Australia's Rebuke of Trump Is Electing a Climate-Forward Party

Well, as you said, the final votes are still being counted as of Tuesday evening in Australia, but the result is completely beyond doubt. This was a real landslide electoral victory for Anthony Albanese and his Labor party. And just one caveat from the top about names, the Labor Party in Australia is a sort of political brethren, akin to the Liberal Party of Canada, rather than the Liberal Party here being equivalent to its opposite number in Canada. But Albanese has really had a commanding victory, and that certainly confounded expectations. I think, going into Saturday’s election, there was a sense that he may have to rely on the support of potentially the Australian Green Party, potentially independent lawmakers, to get his policies through. That’s not been the case. I think, in terms of the influence of Trump, quite clearly, for Mark Carney and for Canada, we saw at least a very real perceived threat to sovereignty from Trump’s administration, it was a very visceral part of that campaign. For Australia, less so the direct impact of Trump. Sure, exporters really don’t like the idea of tariffs. The majority of Australian exports are subject to that 10% baseline. There are some products subject to a higher tariff. But what we did see is some adoption of that MAGA-type rhetoric, you know, rather than focusing on the policy platform — and they did have one — you know, to address the economy, to address housing. But what we saw from Peter Dutton’s Liberal Party is a bit more of a focus on culture war issues, And we even had some calls for Australia’s own version of DOGE. So certainly that rhetoric wasn’t a help. Not only did the Liberal Party lose, Peter Dutton himself was booted out of office.