Press Briefing: Analyzing the Australian Election and Its Implications for U.S.-Australia Relations

This transcript is from a CSIS press briefing hosted on April 28, 2025.

Samuel Cestari: Hello, everybody, and welcome to this CSIS press briefing assessing Australia’s upcoming election and analyzing its implications for U.S.-Australia relations. We have several experts here today to cover a range of issues relating to the election, including how the current Australian government is likely to portray its accomplishments and path forward, how the opposition will prosecute the national security debate, and the potential effects on Australia’s defense environment.

A couple of housekeeping notes before we get started. Each of our speakers will offer several minutes of introductory remarks, after which we’ll turn to your questions. We’ll also be distributing a transcript of today’s call, which will be made available on CSIS.org.

With that, let’s go ahead and get started. I’ll turn first to Charlie Edel, CSIS senior adviser and Australia Chair. The floor is yours, Charlie.

Charles Edel: Great. Thanks very much, Sam. And thanks to everyone for joining us, either this afternoon or very early this morning, if you’re in Australia.

I thought I would start by discussing the election, the main issues influencing it, and how its outcome is likely to impact Australia’s relations with both the United States and China.

The primary issues in this election are cost-of-living issues, with inflation, housing prices, energy costs, macroeconomic policy and health care all forefront in voters’ minds. Both major parties in advance of the election have made promises to spend money on initiatives to try to lower costs for the average Australian household. Social cohesion has also become a major issue following a rise in anti-Semitism in Australia, with multiple incidences of vandalism and attacks on Jewish citizens and locations.

Now, foreign-policy issues have received significantly less attention during this election cycle, although the Chinese navy’s recent circumnavigation of Australia, as well as the imposition of tariffs by the U.S., have brought foreign affairs into focus. Both major parties have presented themselves as steadier bets on national security, and both have put forth their plans for the appropriate size of the defense budget. Nonetheless, foreign policy is less of an issue of concern to the public than domestic economic issues.

Now, it’s not unusual for foreign policy and national security to play a secondary role in Australian elections. And that remains true now, despite the fact that both parties are asserting that the country is facing the worst strategic environment since the Second World War and in the face of provocations by the Chinese, rumors of Russia seeking regional bases, and a potential wind-down of American aid in the Pacific.

As I noted at the outset, cost-of-living concerns are dominating the election. However, Australia’s role in the world, particularly in a more fraught and turbulent environment, is inevitably factoring into voters’ decisions, and the two major parties are also seeking to differentiate themselves on the security, diplomatic and environmental fronts.

Labor is arguing that they are steadier in their diplomacy, more nuanced in dealing with China, forward-looking when it comes to renewable energy, and particularly attuned to the politics of the Pacific and Southeast Asia. The Liberal opposition asserts that it’s more clear-eyed about Beijing’s intentions, more willing to invest in defense capabilities, and less amenable to rushing towards renewable energies at the expense of stability of supply and affordable price.

There is also the Donald Trump factor, Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton both presenting themselves as better positioned to deal with Trump. That being said, it’s not clear what exactly constitutes dealing successfully with Trump and whether it’s better policy and smarter politics to negotiate with Trump or to push back against his demands. Some world leaders have done well by seeking favorable outcomes, others by making the case against his policies.

Albanese and Dutton have certainly observed the successes and failures of other world leaders when it comes to dealing with Trump, and that seemed to be alternating between expressing a willingness to stand up to Trump on behalf of Australia and to negotiate with the U.S. president.

On the economic front, both parties are attempting to present themselves as more able to carve out a good deal for Australia by negotiating more favorable terms with the Trump administration and more responsibly steering the economy through a particularly uncertain period.

Growing Australia’s store of critical minerals factors in here for reasons both strategic, to ensure that Australia and its closest allies are less vulnerable to Chinese economic coercion, and political, to offer the Australian government more leverage in its negotiations with the Trump administration. 

Spending on defense is belatedly getting a hearing during this election. Labor regularly claims it has increased investment in the nation’s security in unprecedented ways and it will bring its overall investment up to 2.3 percent of GDP in 10 years. 

The liberals accuse the government of chronic under funding of defense and over the last several days have announced a plan to initiate a national security strategy and increase investments to 2.5 percent GDP by 2029 and 3 percent within the next decade. 

