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Welcome to The Chair.

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I'm your host, Dr. Vicky James Wren.

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And today we're having a quick look at the Australian election and our Labor's

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leading in the polls by about 10 points.

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But what that really means is if they lose five, it's going to be 50-50.

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So 45 to 55 for Labor.

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Now, Australia is in trouble.

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the economy is going to have and look the imf said this quite a few years ago uh 10

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years of declining living standards so now labor has gone from a couple of a couple

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of surpluses for the last few years now it's running going to go straight back into

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deficits and that money is going to be going into health care

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renewables, education, and the biggest one, of course, defense.

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Why, of course, I'm not really sure why, of course, but housing is also big.

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Medicare, so giving better medications and so forth.

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All that's going to come under

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conflict with the Trump administration's policies towards Australia and as I said

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with the aluminum or aluminium as the Australians say that's going to be

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problematic as well look it's very small percentage of GDP but you know it's the

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compound effect of all of the tariffs and the effect of the tariffs on other

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countries which trade with Australia and that's primarily China of course

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And so the boom,

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sort of the mini boom,

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let's say,

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that's been going on with minerals,

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you know,

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there was a really big boom back in the 90s and 2000s,

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but that's over.

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But in the last few years,

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there's been another boom as China's economy has switched into the new productive forces,

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EVs,

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of course,

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and solar panels and so forth.

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And now Australia is also transitioning and they rely on China for that.

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There's nowhere else they're going to be able to get this,

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you know,

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affordably,

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so good,

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fast and cheap,

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right?

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So that is the permanent dilemma the Australian government is in,

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balancing their security arrangements with the Americans,

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with their trade relationship with China.

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Now,

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China is far and away the biggest trade partner of Australia,

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and the budget doesn't really mention that,

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according to all of the information that I've been able to access.

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And you can read this in the ASEAN Chair.

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ASEAN Chair that has released...

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once a week there's updates on that there are other updates daily you can check

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daily but what we're looking at here is a very difficult election look I think

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Labor's probably going to win it I'll call it and say they're going to win but it

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look it could be very very narrow win and it's possible that the Greens may hold

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the balance of power or the teals as well which is you know young educated urban

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elites may hold the balance of power in the Senate and

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And an unlikely outcome,

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but possible outcome,

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is that they may hold the balance of power in the House as well.

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That is not good because,

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as we can see,

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it's happened in Europe with all of the political turmoil in Europe.

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Weak coalitions just cannot hold against the tariff and Trump effect.

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And so I think that's also true here in Australia.

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So one has to look very, very carefully at that.

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So if you're voting, just keep that in mind.

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Donald Trump really was asked the other day about AUKUS and he had to ask the journalist,

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what does that mean?

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He didn't really know.

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Now,

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it doesn't mean he doesn't know about submarines and he doesn't know about

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Australia's importance to the American security framework,

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you know,

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forward posture into Asia.

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And that's what it is, forward posture.

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You know,

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I'd be very,

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very worried about listening to John Anderson's podcast and YouTube channel where

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he interviewed the former Home Affairs Minister of Australia and they

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They were talking about a tyrannical China and Australia can't live with a China

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like that and so forth and so on.

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But this is absolutely not true.

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Look,

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China is not in any way interested in invading Australia or taking over Australia

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or anything else.

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What China is interested is stability.

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And Australia needs to be in stability as well.

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And the greatest source of instability in the world today is the United States.

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So this security arrangement...

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and the exorbitant,

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and I mean ultra-exorbitant cost of these submarines,

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which is basically just three really old Virginia-class American submarines based

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out of Western Australia and possibly some others based out of Wollongong or south

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of Sydney on the East Coast.

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uh i mean they're just american submarines being based out of australia uh there's

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technical upgrading and all that sort of thing for the australians so nuclear

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energy and things like that and the liberals uh you know the opposition they're

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promoting nuclear energy which is really not going to work very well but there is

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concerns of course about the

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the grid and being able to give stable enough energy and low cost for consumers but

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stable enough energy for you know the AI wave that's happening right now.

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Huge data centers need really reliable power and they quite often need enormous

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water resources for cooling and that means being able to build desalination plants

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in Australia's case because water is something Australia does not have a lot of.

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Now, let's think about China and its Australian exports.

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Australia is going to maintain and to get growth because it's anemic at the moment.

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To get growth, Australia is going to have to have a better relationship with China.

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And so the Trump tariff effect and...

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the new cabinet that he has,

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Hegseth as a military defense secretary,

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Marco Rubio,

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who's,

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you know,

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basically a neocon,

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totally anti-China.

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He's going to try and play Philippines.

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He's going to try and play Taiwan.

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But Australia cannot be falling into that.

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Now, Albanese, he has, and his government has...

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navigated a careful path along that line,

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but how much further they can go is going to be difficult.

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But look,

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I can see right now that although public opinion is not really changing

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definitively toward China,

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mainly because of the Rupert Murdoch News Corporation effect,

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which dominates Australian media to an extraordinary amount,

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And the idea that the ABC, that's the national broadcaster, needs to keep a measure of balance.

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But it's not really watched by most Australians.

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The mediascape is still anti-China and I think that's the next step that has to change.

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But Twiggy Forrest,

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one of the richest men in Australia who owns enormous iron ore mines in Western

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Australia and made his fortune in the iron ore to China trade and is still doing

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very well with that,

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has just succeeded in suing Meta or Facebook for things related to using his image

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uh for scams so online scamming being run by facebook and not just in australia but

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globally uh and as it puts that puts a very bad light on on the scams that have

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been reported all the time in cambodia and thailand and other places uh and uh so

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many ind