After reading the article I have linked to below, I think I now have an understanding of what the Albanese government is seeking to do.
First, the article:
“Australian government scrambles to secure exemptions to Trump’s 25% tariff on steel imports” https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/feb/10/australian-government-scrambles-to-secure-exemptions-to-trumps-25-tariff-on-steel-imports “Ministers were seeking return of Turnbull-era exemptions ahead of US president’s announcement of new duties on steel and aluminium ... The Albanese government has been bracing for such a decision, with senior ministers and officials working behind the scenes for some time to secure tariff exemptions on Australian exports as were achieved during Trump’s first term in office”
It seems to me that the government is working flat out to minimise the economic harm Australia may face as a result of Tr_ mp’s actions.
In pursuit of that aim, they are seeking to not offend him too much - and hence the weak response on Tr_ mp’s appalling colonial/imperial/soulless land developer proposal to ethnically cleanse Gaza, rather than flat out criticising Tr_ mp for being a monster.
I now suspect that is also part of the reason for the so-called “review” of health care for young trans, gender diverse and nonbinary Australians - which so-called “review”runs a very real risk that, based on past reviews, it is likely to ignore the effects of discrimination, and the risks of suicide if nothing is done. (The medicines have been known to NOT be a problem for many years - and there is NO opposition to their use for others! In my opinion, this is pandering to religious bigots and snowflake parents.)
However, it is also possibly a way of fending off another aspect of Tr_ mp’s cruelty, hate, and amathia.
The other matter that currently counts in our favour is the atrocious AUKUS scheme - which Tr_ mp’s “secretary for defence” has already referred favourably to.
No matter what is done, we will feel pain. However, if these efforts work, they will spare us at least some of the pain ... but at a cost.
The consequences of these actions already includes severe damage to Australia’s human rights standing - and even more damage to the ALP’s credibility on such issues.
This all also raises the problem of taking the easy way out in governance - such as trusting “the market” to provide housing, or investing all one’s economic eggs in one basket (i.e., having a excessive reliance on one market rather than doing the hard work of developing other options [my ideal is no single market having more than 10% of our resources in that area, but that isn't realistic]), or not addressing the excessive power of radical right extremist press, such as the Murdoch empire.
If the Albanese government is returned, I suspect it may well be a minority government - which some leaders have coped brilliantly with (notably Gillard, although she also tripped on some major issues).
If Tr_ mp sycophant Dutton has a key opposition role, those major problems will not be addressed.
If independents have a key role, there is a possibility some of those problems may be addressed - to some extent.
If the Albanese government is not returned (which will probably be because of the arrogant, uncaring, amathiac refusal to ally with the Greens or others - which, in Queensland, has put hundreds of young lives at risk), maybe there will be a change of leader to someone better, someone we should have had already - but more HUNDREDS of young trans, gender diverse and nonbinary lives will be put at risk because of the stereotype impaired, amathiac, hate that Dutton is hooking up with.
It is going to be up to Australia’s voters ...
The spiritual perspective on this is that problems should be dealt with when they need to be, and done so properly - even if that is not popular.
That isn’t inconsistent with winning an election, but it means the hard choices have to be done immediately after an election, and then persistently and forcefully defended until the next election.
When situations have been left to fester, the spiritual approach is to deal with the problems ASAP - and try to make sure such delays/duck showing cannot ever happen again.
PS - see also
“Tr_ mp’s latest tariff bid shows the old rules of trade no longer apply. Scraps of paper will not save us” https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2025/feb/10/trumps-latest-tariff-bid-shows-the-old-rules-of-trade-no-longer-apply-scraps-of-paper-will-not-save-us The article’s points include we import slightly more than twice from the US than we export to it - Howard’s free trade agreement 20 years ago worsened our trade deficit - and that there are thus more questions about AUKUS, China is still our largest trading partner by far, our stockmarket falling 0.5% and then recovering most of that and a few other key points about how small the USA is in the steel market - “Tr_ mp is acting like it is 1950 and the US can tell everyone what to do. ... he is mostly all hot air. Certainly, Australia has plenty of ways to make it seem as if he has got a concession from us. And our government has not shown any disinclination to genuflect before the Orange autocrat. Will Aukus be used as a way to avoid a tariff? Will our obsequiousness to Trump’s utterances on Gaza help our steel manufacturers? Possibly. But what this all shows however is that we cannot rely on our ally to do good by us. We don’t need to start raising tariffs, but the government should definitely begin supporting our local industries in a way that we might have not when playing under the old rules of pretending that free trade agreements were sacrosanct.”
I will possibly come back and add more links in due course.
Possible flaws
Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:
- there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;
- I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also other options.
Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here.
(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)
Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).#PsychicABetterWorld and candles for Viva La Résistance à Tr_ mp! and may all that I do be of value and actively BPM used for and by the nonphysical BPM
Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2025 NO AI
I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence
(AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or
other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to
reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise replicate any part of
this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s
may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.
Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative
Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
.jpg)