Notably, only a third of Australians currently support an increase to their defense budget. However, most experts assess that Australia will be required to increase its defense spending in the next few years if it is to have the ability to meaningly defend itself. This is ultimately an argument that will need to be made by whatever government ends up in power but will be difficult because it will mean spending cuts or increased taxes.

In terms of Australia’s relationship with America, Australia and the U.S. have a deep, broad, and enduring security alliance and economic relationship. But given Trump’s general hostility towards traditional allies and his transactional approach to the – to relationships, there are inevitable concerns in Australia about what this means for Australia’s relationship with Washington, especially as it was hit with tariffs.

One result of Trump’s more disruptive policies has seen a plummeting of public trust towards the U.S. with 64 percent of Australians saying in a recent poll that they have no or not very much trust in the U.S. to, quote, “act responsibly in the world.”

Such concerns have been somewhat allayed by the Trump administration’s positive statements towards AUKUS, the Quad defense industrial collaboration, and partnership on critical minerals. But even as Australia and the U.S. move closer on certain issues such as force posture and defense policy, they’re likely to drift further apart on other areas such as support for human rights and environmental issues and the persistent concern underlying Australian foreign policy. Fear of abandonment is likely to grow under a more mercurial U.S. president.

Nonetheless, Beijing has become much more assertive in the Indo-Pacific region and Australia needs Washington’s help to maintain a favorable balance of power in the region.

I’d also note that larger policy questions at stake in this election can only be answered after the election and based on the size of the next government’s political coalition. A Labor majority will be unlikely to change the current policy trajectory significantly as a win by Labor will be interpreted as an endorsement of their current orientation. 

If a liberal coalition wins there will be some changes domestically and on defense spending, and if there is a minority government it’s even less clear how much political capital the government will have to alter foreign or domestic policies.

With that, let me pause and hand it back to Sam.

Mr. Cestari: Thank you, Charlie.

Next, we have Rory Medcalf, adjunct fellow with the CSIS Australia Chair. Rory, please go ahead.

Rory Medcalf: Thank you. 

And I think just to add a bit of, well, color and texture to Charlie’s analysis, which I agree with, this election in Australia is proving to be really quite surreal in, really, its lack of connection with the state of the world strategically and economically. 

There’s been a real parochialism to the campaign across the various sides of politics. I think one commentator here has sort of likened it to the movie “The Truman Show.” I would suggest that there’s also a touch of “Fantasy Island” where everyone gets sort of what they want and the world doesn’t seem to intrude but, of course, ultimately it does. 

The election is being fought, largely, on not just cost of living issues but a lot of issues that are relatively minor in the scheme of things – you know, particular points about taxation, obviously, a(n) ongoing debate about trust in individual leaders, a little bit of identity politics and so forth. But there seems to be almost an unspoken agreement across the political spectrum not to go to the deep strategic issues.

So, for example, if you, as some of us have done, take a look at the Australian election campaign and compare it with what we’re seeing in some other parts of the world – Europe, for example, on the strategic frontline – it does feel weirdly out of touch. This is despite that fact that, as I think has been mentioned, the reach of China as a military power in the region is becoming more and more felt – the recent circumnavigation of Australia by a powerful flotilla of Chinese warships.

There’s been something of a phony debate in the election about Russia’s interest in strategic presence in our neighborhood, particularly through access for its air force to a base in Indonesia, but that’s been narrowly focused. That debate has been very narrowly focused on who knew what, when – you know, whether the government had advance warning of this or not, whether the leader of the leader of the opposition misinterpreted what the Indonesian president said about this thing, rather than the deep strategic question of how do we, as a middle power, deal with aggressive great-power interests in our neighborhood.

Charlie has touched on the defense spending issue. I would just emphasize that neither of the major parties seems to be willing to talk openly about a radical shift in defense posture, a radical acceleration of defense capabilities, the question of what we do in addition to or apart from AUKUS. And I know Mick Ryan will have a lot more to say about that defense side of things.

I’ve been quite astounded that the deeper issues of preparedness and resilience for strategic shocks – preparing our economy, for example, for the kinds of strategic shocks that are coming down the pipeline hasn’t featured heavily. The question of productivity, which is a major and growing problem for Australia’s resilience hasn’t really come into it.

