OK, after letting everyone know that we are all very sad about the Pope, we have moved on to questions.

Sussan Ley:

My question is to the Prime Minister. Australians rely on the government to confidently and competently advocate for our national interest. But yesterday the trade minister seemed to be hallucinating on national TV when he invented a conversation between the US President and the Prime Minister about beef. How can Labor be trusted to secure tariff exemptions when the trade minister confuses a public statement from the President with a leader to leader phone call that never happened?

Good times.

Albanese:

I’m asked about statements by the US President, and I recall on 5 May 2025 he said this. ‘Albanese, I’m very spendly with, he’s very good, he’s a friend of mine. I can only say that he’s been very, very nice to me, very respectful to me. And you know we’ve had a very good relationship. I have no idea who the other person is that fan and ran against him.”

Ahhh, yes – always good to remind people that the nonsense-in-chief knows who you are.

After a bunch of interjections, Albanese gets back to it:

During the campaign when it came to tariffs, the former Leader of the Opposition said that he would be able to fix it and that there would be no problem. The truth is that no country in the world has a lower tariff than Australia has right now of 10 per cent.

And the arrangements that have been put in place are all, at least that, but in most cases have, of course o been higher, 15 per cent, 25 per cent, some substantially higher. What we will do is to continue to engage in Australia’s national interests, to advocate, to get the best outcome possible with the United States. I have said very clearly that tariffs are an imposition of a higher cost by the country on itself that imposes them. That is what is happening. Americans are still importing goods from the global community.

They’re just paying more for them, which is why I argued that tariffs are an act of economic self-harm and which is why Australia hasn’t reciprocated with tariffs. Of course Australia has a free trade agreement with the United States. We impose zero tariffs on them. That is our ideal, but the President of the United States has made it very clear, with statements including that tariff is the most beautiful word in the English language, that that is not his position.

We’ll continue to argue our case. Those opposite will continue to argue against Australia’s interests.

And yes, that didn’t answer the question, but this is question time, not answer time.