Economy

One of the great disappointments of our election campaign has been the failure to focus more explicitly and substantively on the adequacy of our defence … If we are to take today’s threats to national security seriously, we should be having a robust public debate on defence. This opportunity has been lost.

As United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs unleash chaos and turmoil across global markets, financial authorities around the world are forced into the unenviable role of working out how to protect their economies.At such an unpredictable juncture, with the leader of the world’s largest economy going rogue, who would want to be a central banker?

There is a lot of good in Australian climate policy, and some bad. The good news is that energy is on the political agenda this election cycle and finally we are seeing a race to the top. Electrification as a strategy is front and centre. Solar, wind and batteries are the cheapest way forward.

As the major parties compete for the title of best economic manager, they are still ignoring the elephant in the room. Their future spending commitments, and voters’ expectations for further support, are not adequately funded by the prospective tax base.

It would be comforting to think Donald Trump is an outlier, that this, too, will pass. Alas, while Trump is abhorrent, he is not an aberration. His administration is the fulfilment of conservative America’s drift further and further right into populist nationalism and isolationism.

Jim Chalmers insisted in the budget lock-up news conference that his fourth effort was primarily about economics and not politics, a claim that didn’t really convince his audience.

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, who some colleagues believe has not laid a glove on Chalmers, says everything will be revealed in due course. In the meantime, the clock is running down and all we are getting are general statements masquerading as serious policy.

If Trump isn’t to learn from history – and we can only assume this is the case – perhaps he should catch a re-run of the 1980s cult movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, with its lesson on tariffs.

Donald Trump’s siege mentality has him leading the US as if the world has been out to get it … This schoolyard bully – this paragon of bad taste and appalling behaviour – is taking to the world with a very big stick.

Anthony Albanese faces the first parliamentary sitting of the election year with the scene set for the first interest rate cut in almost three years – a bigger political boost than any government could possibly hope for. The argument over economic management can now be turned more easily on its head. After 12 interest rate rises on Labor’s watch that exacerbated the cost-of-living crisis, the pain will begin to ease.