00:00He's made clear, Joe, that reciprocal tariffs are absolutely not on the cards.
00:07This was a surprising intervention, I suppose, from the former Labor leader Bill Shorten.
00:12As he mentioned, he retired from politics only earlier this year.
00:15He is a significant figure in the Labor movement, of course.
00:18He is a former Labor leader only within the last decade or so.
00:22He made the suggestion that the Albanese government needs to be pushing back harder on the Trump
00:28administration and raising this idea of reciprocal tariffs being introduced if we do see a second
00:34round of tariffs introduced by the United States.
00:37There are a lot of concerns about what that second round, if there is one, might look
00:41like.
00:42Agriculture is a particular concern because that would have a much larger impact on the
00:47Australian economy than what we're going to see with steel and aluminium tariffs that
00:51are already in place.
00:53This idea was put to the Prime Minister.
00:55He said that tariffs simply do more harm than good.
00:58They would simply push up prices for Australian consumers.
01:02He's made the argument that Australia is telling the US that tariffs are a bad idea.
01:06It would be strange for Australia then to go and introduce tariffs of its own.
01:09Here's a bit of what he had to say.
01:11We're consistent.
01:13Tariffs are a tax on Australian consumers and people who buy products.
01:19That is our view.
01:20We stand very clearly in favour of free and fair trade.
01:25We have put positions to the United States.
01:27We'll continue to do so.
01:30We'll continue to put our case to them and there's a range of things involved in that.
01:36But what we won't do is act with economic self-harm.
01:41You can't argue that it's an act of economic self-harm for the US to impose tariffs and
01:46then us impose tariffs as well.
01:49Now Joe, as I mentioned, there are these rising concerns about what another round of
01:53tariffs from the United States might look like.
01:56The Australian government has been somewhat clear that it's raised the issue of critical
02:01minerals in negotiations already with the United States on tariffs.
02:05It seems clear it would be willing to go there again.
02:08The US has a significant interest in Australia's volume of critical minerals.
02:13It's a key export and future export for Australia as well.
02:17Peter Duggan, the opposition leader, has weighed in on this issue of a second round
02:20of tariffs.
02:21He's also poured more doubt on what he sees as the government's ability to negotiate these
02:26tariffs with the United States.
02:27Here's what he had to say.
02:29I am concerned about a second round and I think there are some worrying signs at the
02:33moment and if the government doesn't get its skates on, then we're going to have further
02:37tariffs applied to Australia.
02:40It's obvious that Ambassador Rudd, I'm sure is well intentioned, but just can't open any
02:44doors, has no respect and has no relationship with the current administration.
02:50And that is a real problem for Australia, but ultimately the responsibility is the Prime
02:55Minister's.
02:56Joe, Peter Duggan says that if he becomes Prime Minister, he will be able to negotiate
03:00an exemption for Australia from the tariffs that are already in place.
03:04It's worth noting that would be somewhat remarkable given the global tariffs that have been introduced
03:09by the United States so far have seen no exemptions handed out to any country as yet.
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