Peter Dutton has used Donald Trump’s stock market bloodbath to claim Australia will sink into a recession if Labor stays in government this federal election.
The opposition leader warned Australians that a recession is “coming for our economy” while comparing his cost-of-living measures against those offered by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during a press conference in Sydney.
Dutton warned Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ comments highlighting that financial markets are pricing in a chance of a 50 per cent interest rate cut next month was a dire sign of things to come.
READ MORE: ‘Stupid, wrong’: Billionaire supporters turn on Trump
“We know that Australian families have lived through almost two years of household recession. That’s what Labor has already delivered during the term of government,” Dutton said.
“The treasurer is talking about a 50-point reduction in interest rates which means obviously he sees a recession coming for our economy.”
Chalmers yesterday said Australia was well placed to weather the economic storm caused by Trump after Treasury modelling showed the tariffs will deliver a “modest” 0.2 per cent hit to GDP by the end of next year, and just 0.1 per cent by 2030.
“We expect more manageable impacts on the Australian economy, but we still do expect Australian GDP to take a hit and we expect there to be an impact on prices here as well,” he said yesterday.
“Markets are now expecting around four interest rate cuts in Australia this calendar year.
“There’s even… more than 50 per cent expectation in the markets that the next Reserve Bank interest rate cut in May might be as big as 50 basis points.”
While the modelling forecasted a hit to GDP, it did still show the economy will continue to grow.
However, Dutton claimed to reporters a recession was imminent if Labor remained in power.
“It is under Labor,” he said when asked if Australia was heading into a recession.
“The government hasn’t prepared our economy.
“Labor has made decisions in subsequent budgets now which make it harder for the economy to function with international headwinds.”
Dutton predicted that “further actions out of the US, or retaliatory action from China or other countries” could also trigger a recession in the US.
Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor today described the past three years as the “biggest reduction in our standard of living”.
READ MORE: Trump threatens China with monster new tariff as global markets plunge
And following yesterday’s ASX wipe-out, which saw more than $100 billion shed before markets clawed back losses today, Taylor said ordinary Australians are right to be worried about their future.
“The biggest we have ever seen… bigger than any of our peer countries,” Taylor said.
“It means households have very little room to move and we see retirees and those approaching retirement who are seeing their next eggs being slashed as a result of what’s happening.”
The prime minister today was asked about the possibility of an economic downturn in Australia when probed on Trump’s tariff effect in Sydney today.
READ MORE: Two kids have died in the Texas measles outbreak. Could that happen here?
“We have, as a government, continued to see the economy grow,” Albanese said.
“We’ve continued to see now, over the last five quarters, wages grow five quarters in a row. We have, in addition to that, seen tax cuts for every taxpayer dealing with cost-of-living relief.
Albanese was also asked point-blank if a recession was on the cards.
“Look, we have turned what we inherited, which was deficits each and every year, into either surpluses or a lower deficit,” he replied.
DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
