LATIKA M BOURKE: Albanese’s empty economic answers in time of turmoil offer Dutton an attack point

Anthony Albanese can’t guarantee that Australia would avoid a recession if the world descends into trade war turmoil triggered by Donald Trump’s so-called Liberation Day. No Prime Minister could.

Which is exactly why Peter Dutton’s declaration that Australia would go down such a path under Labor was reckless. No future national leader should ever be in the business of talking the economy down.

It will only add to perceptions that Mr Dutton is not just unprepared but ill-suited to the job.

But Mr Albanese is also showing signs of being unprepared to spell out how he would navigate the economy during a recession.

He should start fronting up with a lot more answers than he is currently unwilling - or unable - to provide about how Labor can steer the country through the uncertain times he repeatedly says are coming.

Out on the campaign trail, in his inner-city Sydney seat of Grayndler on Tuesday, Mr Albanese seized on questions about what preparations the Government has made in such a scenario to instead launch lengthy rants about the Opposition Leader.

The Prime Minister’s own budget projects debts and deficits as far as the eye can see, starting with a $42.1 billion deficit this coming financial year. Gross government debt will reach a record $1 trillion debt next year.

So it is a natural question to ask the PM if he has left fiscal room in his pre-election spend-a-thon Budget for a stimulus or any other type of economic package to respond to what Mr Trump hopes will happen with this tariff — a choking of Chinese manufacturing – as The Nightly did.

How did the Prime Minister respond? Before a climate protester gatecrashed his press conference and interrupted his lengthy attack on Mr Dutton, Mr Albanese claimed: “What we have shown consistently is the preparedness to act for the times, to provide support that is needed for people.

“It stands in stark contrast, and I go back to: we are in uncertain times but I’m absolutely certain this is not the time to cut.

“This is not the time to go for what the Coalition are going to have to do to pay for their $600 billion of nuclear power plants as we go forward.”

Astonishingly, he finally completed his answer by linking the global economic uncertainty to Mr Dutton’s decision on Monday to abandon a plan to make public servants work from the office.

“Can I make this point? Yesterday, Peter Dutton tried to pretend that he no longer supported sacking 41,000 public servants and that they now were walking away from their plan to oppose working from home.

“In terms of sacking public servants, Peter Dutton would now pretend that he can do this just through attrition.

“The people who leave the public service most frequently are those frontline people delivering services.

“If you go into DFAT, it’s not a rotation, you tend to stay there as a life career.”

It’s an election campaign and voters understand the heightened politicking, but these answers from Mr Albanese are becoming insulting.

The economic turbulence is alarming, particularly because the White House is occupied by an Administration that has signalled it has little regard for stopping it, and its chief target is Australia’s largest trading partner, China.

And what Mr Trump does matters in hard dollar terms to Australians. Those approaching retirement are watching their savings being wiped away. There is a very good reason why investors are stockpiling the safe-haven asset of gold.

The nervousness about what’s ahead and the destructive nature of Trump’s America is both real and legitimate.

And Mr Albanese’s reversion to politicking about the opposition’s already-dumped politics, frankly, doesn’t cut it.

The Prime Minister says Australia is “prepared” but can’t say how.

Australia was running a surplus before the financial crisis and had negative net debt. Before the pandemic the deficits were small and net debt was about $375 billion compared to $491 billion now.

But instead of answering queries on possible stimulus measures in light of the pitfalls ahead, he chooses instead to launch into Mr Dutton.

The Prime Minister keeps saying that the government is dealing with the Trump Administration but can’t say what discussions are underway, if they are, and on what and how these might be more successful than previous attempts.

This vagueness is a pattern.

Other jurisdictions, like China and the European Union have begun stating their responses and offering negotiations.

It’s unclear what leverage Australia has that will materially reshape our fortunes and the PM appears in no hurry to speak to Mr Trump or form a relationship built on regular contact like those forged by UK Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer or France’s centrist President Emmanuel Macron.

While Mr Trump’s intrusion into the Australian election campaign has so far favoured Labor and made incumbency a strength once again, the economic calamity the US President appears willing to set off, opens up one of Mr Albanese’s major vulnerabilities.

The Prime Minister is right to say the economic landscape is better than the one he inherited, with inflation down from the 7.8 per cent to 2.4 per cent and an interest rate cut.

It ought to be given the pandemic is over!

He is also right to point out that Australia’s net debt as a proportion of GDP is lower than the United States, Japan, the Eurozone and the UK.

But Australia’s debt exposure is higher than Canada’s – which is the more comparable economy.

Overwhelmingly elections are decisions based on the future, rather than looking back. It is perhaps unfair but voters move on quickly and are always looking to the years ahead.

And in 2025, the scan of the horizon is an anxious one, given the “dark clouds” that Treasurer Jim Chalmers spoke of on Sunday emanating from abroad.

And Mr Albanese has no clear or good answers for what he will do in the coming years. He is certain only that there will be uncertainty.

Simply stating that Labor has done well enough during a cost-of-living crisis is not the reassurance the Prime Minister hopes it to be.

Momentum is with the Government one and a half weeks into the election race.

Mr Dutton has a diminishing number of opportunities to break through this debate and salvage his campaign.

Tuesday night’s debate or People’s Forum hosted by Sky News in Parramatta in Western Sydney is one of them. His campaign launch is another.

If he is to keep his dream of making history and consigning Labor to a first-term government, he will need to hit Mr Albanese where is weakest: the economy, stupid! And the Opposition Leader will also need to present a credible plan of his own that addresses the structural deficits of our high-spending budget, as opposed to pretending that life will simply be easier without Mr Albanese in The Lodge.