Turnbull’s Trump triumph in the shade

IT’S a shame the Joyce affair will overshadow Turnbull’s successful US visit, because prosperity, security and a strengthened alliance is the result, writes Miranda Devine.

BY the time Malcolm Turnbull sat down in the Oval Office with US President Donald Trump, early yesterday morning, Barnaby Joyce’s resignation had sucked up another news cycle that might otherwise have extolled the benefits of a strengthened US alliance.

It’s just Turnbull’s luck that he is hosting one of the most heavyweight delegations of Australian business and political leaders in one of the most enthusiastically received prime ministerial visits to the US capital, with prosperity, security and a strengthened alliance the outcome, but it’s all being overshadowed by sex scandals and dummy spits back home.

Not that the PM seemed to care, as he whirled around Washington in giant motorcades, and basked in the golden glow of an effusive Trump, who declared yesterday “There is no closer friendship” than America’s with Australia.

It’s “a terrific friendship, probably stronger than ever before,” said Trump.

“We are working on trade deals, we are working on military and protection and all the things that you would think of ... A lot of good things will come out of this visit”. Trump also declared he’s coming to Australia: “We will be there. Great place… I love it. Absolutely.”

Malcolm Turnbull holds his own during a Trump handshake in Washington DC this week. (Pic: Nathan Edwards)

Despite their contrasting styles — Turnbull abundantly cautious and longwinded, Trump extravagantly cocksure and the king of catchy soundbites — the two men have a curious alpha guy rapport.

Turnbull even seems to have figured out how to counter the handshake rumble Trump likes to pull on world leaders, where he yanks the hand towards him and flips it over in a primal dominance play.

Their handshake in the Oval Office yesterday was pretty equal, but only through immense concealed effort on Turnbull’s part to exert equal pull and maintain his hand position, smiling all the time. No small feat, but such is modern diplomacy.

Mutual friend Anthony Pratt, the Australian paper and packaging billionaire, who is part of the Australian business delegation in Washington, says Trump likes Turnbull, not just because they recognise each other as ruthlessly transactional businessmen, but “because he kept Kerry Packer out of jail”.

As a 29-year-old lawyer, Turnbull successfully defended Packer against allegations of tax evasion during the 1984 Costigan Royal Commission.

Trump always had a soft spot for Packer, says Pratt, because, once, when Packer came to his Florida golf resort Mar-a-Lago, Trump bet him $50,000 that his golf pro, Bruce Zabriski, could beat Packer’s, Steve Mann.

Trump won.

Australian delegation member Anthony Pratt at the White House. (Pic: Nathan Edwards)

Twenty years later, having taken Packer’s mantle as Australia’s richest man, Pratt bet $100,000 that Trump would win the presidential election and quadrupled his money. Pratt told the president he knew he would win because his rallies were so big and because his mid-west customers were Trump-fans.

Trump loves to tell that story when Pratt holidays at Mar-a-Lago.

He also loves another Pratt story which he told yesterday to the Australian-American media corps in his joint press conference with Turnbull in the gold-brocaded East Room of the White House.

Trump singled out Pratt from the 40-strong business delegation and asked him to stand.

“Australian entrepreneur Anthony Pratt announced a new $2 billion investment in box-making factories across the United States but he only did that if Trump won the election; is that correct?” he said, peering expectantly at the redhead in the second row.

Pratt nodded vigorously. “Thank you, boy that was a close one,” joked the President. “These people would have had a field day if you gave the wrong answer.

“Yes, Anthony did come over and say if [Trump] wins the election he’s going to spend billions of dollars in the United States. I appreciate that.“

Pratt, indeed, promised to invest $2 billion, creating an additional 5000 jobs in places like Ohio, where he’s building a paper mill. He says Trump has made the US the “greatest place” for manufacturing.

It’s not just the corporate tax cuts, from 35 to 21 per cent, but a “sleeper” provision which gives companies 100 per cent immediate depreciation on plant and machinery, which Trump says will trigger an investment boom.

Turnbull could only listen enviously, as he faces the defeat in the Senate of his own round of company tax cuts, albeit smaller and slower than Trump’s — from 30 to 25 per cent over a decade.

Turnbull’s old Goldman Sachs colleague, now US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, said yesterday “70 per cent” of the tax cuts were passed on to workers in higher wages, and the PM told him he will use the American success story to try to resuscitate tax reform in Australia.

US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania host Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy at the White House. (Pic: Nathan Edwards)

Turnbull can also come home trumpeting enhanced economic and security cooperation with the US and our elevated role as a sort of moderator in the Indo-Pacific, as tensions grow between China, our largest trading partner, and the US, our greatest investor and ally.

But such lofty notions will fade when the PM flies in tomorrow for a new parliamentary session, with the National Party looking for a leader and another hostile renegade ready to join Tony Abbott on the back bench.

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Joyce, whose career is derailed, whose wife mourns him, whose daughters won’t speak to him, and whose parents refuse to meet his pregnant staffer-turned-partner.

Whether he will want to make mischief for the prime minister who helped push him out of power, is to be seen. But the fact he didn’t warn Turnbull before he resigned speaks volumes.

Turnbull was hosting drinks at Blair House, the historic White House guesthouse, where he and wife Lucy were staying three nights, when a guest showed him the breaking news on a phone.

Turnbull’s reaction was unrecorded, but the next morning he declared Joyce’s resignation the “right decision”.

Which it was, but the damage had already been done to the government, despite the PM’s good work in Washington.