Ape Trump or bait him? He’s political kryptonite for PM and Dutton

They thought they were so clever. The Australian politicians who decided that aping Donald Trump was a winning move. And for a while, for some, it was. There was a conga line of them; the Liberals had Craig Kelly, the Nationals had George Christensen and still have Matt Canavan, and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation still has Pauline Hanson.

The pathetic yet perpetual Clive Palmer has even renamed his political party after the US president – he’s calling it the Trumpet of Patriots.

Illustration by Simon Letch

In a brilliant malapropism at the grand announcement of the new name, Palmer called it the “Trumpet of Parrots”. And parroting is exactly what these desperadoes do.

At one point we even had a prime minister allowing himself to be used as a prop in a MAGA rally – remember Scott Morrison on stage with Trump in Ohio in 2019? In the end, Morrison lost the 2022 election in large part because he was a bit too much like Trump. As one of his cabinet ministers, Kelly O’Dwyer, put it, the Liberals under Morrison were seen to be “homophobic, anti-women, climate-change deniers”.

It’s an object lesson in how it can all go wrong for Trump wannabes. Six Liberal heartland seats went teal at that election. The winning teals were all women, all favouring climate action, and none of them visibly homophobic.

Did the Liberals learn their lesson? Today Kelly O’Dwyer would probably rephrase her devastating description. The Liberals, she might say now, are seen as “transphobic, anti-woman, climate-change deniers”.

Just a few months ago, Barnaby Joyce said Peter Dutton had Trump-like qualities – “they’ve got a like mind”. And, said Joyce, this could give Dutton a winning edge at the forthcoming election.

But the political mood music has changed dramatically in the past few days. Today, Trump is wilfully inflicting harm on Australia and just about every other developed nation, except Russia insofar as it remains developed.

Australia’s main political leaders have adjusted their positions at speed this week as Trump’s tariffs cut in. Dutton, who has had words of praise for Trump until recently – “shrewd”, a “big thinker” – twice this week distanced himself. And Albanese found his voice in denouncing the US tariffs.

Trump is bound to dominate the weeks and months ahead. Even as the two Australian leaders wage a domestic political contest, the news cycle from abroad will keep intruding. Albanese and Dutton will be forced, again and again, to answer questions about Trump. They need to be extremely careful in positioning themselves. Getting it right could be a decisive advantage. Getting it wrong could be fatal.

Dutton first. To be fair to him, he’s never been a carbon copy of Trump. He wants to cut immigration, but he doesn’t propose mass deportations; he remains committed to free trade, not tariffs; he remains committed to supporting Ukraine, not Russia. But he’s flirted with Trumpism. Most recently the Coalition thought it would be brilliant to mimic Trump’s move in January to order all federal public servants to abandon working from home and return to the office five days a week. Dutton said it was unacceptable that public servants were “refusing to go back to work”.

But the Coalition already had promised to get rid of 36,000 public servants if elected. They already had the base. It was Trump-inspired overkill to go the next step. All that Dutton achieved was to signal that he was uninterested in flexibility for working women.

The ACTU promised to campaign against the policy because it was “an attack on flexible work arrangements, and it will hurt working women the most”, according to president Michele O’Neil.

After just a week, Dutton started softening the policy. He didn’t want to ban working from home, merely return it to its pre-COVID status as an exception rather than the rule.

With Australia under attack from Trump, it will only become more politically dangerous for the Coalition to mimic his ideas. Trump’s tariff decision was a dramatic moment; Dutton responded with a bet each way. He said he had a better chance of success because he would have a better relationship with Trump. It would be a “respectful relationship mutually”.

So that’s one bet – claiming a special relationship with Trump.

But twice this week he distanced himself from the US leader. Asked whether he was a “Temu Trump” or a “cut-price Trump”, Dutton told podcast The Pay-Off with Sylvia Jeffreys that: “I’m my own person. The biggest influence in my political life has been John Howard and Peter Costello.”

And he told Michelle Grattan for The Conversation: “I was able to stand up to Trump” on Ukraine “and I think that’s one of the important qualities in the next prime minister of our country. I want to make sure that I stand up for my values.” More accurately, Dutton differed with Trump on Ukraine; he didn’t actually speak with him.

That’s his second bet – claiming he is a traditional Australian conservative who will stand to Trump’s populist nationalism.

As for Albanese, he’s been at pains to refrain from criticising Trump. He doesn’t want to provoke him. For months, he’d maintained the line that he wouldn’t conduct a “running commentary” on the president.

Two things happened. First, Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine moved Albanese to differ with the US policy. Not by critiquing Trump directly but by offering a potential Australian contribution to any peacekeeping mission to separate Ukraine from Russia. Dutton declined to support this.

Second, the tariffs decision forced Albanese to find his voice: “This is against the spirit of our two nations’ enduring friendship.”

He kept cool and declined to retaliate in kind. Retaliatory tariffs would only harm Australian consumers by increasing the price of imports from the US. But he added: “Australians can have an impact by buying Australian goods. You buy Bundy soft drinks rather than some of the American products.”

Albanese is not the only leader to err on the side of sensible restraint. Some US allies, substantial powers like Japan and Britain, are doing exactly the same. But it will grow more and more difficult for Albanese to exercise restraint. Trump’s administration will seek to act against Australian farm products, pharmaceuticals, social media regulation and university policies, just for starters.

Public resentment will demand that Albanese channel national outrage. And that Dutton cut dead any flirtation with Trump policies.

The independent Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie, a reliable outrage barometer, provided a foretaste of a sentiment that will only grow during the election campaign to come. The tariffs were “a kick in the guts”, said Lambie. “They’re showing that friendship doesn’t matter any more. It’s time to let him [Trump] know we’re not going to put up with this nonsense,” she told Nine’s Today.

She urged the closure of US military facilities: “Pine Gap – they need it like no tomorrow. Just tell ’em we’re going to switch it off in seven days. Give ’em a real boot up their backsides. Tell ’em you’ve got seven days to get your marines off our soil. Stop mucking around.”

This is emotionally satisfying but it’d be self-harming. The reason Australia hosts US facilities is because they’re designed for our collective defence. So Albanese and Dutton will need to find positive ways to demonstrate Australian independence and assert national pride without verging on the vengeful.

As the pollster for this masthead, Jim Reed of Resolve Strategic, says: “Trump has always been disliked in our Australian polling. The fact that Dutton has assiduously distanced himself from Trump tells you that the same attitudes, behaviours and policies won’t fly here.

“If anything, Australian politicians can learn something from Trump’s election win. He made it clear he stood for the majority and that he would act as an agent for change for them. Our major parties need to cater for that desire or they will continue to lose votes to minor parties and independents.”

However, two of those minor parties showed even less comprehension of how the world has changed this week. Pauline Hanson actually endorsed Trump’s decision to apply tariffs to Australia. “I believe in tariffs, put ’em on,” she told Sky News. They’d be good for America, she said.

Clive Palmer, chief Trumpet of Parrots, boasting of his “success” in persuading Australians to refuse vaccinations, trumped Hanson. He gleefully announced that he’d be bringing an extraordinary talent to his election rallies via video link – the Trump sycophant Tucker Carlson.

Carlson was sacked by Fox News when his hatefulness became commercially intolerable as advertisers deserted the network; he went on to even greater lows with a sycophantic interview with Vladimir Putin. Lately, he’s back doing yet more slavishly toadying interviews of Trump. Palmer seemed to think he’d scored a great coup.

The conga line is getting shorter, but Pauline and Clive are still dancing to Trump’s tune. No one has told them that the music has changed.

Peter Hartcher is political editor.