On the China factor – and I’ll wrap up on relations with China and of course with the United States as well. On the China factor, it’s – observers would be surprised to see how little China has been a factor in the debate, in the campaign this year as opposed to 2022, the last election, or 2019, the one before. If you look at the long arc of this, Australia a decade ago began a sustained process of hardening against Chinese influence and against the destabilizing behavior of China in our neighborhood. And of course there was resistance to Chinese economic coercion famously some years ago. But both sides of politics now, on the one hand, want to help demonstrate that Australia can protect its interests against China, while at the same time, both sides, but the government in particular, seem to want to emphasize their ability not to unduly offend or provoke China. And this goes partly to a sensitivity about perceptions of different communities within Australia and how they may vote, including Australians of Chinese origin. So there’s an electoral consideration there.

And finally, that goes to some of the other issues in the campaign as well. We’ve had a lot of fraying of social cohesion in this country over the past two years, particularly related to crisis in the Middle East and the situation in Gaza and Israel. And that has really destabilized Australian society, but we haven’t heard much about that in this campaign.

And last of all – absolutely last of all, on the alliance itself, it is striking that while – among voters now there is deep mistrust and uncertainty about the impact of the Trump administration on the alliance, and the alliance has been really plans A, B, and C for Australian defense. Neither side of politics seem to want to express strong views on this, and I think it’s perhaps a slight silver lining to say that I think we will get through this election campaign without the Australian political debate having triggered a fresh outburst on Australia from President Trump. And perhaps that is – that is the logic that some of our politicians are playing to.

I’ll pause there.

Mr. Cestari: Thank you, Rory. 

Next, we have Lavina Lee, adjunct fellow with the CSIS Australia Chair as well. Lavina, please go ahead.

Lavina Lee: Hi, everyone. Look, I feel like I might be overlapping a little bit with Rory and with Charlie, but I have to say I too have been really very surprised by the fact that the turmoil around the world hasn’t really intruded into the campaigns of either side, when it really could have. So it could have been made into a political issue, but it really hasn’t become one. And it seems as though the Liberal Party has taken a very kind of small target domestic strategy. And it’s only been in the last two weeks of the campaign where the Liberals have actually decided that it’s time to make national security a point of difference with the Labor Party. So I’m going to speak mostly about the Liberal strategy.

Now, the Liberals appear to be more concerned about matching Labor on electoral handouts to prosecute that cost of living agenda that Charlie spoke about earlier. And they really seem to have wanted to avoid antagonizing Chinese Australians, who turned against the liberals in some key seats in the last election. So their post-election polling or analysis was that they had alienated Chinese Australians and this time around they wanted to tread much more carefully. So Dutton has in the last couple of years toned down his rhetoric on the CCP and the China threat significantly.

Now, but I think as the Liberals have fallen behind in the polls, defense and national security has begun to feature in their campaign. They’ve sought to position themselves as the party most willing to openly and robustly confront threats to Australian national security from China, and also now Russia, and to make hard decisions to increase defense spending with more urgency than the Labor Party. Now of note I think is Peter Dutton’s willingness to call out China as Australia’s primary security threat in the last leaders’ debate on Sunday, which the Labor leader Anthony Albanese refused to do. And at the party’s launch of its defense policy, Dutton specifically mentioned the prospect of war over Taiwan. 

The Liberals have also confronted the Labor Party on its refusal to reveal when the government knew of a Russian request for air base access in Indonesia for long-range military aircraft, only around 1,300 kilometers from Darwin. The government’s attempt to discredit the accuracy of that Janes report which revealed the request, and subsequently to accuse the opposition of effectively making it up for political gain, has been used by the Liberals as an example to demonstrate that Labor isn’t serious about national security, that it lacks conviction to openly confront serious national security threats, and is trying to avoid scrutiny about its lack of urgency on increasing defense spending even after – as Charlie mentioned earlier – even after its own defense strategic review acknowledged the deterioration in Australia’s security environment and the increasing risk of major-power war. 

So the Liberals have focused their attacks on the Labor Party’s stagnant defense spending. So this has remained at around 2 percent during its first term in office, and only begins to rise in four years’ time, eventually reaching around 2.3 percent in 10 years. And most of that additional funding has been absorbed – or, will be absorbed by the AUKUS submarine program and the frigate program, leaving other capability to wither. And I’m sure that Mick will speak about that more. In contrast, the liberals have committed to $21 billion in additional funding to defense over the next five years. This takes defense spending as a share of GDP to 2.5 percent within that period, and to 3 percent of GDP within 10 years. So this is spending well ahead of Labor’s projected target of 2.3 percent over the next 10 years, but for many experts this is probably still not enough and not fast enough.

