Speaker 1: Every Friday, we wrap up the week with Rhiannon down
Speaker 1: he's on the phone, the political reporter for The Australian.
Speaker 1: Good morning to you. This is the week that was
Speaker 1: in camera. Let's get it started with, Well, where do
Speaker 1: you want to start?
Speaker 2: A big meeting didn't end up happening.
Speaker 3: We had the long awaited G seven summit where Albernezi,
Speaker 3: our Prime minister, was you to have his first meeting
Speaker 3: with Donald Trump face to face to discuss tariffs and orcurse.
Speaker 3: But despite being highly anticipated in the media for months
Speaker 3: or weeks, I should say, it didn't end up happening.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump canceled at the minute and left him hanging
Speaker 3: because of the Middle East conflict, which I imagine was very
Speaker 3: disappointing for the Prime Minister and the government because they
Speaker 3: were very keen to negotiate an exception from those tariffs
Speaker 3: that have been causing them so much grief. Apparently he
Speaker 3: didn't receive he did not receive a call from Trump
Speaker 3: personally afterwards, which some leaders did, which is unfortunate. However,
Speaker 3: Athne Albernize is now considering going to a NATO summit
Speaker 3: in the Netherlands soon to meet Trump in person.
Speaker 2: He's certainly keen to make up for that lost meeting.
Speaker 3: He sees it as very critically important as way of
Speaker 3: assuring the nation that he's a capable economic manager and
Speaker 3: able to negotiate.
Speaker 2: An exemption ursued tariffs.
Speaker 3: However, there were some successes for Anthony Albernizi in terms
Speaker 3: of he did meet with some EU officials to discuss
Speaker 3: a new Security and Defense Pact, which is something that's
Speaker 3: on the table, so certainly some closer ties with Europe
Speaker 3: emerging out of that G seven summit.
Speaker 1: Jim Chalmers went to the National Press Club. How did
Speaker 1: he go?
Speaker 3: Just a week after Anthony Alberanzi gave his own presentation
Speaker 3: at the National Press Club, which I'm sure he was
Speaker 3: very keen to get him first. The Treasurer, Jim Chalmers
Speaker 3: has now done his He did that on Wednesday and
Speaker 3: it was really I mean, he talked up his achievements
Speaker 3: after his first term as Treasurer and sort of talked
Speaker 3: about the mandate in the next three years ahead.
Speaker 2: So it was certainly, you know, very.
Speaker 3: Like it was a bit of a victory life, I'd
Speaker 3: say for the treasure He sort of talked about the
Speaker 3: government's track record of bringing down inflation while making sure
Speaker 3: that unemployment didn't rise, so certainly the government's had some successes.
Speaker 2: He also sort of tried to temper this with this.
Speaker 3: Idea of you know, there's a lot of global volatility,
Speaker 3: there's tariffs, there's all over the world now. And he
Speaker 3: also talked up this productivity roundtable that's coming up in
Speaker 3: August where they're going to bring all these prominent business
Speaker 3: leaders and economic leaders and sot of discussed how to
Speaker 3: get the nation's productivity sort of out of the duldrums
Speaker 3: that it's in.
Speaker 2: So certainly it was a well received speech for Jim Chalmers.
Speaker 2: He did also make a few interesting admissions. He said
Speaker 2: that the budget as it is is not sustainable.
Speaker 3: We've got spending sort of falling short of all the
Speaker 3: big ticket items the government needs to fund, like the
Speaker 3: care economy, that's age care, health indies, all those things.
Speaker 3: Defense is another big one at the moment. And he
Speaker 3: talked about this idea of tax reform, which is very interesting.
Speaker 3: Labor certainly steered clear of tax reforms early in the
Speaker 3: first term. And he sort of flagged this suggestion that
Speaker 3: you know, everything should be left on the table, the
Speaker 3: possibility of looking at GST.
Speaker 2: But he also talked about this idea of consensus.
Speaker 3: He said that failures to get productivity out of the
Speaker 3: gutters or reform the economy won't be because of a
Speaker 3: lack of courage.
Speaker 2: It'll be because of.
Speaker 3: A lack of consensus, and consensus will be the key
Speaker 3: thing here.
Speaker 2: He talked a lot about this topic. We've got already,
Speaker 2: we've got.
Speaker 3: The coalition, James Patterson, the Finance Minister, coming out saying
Speaker 3: that this is sort of code for labor, saying they
Speaker 3: want to raise taxes. So we'll see how that goes,
Speaker 3: this idea of tax reform, and this has been this
Speaker 3: week in camera