Australian news and politics recap for Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has reiterated his criticism of opposition leader Peter Dutton for not engaging in briefings about a hoax caravan threat.

Speaking at a press conference in Sydney, he slammed Mr Dutton’s response in the days after the incident as “nonsense” that was not in Australia’s best interest.

“I was informed appropriately by the AFP,” he said.

“What I did was engage and support the AFP, not engage in the sort of nonsense that we saw from the Coalition.

“Briefings were available to others who chose not to receive them.

“What I chose to do — in spite of some of the media commentary and in spite of the criticism of the opposition — was to act in our interests.

“To back our security agencies, back the Australian Federal Police, and allow them to do their job.

“That is what responsible leadership looks like.”

He said while organised crime was behind the once-assumed terror plot for other motivations, it didn’t mean the community wasn’t hurt by the threat.

“The fact that it was a hoax doesn’t mean it didn’t create fear in the Jewish community. It did.”

Business leaders are urging the Government to consider potential safeguards to shield companies from the direct and indirect impact of the US decision on aluminium and steel tariffs.

“Obviously, this is a disappointing decision for Australian business and for Australian exporters. It will have some direct impact on those exports,” Andrew McKellar, CEO of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry told reporters in Canberra.

“The bigger risk is that we will see other affected countries, it they can’t access the US market in the same way that they would like to, they will look for other markets,” he said.

“And if the Australian market is there, there’s a risk that we could see increased pressure from imports coming to Australia.”

This could cause a big disruption in the supply chain for industries using steel and aluminium, Mr McKellar said.

“We’d urge the Australian Government to look at that, to monitor that situation. If we need to take measures in terms of safeguards or anti-dumping measures, then obviously those sorts of things need to be on the table in the future.”

Mr McKellar said there was “no justification really for applying this decision to Australia,” adding that business and Government had to “play the long game” to secure exemptions from Washington.

“I don’t think we should hold out false hope that there’ll be a quick change here, but we’ve seen already that measures can be announced and measures can be varied,” he said.

“I think that every reasonable step has been taken, frankly, up until this point, and obviously we should not give up. We should continue to press the case.”

Australian shares have closed sharply down as Donald Trump’s tariffs have been confirmed.

In the first 45 minutes of trading the benchmark ASX200 and the broader All Ordinaries down were down more than 1.5 per cent before recovering slightly.

Banks have been feeling more pain, with Commonwealth Bank down 1.76 per cent now be done 13 per cent in the last month.

The other major banks fell by a similar level in this morning’s trade.

Retailers were also down, with JB Hifi off 2.4 per cent, Wesfarmers 2.7 per cent and Woolworths down more than 1 per cent.

Technology stocks also continued their downward run with WiseTech off 1.53 per, Xero 2.77 per cent and data centre provider NextDC down 1.62 per cent.

The selloff comes after another day in the red on Wall Street with The Dow Jones Industrial Average down 1.1 per cent, the S&P 500 off 0.8 per cent, while the Nasdaq closed down 0.2%. All three indexes have seen their worst two-day drop since August.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong says Australia is a “good ally and partner, and a trusted friend” to the United States, and does not believe this is the way “friends and allies should be treated”.

She says the fight on tariffs isn’t over yet, and “we’ll continue to do the work”.

“We will continue to do what we have always done, which is advocate for Australian workers and Australian jobs,” she said.

Asked whether the Government will consider reciprocal tariffs, Senator Wong says that is not on the agenda.

“For the same reason that I’ve said that the tariffs will not be good for American consumers, we’re not supportive of putting tariffs on American goods in retaliation, and the reason is we’re not going to add to Australians’ cost of living,” she said.

“We’re not going to make Australians pay more for goods and services.”

Mr Albanese says he’s trying to line up another phone call with Donald Trump.

He defended Australia’s efforts to shift the president’s position from “considering” an exemption to actually granting one over the past month.

“We have mobilised everything at our disposal, including through our embassy in the United States, but also through all channels and we will continue to do so,” he said.

However, when asked if he should be jetting off to Washington, Mr Albanese noted that no country had won an exemption, not even those whose leaders had met Mr Trump in recent weeks such as Frnace and the UK.

Mr Albanese’s language this morning on the tariffs has been much stronger than over the past month.

He’s called the decision disappointing, entirely unjustified, economic self-harm and fundamentally at odds with the partnership between the US and Australia.

“Friends need to act in a way that reinforces, to our respective populations, the fact that we are friends,” he said.

“This is not a friendly act.”

He also says it is a fact costs will increase for US consumers since they can’t change how much steel and aluminium they produce overnight.

“Those costs will be paid by Americans, not by Australians,” he says, pointing out Bluescope employs 5000 people in the US and has long engaged constructively with the country as well as sending corrugated steel roofing from Australia.

But he again says Australia will continue working to lift the tariffs.

“We don’t regard this as a final decision. The last time around … it took months,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has stepped up in Sydney to talk about the US tariffs, which he says are “fundamentally at odds” with the economic benefits for both sides the partnership has long delivered.

“Such a decision by the Trump administration is entirely unjustified,” he says.

“Tariffs and escalating trade tensions are a form of economic self-harm.”

Australia will continue pushing for an exemption to the steel and aluminium tariffs, and the Government is also working with the industry.

But Mr Albanese says Australia will not impose reciprocal tariffs because they would only hurt consumers and businesses here.

Senator Wong says tariffs are “not the way to go” and will overwhelmingly harm Americans above all else, will suffer the consequences of this 25 per cent tariff on steel and aluminium.

“Who will pay the price of this? It’s actually American consumers. It’s the products they buy, it’s the effect on the stock market and on the American economy. These tariffs will harm the ordinary American and the American economy,” she said.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong is speaking to Sky News about the news Australia won’t get a carve-out from the Trump Administration’s tariffs on steel and aluminium.

She reiterated a point she’s made before, similar to what former PM Malcolm Turnbull has said, that the “hill we’re climbing this time is much harder”.

“You only need to look at the President’s advisor Peter Navarro, who has said that the lesson from the last Trump administration was that exemptions don’t work. Their position is hardened against exemptions, and they have made clear at this stage that there would be no exemptions,” she said.

In her harshest critique yet, Senator Wong said the decision to impose a global tariff is “unprovoked and unjustified”.

The “toughest bail laws in Australia” will be implemented after a spate of crime left a state government under pressure to act.

Victoria’s Premier Jacinta Allan has flagged the state’s bail laws will be reformed amid mounting community anger about rising crime, including aggravated burglaries and car thefts.

“We’re introducing the toughest bail laws in Australia to keep Victorians safe,” she said on X on Wednesday.

Cabinet ministers met on Tuesday to discuss raising the threshold for granting bail for serious crimes.

The premier said that the reforms would prioritise community safety in bail decisions.

“They include a new bail test that is extremely hard to pass - targeting repeat offenders of the worst crimes,” she said.

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