The day Trump hijacked the Australian election, until the PM took to the stage

Neither party leader took a backwards step on Thursday as they fronted up to the press packs to stare down the tariffs US President Donald Trump unleashed on its free-trading ally Australia.

At least not until 3.30pm when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was getting ready to pose for a lifetime achievement award at a union conference in the Hunter Valley.

One small step backwards to get into frame and – whoosh! – he slipped off the back of the elevated stage, clutching at the air as someone grabbed his arm.

Albanese scrambled back to his feet quickly, arms aloft like an Olympic gymnast. But despite the fixed grin, it was clear the photo of the day had been taken.

Most of the day, the election campaign was usurped by Trump.

His distinctive voice was the soundtrack blaring from dozens of phones as a busload of barely awake journalists trailed Albanese as the sun rose over Melbourne.

The media pack was originally destined for one of the city’s battleground seats, but instead waited for the prime minister in a boardroom in the plush Commonwealth offices in East Melbourne, where Trump’s “Liberation Day” ceremony continued to blast from a TV on the wall.

Soon after Trump wrapped up, Albanese emerged and struck a patriotic tone, rejecting the urgings of Paul Keating to tear up AUKUS, at the same time as acknowledging Australians’ perceptions of the US were shifting.

“There’s no doubt that there’s no one that’s got a better deal [than Australia], and people will see that themselves,” he told reporters.

It was defiance on the run from a leader still getting across details as they emerged – Albanese was the first world leader to respond. Questions about whether Australian beef would be blocked by the US, after Trump singled it out in his speech, were met with equivocation. The confusion persisted until Kevin Rudd’s people at the embassy in Washington sent through confirmation to Albanese’s team that there was no ban.

By then, the bus was back on the road and the prime minister was announcing a new PBS drug listing at a pharmacy in the Greens target seat of Wills, as local MP Peter Khalil stood alongside.

Albanese joked about picking up some toothpaste for the trail.

“We’re on the big questions today – global trade or local toothpaste?” he said.

Labor’s campaign hardheads began to pick up growing anti-Trump sentiment from voters around the time of the president’s alarming meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House.

Peter Dutton sought to position himself as the master negotiator on Thursday.Credit: James Brickwood

This prompted weeks of increasingly overt messaging from Labor ministers attempting to tie Dutton to Trump, even as Dutton sought to distance himself on a series of issues.

Determined not to let Albanese dominate the morning news cycle, Dutton started his day early, dialling into 2GB at 5.15am Perth time to offer his take on the tariffs.

Taking notes from Trump’s Art of the Deal, perhaps, Dutton was selling himself as the ultimate negotiator on Thursday.

Fronting the travelling media in Perth after Trump’s tariff announcement, he tried to present the 10 per cent tariff as an opportunity for Australia to strike a grand bargain with the US. No country in the world has escaped Trump’s trade wrath.

Many countries, including fellow US allies such as Japan and Europe, fared far worse than Australia. But Dutton declared it would be possible for Australia to secure a tariff exemption “very quickly” with a bit of effort and the right negotiating strategy.

Dutton said that “resolving this matter will centre around the defence relationship”.

“We have troops in the north of our country, we have the AUKUS deal, we have the ANZUS treaty,” Dutton said, implying that core elements of the US-Australia alliance could be up for negotiation.

He then added critical minerals as a “natural point of leverage for us in the relationship”.

Dutton’s comments connecting defence to trade prompted a barrage of questions on what exactly he would put on the table to secure better access to the American market for Australian beef farmers and other exporters.

Would he re-examine the basing of US troops in Australia? Could Australia stop buying military equipment from the US? Dutton’s intervention was strikingly different from that of the government, which has been determined to ringfence defence from disagreements on tariffs.

Dutton declined to go into detail but, at a drilling equipment factory in Perth’s outer suburbs late in the morning, suggested he wanted to offer ways to deepen defence co-operation rather than weaken it.

By slamming Albanese and Rudd as failures and dangling critical minerals as leverage, Dutton provided ready bait for Labor.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong accused Dutton of “reckless arrogance”, telling Sky News: “Peter Dutton seems to think he’s Superman, but he’s actually Captain Obvious.

“He suggests that this is a time for negotiation – well, that is exactly what we have been doing,” she said, noting the Trump administration rejected a government offer for a special access agreement last month.

Defence Minister Richard Marles was aghast about Dutton from one of the urgent care clinic visits every minister must make. “What Peter Dutton has done is loose, and it is reckless,” he said.

Meanwhile, back on the east coast, a Newcastle radio host was checking in on Albanese after his fall.

“Are you OK?” asked ABC Newcastle host Jenny Marchant.

“No, I stepped back one step,” the prime minister said. “I didn’t fall off the stage.”

“It looked like you went down,” Marchant said. “I’m glad to hear you’re OK, though.”

This time Albanese wasn’t backing down, despite the video footage.

“Just one leg went down, but I was sweet.”

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