What we learned; Tuesday 11 February
And with that, we are going to put the blog to bed. Before we go, let’s recap the big ones:
The government should prioritise helping Australians under 34 access bulk-billed GP appointments, make longer consults and mental health appointments cheaper, the peak body for general practitioners has said.
The treasurer has announced a package to keep regional bank services open. Jim Chalmers said Australia Post, CBA, NAB and Westpac have all reached new in-principle Bank@Post agreements to support banking services through regional Australia Post outlets.
The PM said he had “a great conversation” with Donald Trump and that the US president was considering an exemption from tariffs. Later, the president signed the executive order for tariffs on steel and aluminium.
In question time, Dutton asked the PM if he was planning any changes to negative gearing, which Albo sidestepped, instead attacking the Coalition for its long lunch policy. And there was a fight about who was responsible for Australia’s lack of bulk billing clinics.
Voters in Werribee in will have to wait a little longer as the vote is still close and neither Labor’s candidate, John Lister, to the Liberal party’s Steve Murphy will make a call.
Minister for Industry and science, Ed Husic, questioned the broadcaster’s controversial defence that its case against Antoinette Lattouf, when it had argued her case should fail because she had not proved that there was a Lebanese, Middle Eastern or Arab race.
Residents in the north-west of Tasmania, in Sandy Cape and surrounds, were told to take shelter on Tuesday afternoon, while those at Corinna were urged to leave immediately as fires rage.
In good news for Sydney commuters the minister for transport, John Graham, has just announced the industrial action planned for Wednesday has been paused. We will be back tomorrow to do it all again.
Thank you for spending part of your day with us.
Updated
US says Australia broke ‘verbal commitment’ to limit aluminium exports
The US has accused Australia of breaking a “verbal commitment” to limit aluminium exports in the formal order imposing a 25% tariff on the commodity.
As we reported earlier, Donald Trump said he would give “great consideration” to exempting Australia from the tariffs after a phone call on Tuesday morning with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese.
The official proclamation to impose the tariff – which was published after the phone call – appears to explain why Australia was not exempted from the outset.
The former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull negotiated a carve out from steel and aluminium tariffs during Trump’s first term.
The proclamation read:
The volume of U.S. imports of primary aluminum from Australia has also surged and in 2024 was approximately 103% higher than the average volume for 2015 through 2017. Australia has disregarded its verbal commitment to voluntarily restrain its aluminum exports to a reasonable level.
The tariffs – which will also apply to steel – will start on 12 March unless Albanese can secure an exemption before then.
Updated