Now, this includes planning for a fourth F-35A Lightning squadron, prioritization of projects to rapidly increase Australia’s strike and counterstrike capabilities, improve sustainment, accelerate infrastructure and shipyard building in western Australia to support the AUKUS program. And the Liberals here are campaigning on the idea that the AUKUS program has been put at risk under the Labor Party’s stewardship.

And finally, on the alliance, the two leaders have been competing on who is or is not likely to have the better access to President Trump and who can stand up for Australian interests more robustly. Now, both leaders did, however, express their trust in the alliance and in President Trump at the last leaders’ debate, which was somewhat surprising and a bit of a disconnect, I think, with the views of the public. But the Liberals’ commitment to increased defense spending, I think, is clearly an attempt to meet American expectations that allies must increase their share of the defense burden.

And I’ll leave it there. Thank you, Sam.

Mr. Cestari: Thank you, Lavina.

And I’ll quickly mention that after our next speaker we’ll turn to your questions.

(Gives queueing instructions.)

So without further ado, our final speaker is Mick Ryan, adjunct fellow with the CSIS Australia chair and a retired major general in the Australian army. Mick, please go ahead.

Mick Ryan: Thanks, Sam. It’s great to be with you, and it’s good to be on the East Coast time zone rather than Australia.

I think my bottom line up front from this election campaign is that the campaign has reinforced the average Australian’s deep complacency about national security and defense. Nothing that’s been discussed in this campaign has changed the view of most Australians that when it comes to defense and security, she’ll be right mate would be the view. And I think what this has done has set Australia up for some form of major strategic shock or failure by the end of this decade, and most likely to have the credibility of whoever wins this government on May 3 to be called out by the Trump administration.

The promises to get to 2.5 percent of GDP are really pointless, because all that will do is keep up with inflation and changes in the exchange rate with the U.S., who is Australia’s major supplier of weapons. Three percent is the absolute necessary baseline if Australia is to have an AUKUS program and a conventional force. Anything less than 3 percent means it won’t be able to have both. And even though both parties have supported AUKUS during this campaign, it will be less and less viable unless the appropriate funding is provided for both it and the conventional force, which is required for a whole range of military and humanitarian disaster-relief requirements throughout the region.

The Russian issue has been extraordinarily interesting. It was terribly mishandled by the opposition, who misquoted the – or essentially made up a quote from the Indonesian president. And they’ve really never caught up from that.

Ukraine, unfortunately, has been a total non-event in this election. Both parties have avoided mentioning it until it’s emerged in the last 24 hours that the main battle tanks that Australia promised to Ukraine last year are still sitting in Australia, awaiting an agreement with the U.S. over who’s going to fund their maintenance.

I think one of the most interesting promises from the opposition is this promise to develop a national-security strategy. For those of you in the United States, you may be shocked to know Australia does not have a national-security strategy. It has not had any kind of national-security coordinating document since the statement by Prime Minister Rudd some time ago. And I think this is a real shame, because a national-security strategy is not a document. It is an opportunity for a government to have an honest discussion with the Australian people, firstly about the true nature of the threats that our country faces, and then a debate on the resourcing required and the balance between domestic and international and foreign affairs priorities. 

So I think this has been an extraordinarily underwhelming election campaign for many reasons, but when it comes to defense and national security the ball has not been moved forward at all throughout the course of the debates. And I think I’ll just leave it there. And we can turn it back to Sam for question.

Mr. Cestari: Thank you, Mick. And thank you to all of our speakers for their insights that you’ve shared so far here today. So at this time, we’ll go ahead and open things up for questions.

(Gives queuing instructions.)

We’ll just give one moment in case people are trying to raise their hands here. Well, it seems like we’ve answered everyone’s questions in our initial remarks. I’m sure there will be more that come to mind once our transcript has been shared. So I encourage everyone here on the call and all those who receive the transcript to reach out.

Oh, we have one that came in right here. This is a question from Jake Hulina: Given the close relationship between – apologies. Just pulling this in here. Given the close relationship between big tech and the Trump administration, do you assess future tension between either a Dutton or Albanese government and the U.S. administration over Australia’s perceived overregulation of U.S. tech companies? 

Is this something that anyone would like to take a stab at?

