Australian news and politics live: Marles says Australia to discuss defence spend with US but it’s our call

Latika M Bourke writes that the Liberals have turned on their in-house pollster, saying its ‘bullish’ and faulty predictions contributed to the scale of their election loss:

The Coalition’s campaign spokesman James Paterson has cast doubt on the Liberals’ in-house pollster Mike Turner and his firm Freshwater Strategy continuing in the job, and said their “very bullish” and ultimately faulty predictions contributed to the scale of the Opposition’s election loss.

Senator Paterson, now shadow finance spokesperson, said “Dr Mike”, as the British pollster is known, should have told campaign figures that he was factoring in Labor voters who rejected the Voice as Coalition supporters — an assumption which wrongly inflated support for then opposition leader Peter Dutton.

Privately, the opposition leader’s aides were boasting of being on course for majority government as late as the Thursday before the election, despite this requiring the Coalition to defy history to stage a landslide and reduce Labor to a one-term government.

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The Government will not compromise Australian biosecurity rules to secure an exemption from Trump’s trade tariffs, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has reiterated.

“We will continue to put the biosecurity of this continent front and centre,” Mr Marles told Sky News.

“As an island country we are free from a lot of diseases that exist elsewhere in the world and it’s important that we do everything we can in relation to that.”

He said Australia would continue make the argument for an open global trading system with the United States.

Asked about the prospect of a direct meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and President Trump, he said, “I’m sure at some point there will be a face to face meeting.”

Mr Marles has responded to Australian Strategic Policy Institute claims about a flotilla of Chinese vessels conducting live fire drills as it circumnavigated Australia’s coast earlier this year.

“We are very aware of what that task group was doing, the exercises that it was engaging in, what it was seeking to be able to demonstrate,” Mr Marles said on Sky News.

“I don’t think what that task group was seeking to demonstrate or rehearse was any breaking news for us.

“I mean that the capabilities that China have we are well aware of and this didn’t really add to that. But we were very clear about what China was doing, or what that task group was doing, and Australia should have a sense of confidence about that.

“The Australian Navy operates much more in the vicinity of China than the Chinese Navy operates in the vicinity of Australia...we do that for good reasons because that’s where Australia’s trade goes, that’s where our shipping lines of communication are and we want to make sure that we are asserting freedom of navigation in relation to them.”

Defence Minister Richard Marles says Australia is “clearly willing” to have a conversation with America about military spending but will very much make its own decisions based on what capabilities are most needed here.

He says he made that point to US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, along with noting the Government was already increasing Australia’s spending significantly, when they met in Singapore last week.

“America is putting this proposition forward. Clearly, we’ll talk with them, but it’s also completely self-evident that we will make the decision about defence spending based on our own national interest,” he told Sky News.

“We are actually going through the process of spending more on defence but the proper way to think this through is to think about the capabilities that you need and then to resource those capabilities.”

With beef imports seemingly key to securing a US tariff exemption, Nationals leader David Littleproud says there needs to be some “perspective”.

“The United States does need Australia and other countries to import beef to be able to put on their hamburgers,” he told Sky News.

“They don’t have the production capacity to be able to produce the type of beef that goes on their hamburgers.

“So this is a tax on themselves that they put on Australian beef.”

Despite being subject to the blanket 10 per cent tariffs on foreign imports, Australian beef into the US has risen by 32 per cent this year, according to Meat and Livestock Australia.

Meanwhile, the cost of domestically produced beef within the US has been climbing, as cattle farmers struggle with drought.

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Former prime minister Scott Morrison’s King’s birthday honour has been welcomed by many, but not all.

Entrepreneurial and Small Business Women Australia founder Amanda Rose said it was an “insult” he had Australia’s highest civilian honour.

“I think Scott Morrison should give it back, because essentially they’ve said he should be rewarded because of how he handled the COVID pandemic,” she told Seven’s Sunrise program on Monday.

“It’s an insult to people and small businesses that were shut down during the lockdowns.

“You’ve got things like robodebt and all these other things that are on his list of things that he should not be rewarded for.”

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A $60,000 lounge is among $1.5m worth of Parliament House furnishings wasting away in off-site storage, officials have revealed.

The Department of Parliamentary Services’ spending came under a spotlight in February when it was grilled on a $3.8m furniture bill.

It sparked concern at the time by disclosing a $20,000 desk sitting in storage.

“My concern, of course, is that there is this pervasive culture of waste and now there is numerous evidence that this has been an ongoing problem,” former opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume said during senate estimates.

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should leverage the AUKUS defence arrangement to try to carve-out an exemption from the Trump trade tariffs, said shadow trade minister Kevin Hogan.

Mr Hogan told ABC Radio National Breakfast he was “very optimistic” Mr Albanese could secure a better tariffs deal for Australia when he meets President Trump, as expected, on the margins of the G7 summit in Canada later this week.

“I’d be reminding President Trump of two things - primarily, one is that his policy is a bad policy for Americans,” he said.

“But I’d certainly be pushing the AUKUS arrangement. We have an agreement with them, with our national security and we are going to invest a lot of money with them,” he said.

“If he wants to do tariffs for certain things. That’s his economic policy. But there should be for trusted friends, for good national security arrangements, there should be carve outs.”

The new shadow housing minister insists there are “no sacred cows” in the Coalition’s policy review, including the superannuation for home deposits scheme that he strongly backed.

Andrew Bragg says while new policies are a way off, boosting housing supply is a key focus for him and there should be more attention paid to the “sticks” to punish underperforming States.

The Federal government has a target of building 1.2 million homes in the five years to mid-2029 but efforts so far are falling short.

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A state election is inching closer as an embattled premier refuses to stand down to spare voters the pain of returning to the polls.

Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff is preparing to call an early election as soon as Tuesday after narrowly losing a no-confidence motion in state parliament.

The state Liberal leader could have stood aside or been removed to allow his party to continue to govern in minority with crossbench support.

But he is forging ahead with plans to recall parliament on Tuesday to pass a bill to ensure government workers can keep getting paid, before asking Governor Barbara Baker to call an election.

She could approve his request or ask another Liberal MP or Labor leader Dean Winter to try to form minority government.

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