we want to see him succeed. However, the government needs to be honest enough with itself as it assesses whether or not he is getting that access and having that influence to be able to succeed as Australia needs him to do so.
Sonya Feldhoff: You’re listening to 891, and the voice you’re hearing is Simon Birmingham, the Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, and you’re a former trade minister yourself Simon Birmingham, how do you reflect on the potential and likely imposition of tariffs on China and the fallout for Australia around that.
Simon Birmingham: Thanks, Sonya. And I am a former trade minister and proud of having cracked a number of free trade agreements in our region and around the world. And avowed in my commitment to the view that open trade is in the best interests of Australia’s economy. But Donald Trump has a set of policies that he’s announced in terms of tariffs. One of the things the previous Coalition government under Malcolm Turnbull successfully did when Donald Trump in his first administration applied tariffs to steel and aluminium imports from all around the world, was to get Australia exempted from those tariffs. So if there is an early test for the Albanese government and their influence and their effectiveness, it is whether they are able to ensure that the US and the Trump administration understand that it’s actually to their mutual benefit for Australia to be as strong as possible as a fellow ally, as someone they want to see, investing in defence and working so closely alongside them.
Jules Schiller: Isn’t the issue, though. If Trump is particularly bullish and combative with China, and we have a special relationship with America that we also have to join that circus and also have to shirtfront China to a certain extent, and then China punish us.
Simon Birmingham: Again, last administration Donald Trump put a lot of extra tariffs in terms of China and pursued an aggressive approach there. But Australia certainly didn’t follow suit. And nor should we be arbitrarily hiking tariffs from Australia on any of our key trading partners. In fact, whilst working to get a good deal for Australia with the United States. We should also be working very clearly to ensure that one of the things that has made the South East Asian and Asian region as prosperous and as economically successful as it has been in recent decades, is the increase of free and open trade in our region, and we need to work to ensure that is preserved.
Sonya Feldhoff: So which industries in Australia do you believe we need to work to protect in this way that are most likely to be affected?
Simon Birmingham: Well, Australian exports to the United States are diverse. There are a mixture of them from our resources and agriculture sector as well as in areas of technology and services. So, we’ll need to work carefully across a whole range of sectors. But importantly, it should be starting from the premise of trying to ensure that Australia is as exempt so far as is possible from the application of US tariffs, because it’s not just in Australia’s best interests for us to have that type of honouring of the US Australia Free Trade Agreement. It’s also in the US’s interests for Australia to be as strong, an ally and partner as we possibly can be.
David Bevan: But if we just pull back and take a satellite view of this, will we look back on the second Trump term as the as the time when the world changed? That is when we went from a free trade world to bilateral agreements?
Simon Birmingham: David, you’re asking me to project four plus years into the future at the conclusion of a second Trump term.
David Bevan: Well, what do you think?
Simon Birmingham: I think it’s the responsibility of governments to work on the national interest as we need to.
Jules Schiller: Let’s project six months into the future to the federal election. Undoubtedly, immigration was the benchmark of Donald Trump’s message to the citizens of the US. Seal the borders. We’ve got too many migrants. Immigration will also be an issue in our upcoming election. When will Peter Dutton announce his policy? And do you think that we need to reduce our immigration, migrant intake?
Simon Birmingham: Jules, migration did play a big role. So did cost of living, and I think they were both very big factors in the US election. Now Peter Dutton actually in his budget in reply speech last year, sorry, early this year, did outline new migration targets that would apply over the first two years of a Coalition government. So, he’s put those sorts of policies on the record already. And certainly, when it comes to cost of living, just as many Americans felt worse off after four years over the last four years. So too many Australians are clearly feeling worse off after the last three Labour government budgets under Anthony Albanese.
David Bevan: And just before you leave us, Sonya and Jules were talking to SA businessman Ian Smith earlier from New York, and he said Trump was able to represent the billionaire and the working class. And is that really what Peter Dutton’s trying to do? He’s leaving the middle, the leafy suburbs. He’s going for the outer suburbs and he’s going for the Gina Rinehart’s.
Simon Birmingham: Well, we’re going for having as strong an economy as possible and convincing Australians that we’ve got the policies for that economic strength and to deal with the cost-of-living pressures that they are rightly facing. And that is the priority, I find for Australians, frankly, wherever they live, whether they are facing extreme pain and struggling to pay their supermarket bills, or even those who can afford to pay their supermarket bills, know how much they’ve gone up and know how much it’s hitting their household budgets.
Sonya Feldhoff: Okay, Simon Birmingham, thanks for your time.
Simon Birmingham: Thanks, guys. My pleasure.
[ENDS]