Australian election, suddenly Trump has become an issue

[joluoto]

Donald Trump is looming over Australia's election​

Seems the US- Australia relationship has become a hot potato recently, Australian elections usually has very little to do with foreign policy. But there might be a Canada effect going on, it looked like Coalition were on the way to win, but since the whole tariff circus begun, Labour has seen a resurgence, and might yet be able to stay in power. There might be other reasons, such as a very strong campaign by PM Anthony Albanese, but the timing is interesting. It started to tilt towards Labour about the same time Trump started to tout about tariffs. For Australia there aren't many alternatives to strong ties to the US, because PRC is building up it's naval presence, which is triggers alarms in Canberra. Then again the PRC is by far Australia's largest and most important trading partner, and loss of trade with the US will probably mean even more trade with the PRC.

Meanwhile the opposition Liberal- National Coalition is trying to win back a group of voters that historically votes for them, but didn't last election: Chinese Australians.

Why Australia's opposition is vying for votes on Chinese social media​

Since many Chinese- Australians uses Chinese social media, Coalition now tries to woo them where they are. However many Chinese Australians worries about racism, and about how the anti-immigration message of Coalition will affect them. It doesn't mean they necessarily has migrated to Labour, but rather that they have ceased to be a dependable block, and their votes are now spread over several parties and Independents.

 

[Allan]

It is the Canada effect from what I've been reading. Australians are furious about the tariffs and Trump has single handedly given the right a bad name globally.