Dr. Edel: Sure. I’ll start that off just with a comment or two. So let me note that of the potential irritants on bilateral relationships under a Trump administration and under whoever forms the next government of Australia, the perceived – as the questioner asked, the perceived overregulation of tech is one of the issues, along with other issues like biosecurity requirements in Australia, support for pharmaceutical pricing in Australia. These are perceived irritants that might be, indeed, brought up over the bilateral negotiations for tariff reduction. 

That said, let me note that I see not much movement by either the main – either the government, currently Labor, or the opposition, with a desire to roll back their content and the regulation of social media. Although, that is a conversation that will have to await what happens next, because clearly Elon Musk has signaled discomfort, as has Meta, as has Mark Zuckerberg and others, with the way that Australia regulates their content. So a potential issue, but one that won’t hit until after the elections. And one that it would be – I would at least find it unlikely for there to be significant movement by the Australian government. 

But defer to my colleagues on the call, if anyone has anything additional to say or if they disagree with me on this actual issue.

Mr. Medcalf: I might just jump in briefly, Charlie. I mean, I agree there’s potential for future friction. And there have been frictions in the past, of course. I think that despite what we’ve said about Australian politics being fairly complacent about security or strategic risk and sovereignty issues in the main, on tech there is, I think, a reasonably strong agenda of protection of Australia’s, I guess, liberal democratic values and sovereignty. So, for example, issues to do with access to free and diverse media are important for Australian parliamentarians; issues to do with the restriction of abhorrent content online, particularly following a number of terrorist and violent extremist incidents over the years. These are all issues that I could see a renewal of – where I could see a renewal of friction between Australia and some of the U.S. tech giants, and it’s an area where I think the Australian political community would actually come together to focus on Australian sovereignty.

Dr. Lee: I might jump in there as well and just say that these types of issues, especially things like restrictions of social media for younger people, which is a kind of Australian first and bipartisan, the Trump administration’s tariff imposition, even if we – even if Australia has been, I would say, quote/unquote, “lucky” enough to have only a 10 percent tariff, it’s been highly, highly unpopular in Australia, and it’s turned normal people, I think, against the United States and the alliance. And Charlie mentioned some polling that was conducted by the Lowy Institute. So I think that the public would be very strongly in support of whichever government is elected in terms of the types of protections that they want to institute with big tech, and it would be very difficult for any government, I think, to backtrack on that as part of the negotiations that are to come on trade.

Mr. Ryan: And I’ll talk to the PBS. There’s zero prospect of any Australian government of any color rolling over on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. You know, they might as well walk out of government the next day, because the vast majority of Australians look at the American health system and say they don’t want any of that. So when there is the prospect of pressure from the U.S. administration on the Australian government, that’s one of those issues that an Australian government isn’t – is just not going to negotiate over. When it’s come up in the past, Australian trade ministers of both colors have said don’t even raise it; we’re not going to discuss it.

Mr. Cestari: Thank you all.

We have another question here. Mick, you mentioned that the U.S. has prevented Australia from sending weapons to Ukraine. Aside from that, what additional influence does the U.S. have on Australian defense? And how are the Labor and Liberal Parties responding? Also is, you know, generally, is that framing correct of what you were saying, or what are the nuances to that? Thank you.

Mr. Ryan: Yeah. There’s a discussion between the U.S. government and the Australian government over who’s going to pay for the maintenance of the M1 tanks, the 49 M1 tanks, to go to Ukraine. This has been going on for several months now. I mean, the story has just broken, but this has been an issue for some time. So the U.S. government, as the originator nation of those weapons, has the right to say you can’t export them until we’re happy. But overall, I think, you know, both parties have had a – I wouldn’t say generous, but I’d say a reasonable approach to supporting Ukraine. There have been a range of different packages with military aid, as well as funding for humanitarian and reconstruction. Hasn’t been one for some time, and we probably need a new one. But it’s not an issue that will, I think, play any real role in how Australians are going to vote in this election compared to, say, how Eastern Europeans may vote in their future elections.

Mr. Cestari: All right. 

Well, unless anyone else would like to weigh in on that, it looks like we have finished answering all of the questions we have at this point in time. As I was mentioning before, as the transcript for this call is shared out, as folks have more questions, of course, we encourage that you please reach out for anything that we can do to be a resource on this issue.

We’d also like to thank our speakers and all of our participants for joining us for this timely call. As mentioned several times, we’ll have a transcript distributed to you all and it will be made available on CSIS.org. So, with that, I hope everybody has a great rest of your day and thank you for joining us.

 (END.)