Australia news live: Penny Wong criticises Trump’s movie tariffs plan saying ‘we make great films together’ with US
Wong says US, Australia ‘make great films together’
In response to US president Donald Trump suggesting tariffs could be placed on foreign-produced movies, Wong says “we make great films together”.
We’ve got Australian actors who work on American films. We have American films which are filmed here in Australia. We have collaboration between our artists in the creative industries. The collaboration is a good thing. So let’s not get in the way of that.
Key events
The independent senator for the ACT, David Pocock, said it was “really humbling” to nearly double his vote from 2022 to 2025, but told ABC RN Breakfast he wasn’t taking it for granted.
I’ll continue to represent people in the ACT, as I, as I have been doing, engaging in good faith, really bringing their voices into into parliament. My commitment was to be accessible and accountable to people in the ACT, and over the last three years, I held over 50 public forums, from town halls, round tables, mobile offices, really wanting to hear from people in the ACT. And one of the things I take very seriously, as one of only two senators in the ACT is that not everyone voted for me.
There’s a whole bunch of people in Canberra who don’t like me, but I represent them, and I vote on their behalf. And so I take that very seriously, to actually get out there and hear a really wide range of perspectives to help inform how I conduct myself and ultimately how I vote.
He said there was a frustration in the community that the major parties weren’t standing up to vested interests, and that was a big reason people were voting for independents over the major parties, but said given the huge Labor vote in the ACT, it was unlikely a second independent would get the second senate spot in the ACT.
Wong says she will remain foreign affairs minister and Coalition ‘are not the party of middle Australia’
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, continues her media appearances for the day, telling ABC’s RN Breakfast she will stay on as foreign minister in the government, and said the most surprising factor in the election for her was the realisation that the Coalition “are not the party of middle Australia”.
I had a look at the AEC’s current count of metropolitan seats. So they have an inner and outer metropolitan seat at this stage. On current numbers, the Coalition are down to seven out of 88 seats in metropolitan areas.
Know what that says? Sally, that says that in the cities and suburbs, the Coalition does not represent middle Australia. It doesn’t represent the hopes, aspirations and struggles of people, of Australians and their families living in our cities and suburbs. That really was a profoundly, profound message from the electorate.
She said the government would continue to talk to the US administration to argue against tariffs, and repeated her earlier comments regarding film production that Australia and the US collaborate well on film production.
Bridget McKenzie: Coalition had many problems and Labor ran a ‘superior’ campaign
Nationals senator, Bridget McKenzie, told ABC’s RN Breakfast there needs to be a “deep, honest and brutal” examination in what went wrong in the Coalition’s election campaign, but said no one factor was at fault.
There’s no one issue that you can point to that was the reason the Coalition had a catastrophic loss … there are issues around the campaign, research, communication, policy, etc., and tactics and strategy. And let’s be give credit where credit’s due. The Labor Party ran a superior campaign.
McKenzie said the Donald Trump factor benefits the incumbents at a time of global uncertainty, and said Trump “isn’t a conservative” as he “is literally ripping down institutions in a reaction to a political class in America which is very different to the political class here in Australia.”
Here in Australia, we have a compulsory voting which tears us to the center, and for good reasons.
Wong says US, Australia ‘make great films together’
In response to US president Donald Trump suggesting tariffs could be placed on foreign-produced movies, Wong says “we make great films together”.
We’ve got Australian actors who work on American films. We have American films which are filmed here in Australia. We have collaboration between our artists in the creative industries. The collaboration is a good thing. So let’s not get in the way of that.
Penny Wong: Liberal Party was ‘very aggro’ and wanted a ‘culture war’
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, says the media response to her comments in the final week of the election campaign about the voice to parliament were disappointing and an inaccurate “beat-up”.
She told ABC News Breakfast it was also a signal for where the Coalition was focused.
I think more importantly, what it did show Australians is that the reflex for the Liberal Party was to have a culture war and get very aggro, let’s be frank. Whereas most Australians weren’t there. You know, most Australians wanted to talk about Medicare and schools and cost of living and tax cuts and fee-free Tafe and childcare and 20% off their Hecs debt.
That’s where most Australians were. But the Coalition – yet again – their reflex is to have a culture war, which is often very hurtful to First Nations Australians but, more generally, to people who care about reconciliation. So I think it was a demonstration of why the Liberal Party has done so badly in Australia’s cities and suburbs.
Wong also said that Liberal senator Jane Hume’s comments that alleged Labor volunteers were Chinese spies was “extraordinary” and showed the party’s approach to “a whole range of issues” of concern to the Australian-Chinese community.
With the Coalition’s loss, has News Corp’s influence finally waned?
Award-winning author and freelance journalist, and member of the Scott Trust board, which owns Guardian Media Group, Margaret Simons, looks at whether this election is finally an acknowledgment that News Corp isn’t as influential as people think (or fear).
Simons also writes there are lessons for all media about their role.
Warm weather, high fire danger for Victoria
It is expected to be a warm May day for large parts of the country today, with Sydney expecting temperatures of up to 26C, the same in Melbourne and Brisbane, 24C in Perth, 23 in Adelaide with a shower or two, 20 in Hobart with a possible shower, 23 in Canberra, and 34 in Darwin.
Meanwhile, the Country Fire Authority has issued high fire danger warnings across large parts of Victoria, including the areas of Mallee, the north of the state, central Victoria, and west and south Gippsland.
