LAURA JAYES, HOST: Tim Ayres is the Assistant Minister for Trade and the Future Made in Australia. He is good enough to join me in the studio.
 
SENATOR TIM AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA AND TRADE: Good to see you, Laura.
 
HOST: What's happened today? Overnight Donald Trump reversing these tariffs. It's a good question. Are we really better off than we were yesterday?
 
AYRES: Well, I think, the key point here is, firstly, that this is a big act of economic self-harm from the beginning. Last Thursday's decision was a bad decision. Australia's tariff rate stays at 10%.
 
HOST: But our competitors are now at 10%.
 
AYRES: Yeah, and certainly, it is not in Australia's interests for trade conflict to escalate, but it's one of the reasons why I think, you and I have had these conversations a number of times. I'm often asked, and other Ministers are asked, to commentate on what's going on in the United States. There's a reason that we've been calm and consistent in terms of our approach to this. Our opponent, Mr. Dutton, swings at every ball, dials it up to eleven every time that he does, because he doesn't come from the same framework.
 
HOST: Isn't it bipartisan?
 
AYRES: Well, certainly.
 
HOST: He just wants you to get on the phone.
 
AYRES: Well, competence is clearly not bipartisan here. Focus on the national interest is not bipartisan. We've been calm and consistent all the way through. What Mr. Dutton has done is sort of run around, sort of rabidly, trying to stoke up the politics of this. We learnt, and Australia learnt from the Morrison period, what it costs the country when our government can't be focused on the national interest and is just focused on the partisan interest.
 
HOST: It was a Morrison government that got the exemption last time around with Hockey in D.C.
 
AYRES: I think across the board our approach—
 
HOST: You can't gloss over that, if you want to criticise Dutton for running around, swinging to the fences, I mean, you have to admit that the previous government did get an exemption when you have not been able to?
 
AYRES: What did the opposition, the Labor Party at the time do, we back the government to the hilt—
 
HOST: But they were getting calls through to the White House then.
 
AYRES: —not just on the day that a good outcome was announced, but over the nine months that it took to get to that position?
 
HOST: Sure, it did take nine months you are right.
 
AYRES: Like we were consistent. On trade and security, we've been very consistent on these questions, and we're consistent in government. Poor old Peter Dutton just swings at every ball, dials it up to eleven and make it all about politics.
 
HOST: But Tim, let's not sit here and pretend that your government has any control whatsoever with what is going on with Donald Trump at the moment. I mean, you're saying you're consistent. You have utterly no other choice. You just have to sit and wait.
 
AYRES: And you saw last week with the Prime Minister's approach, right? It's not a sort of sudden, new position, it is building economic resilience for Australia, diversifying our trade and diversifying the products that we sell as well because these bumps and shocks are coming along—
 
HOST: You have just got to be honest with people. Trump is unpredictable. He's going to be there well beyond this campaign and for all of your whole next term, into the next campaign, and you're just along for the ride.
 
AYRES: Well, the global environment is more and more unpredictable. We've seen what happened when China put trade barriers in front of Australia. It is not just this set of developments over the course of the last couple of weeks that have brought the government to the conclusion. Very early in our term, Future Made in Australia, trade diversification, supporting businesses diversify their trade overseas, building the competitiveness of Australian manufacturers through production tax credits. This whole suite of policies is a coherent approach to the world becoming less certain and building Australia's position in our region. It is a critical part not just of our economic security, but our national security as well.
 
HOST: Tell you what's incoherent, energy policy at the moment. We're going to see the energy debate later today. We were both out in McMahon in Fairfield last week. Now, some of the data shows that Chris Bowen could be in danger of losing his seat. What do you think about that?
 
AYRES: I saw this story. I'm fascinated by this poll, I'm sure. But Chris is an excellent local member. He grew up in his seat where we were doing our interview. He's lived in a house a few blocks from there for decade after decade after decade. He's absolutely in the fabric of that community.
 
HOST: But he is the Energy Ministers where prices have gone up $1300 on average.
 
AYRES: He's doing a very good job—
 
HOST: What is your KPI for success?
 
AYRES: He's doing a very good job as Australia's Energy Minister, rebuilding after a period, of course, where we had a decade where, as the Prime Minister just said, 28 Australian coal fired power stations and 24 of them closed down. The previous government sat around for. Almost a decade, and did nothing, like nothing. Now, that failure and the delinquencies and failures in the current coal fired sector, where there are unplanned outages every day of the week, that is what is driving electricity prices up for ordinary Australians. We're rebuilding the sector. We're doing it in a measured way, and we've made a lot of progress, but there's a lot of work to do.
 
HOST: It's expensive. We're going to leave it there. We've been nice today.
 
AYRES: Yeah, always.
 
HOST: Okay. Thank you. We'll see you soon.

ENDS.