Josh Taylor
Good morning,
I’ll be taking the live blog for this morning.
There are still more than a dozen seats to be declared in the federal election. The focus will be on the tight races in Kooyong, Goldstein, and on whether the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, can retain his seat of Melbourne.
You can see our results page below, and we will have updates from our Canberra team soon.
Full Story podcast asks: what comes next for the Liberal party?
The Liberal party is facing its worst crisis since it was formed in the 1940s. With Peter Dutton booted out of parliament, the question has quickly turned to who will take over the party’s leadership, and if it can survive the changing mood in the electorate
Nour Haydar talks to chief political correspondent Tom McIlroy about what comes next for the Liberal party.
Listen in full here:
Which demographics swung to Labor?
We have an excellent selection of analysis this morning about what shaped the election result, and what lessons can be drawn from the outcome.
Our number crunchers have been trying to identify the main demographic groups that swung to Labor – and they include urban voters, women, young people and Australians whose first language is not English.
Read the full piece here:
We’ll gravitate to sensible centre, says NSW Liberal leader
Liberals in Australia’s most populous state will focus on the party’s “timeless values” after a federal election drubbing, Australian Associated Press reports.
The party’s NSW branch will not get bogged down in internal or external culture wars, the opposition leader, Mark Speakman, said ahead state parliament resuming today.
“The policies we’ll be developing as an opposition will be evidence-based, they’ll be rigorous, they’ll be prompt, and they will gravitate to the sensible centre of NSW politics,” he told reporters ahead of a shadow cabinet meeting yesterday afternoon.
“Our values of aspiration, opportunity, enterprise, hard work, are timeless, and we will anchor our policies on those.”
His comments came with the Liberals likely to be left with four federal seats on Sydney’s urban fringes after Saturday’s election.
Speakman promised policies will be rolled out in a timely manner before the March 2027 state election.
“But above all be coherent, cohesive and focused on the issues that matter,” he said, pointing to housing affordability, the cost of living, schools, hospitals and infrastructure.
The state branch remains committed to the 2050 net-zero target Speakman announced as environment minister in 2016, with a continuing rollout of renewable energy backed by batteries, pumped hydrogen and gas.
“I can’t see nuclear energy happening in the foreseeable future in NSW, or Australia, but you never say never,” Speakman said.
Watt predicts Labor’s second term will be a ‘bit easier’ in Senate
Caitlin Cassidy
Watt also said Labor was under “no illusions” about the number of people voting for the party for the first time, or rejoining it – while adding “new things” would emerge this term.
The federal government picked up seven seats in the senator’s home state of Queensland in the federal election, including six in Brisbane and Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson. Federally, Labor has enjoyed almost a 3% swing in its favour.
Watt said:
We want to retain that trust by acting in accordance with the mandate that we received. There will be new things that emerge, globally and domestically, that we’ll need to deal with. But the priority is about respecting the mandate that we’ve been given.
Watt said Labor’s second term may also be a “little bit easier” for the federal government given the current makeup of the Senate.
Labor is on track for 28 seats in the Senate, meaning it would only require support of the Coalition or the Greens to pass legislation.
It is a significant change to the Senate … The idea that we can potentially get an outcome with either the Coalition or the Greens without having to cobble together all sorts of coalitions may make things a little bit easier.
I guess it will also depend on the approach that those parties take in the Senate and I think if there’s one thing that I would hope that both the Coalition and the Greens have learned from the last term is that being obstructive to the government’s agenda actually ends up rebounding on them. I think that that was a really key reason that we saw the Greens in particular go backwards, particularly here in Queensland.
Caitlin Cassidy
Labor to deliver more on housing in second term, Murray Watt says
Labor will be “able to deliver” action it has promised on housing in its second term, the minister for employment and workplace relations, Murray Watt, has flagged.
The Labor senator told ABC’s 7.30 on Monday evening that Labor’s agenda in its first term was “more ambitious” than it is credited for, particularly on housing.
I think this term … we’ll actually now be able to deliver a lot of the things that we have promised in housing.
Pressed on whether Labor would make tax changes in its second term, including to negative gearing, he said the party had been “very clear” that it wasn’t proposing to change its policy and wouldn’t “start scrapping policies” either.
We think that we can meet the needs of younger Australians through the policy platform that we took to the election. Of course, the commitment to reduce Hecs debts by 20% was very popular among younger people. The commitments we’ve made to build more homes for first home-buyers. The 5% deposit scheme backed in by the government was very popular among young voters.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories before the main action kicks off.
Labor have not been given enough credit for policies to ease the housing crisis, Murray Watt said last night, as the Labor senator promised that the new Albanese government “will be able” to deliver more to help in its second term, expecting things to be a little easier for Labor’s policy agenda in the new Senate.
It came as the prime minister warned crossbenchers last night to “get out of the way” and allow the private sector to get on with building more homes. More coming up.
It’s an altogether different outlook for the Liberals who are well on their way to a full-blown existential crisis. Gina Rinehart has suggested the party needs to become more Trumpian while others, especially former senior women MPs and senators such as Linda Reynolds say the party has to reform and get more women into parliament. In New South Wales, the Liberal leader says the party needs to revert to “timeless values” after the drubbing. More on that in a few minutes.
