Murray Olds: Australian correspondent on the state of the ASX following Trump's tariffs update

Over in Australia, the ASX has seen a slight rebound following a drop from earlier in the week.

The S&P/ASX 200 Index lifted 2.1 per cent, or by 151.5 points, to 7494.8 after recouping some of Monday’s 4.2 per cent loss as part of the fallout from Trump's newest tariffs.

Australian correspondent Murray Olds says the tariffs have also damped business confidence across Australia, according to new reports.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Murray is with us now at Australia. Murray, good afternoon,
Hello Ryan, good afternoon. How's the AA six doing after
the big drop yesterday?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yes, I got my screen open here. I knew you're
going to ask me, and this is less than an
hour ago, so what's a looking at about forty five
minutes ago. The AX up one point eight percent on
the day, the Australian dollar up point seven of one
percent today to sixty point two to three US sins
lost one hundred and ten billion dollars yesterday, so look

(00:31):
a little bit of recovery today. That dollar tanking yesterday,
by the way, the first time since the pandemic, the
biggest intra day fall since the two thousand and eight
global financial crisis. So look, there was a lot of
red ink around yesterday, but today a little bit of
a pickup. But look, we still are in the deep

(00:51):
in the red since the start of the year so far.
In April, the ASX two hundred, the top two hundred
stocks in the Australian share market, they had down by
six percent and it's only the eighth day of the
month today. And we've also had since January. The start
of January the benchmark's down at eight ten percent. So
it hasn't been a happy year for investors up to

(01:13):
this point. We've got business confidence figures already negative last month,
even worse now after Donald Trump's tariffs, and the Westpac
Bank has just released latest consumer confidence data for April.
The big takeaways we're told confidence down six percent amongst
consumers because of the Trump tariff war, the slide of
the sheer market even lower amongst people survey after the

(01:35):
tariffs were announced, and consumers definitely filling a pinch family
finances front and center. So if both political leaders over
here aren't banging the drum about the economy, was it
Bill Clinton who's had that sign on his desk? It's
the economists, stupid. Both of these halfwords over here should
have the same bloody sign on their desks because no

(01:56):
one cares about the never never you know a tom
energy plan of Dutton, or the fact that Alberanzi done
something to save US Seal and Tasmania. It's about putting
petrol in the car and groceries on the table.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Now this debate tonight, they're going to go head to head.
It's in Western a group of people called The People's Forum.
Have I got this right? From Sky News? Will be
held in Western Sydney and both leaders will answer questions
from a group of undecided voters. Is there like a
moderator or is it just all on for young and
old from the crowd.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
This is going to have to be moderated to keep
them in some sort of order. It's allegedly undecided voters. Mate,
it's Sky News. You know it's going to be stacked
with a bunch of Dutton lovers, anti Elbow. You know
it's going to be stacked with rivets. The Murdoch fingerprints
are all over it. It's jointly run by the Daily
Telegraph as well the Daily you know Trumpeter in fact

(02:51):
here and Sidey that's the Murdoch paper here. But listen
to Albanezi, you know he is. He's a Sydney boy,
comes from this, you know, the inner western sub of Sydney.
He won't be frightened to get out Western Sydney, in
the Sydney suburbs. You've got the fact that Albertezey also
took on Scott Morrison in the last debate in twenty

(03:11):
twenty two and he cleaned him up. That night, not
saying it's going to happen to night. Peter Dutton has
improved out of sight. The last forty eight hours he
was drifting. I went back and had to look Ryan look.
Peter Dutton entered Parliament in two thousand and one. He
was a minister under John Howard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turmbule
and Scott Morrison. But he's looked like a complete bloody
novice since the campaign started, and it's day eleven to

(03:35):
day he's looked like a rabbit in the headlights. He's
finally turning up at petrol stations putting gas in the cars,
saying look, I'm going to catch you. You know your
petrol bill. Even turned up in the Adelaide service station
yesterday with a great big petrol tanker a slogan on
the side saved twenty five cents a leader vote Liberal.
Why wasn't doing that in day one? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
No campaigns do weird things to people though, I mean,
doesn't you know how long you've been around in politics
that people just turn into weirdos on a campaign when
the pressures on them, don't they.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Well, look, I do agree with that. I mean interesting
thesis that I read yes yesterday morning. Did I get
lost in these campaigns? The theory being that Peter Dutton
has always had someone else to as a minister. He's
made mistakes, you know, defense blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah. But we all make mistakes, but there's always

(04:27):
been someone to clean up after him, a prime minister
like John Howard for example. Howard was the last great
Australian leader. In my view, I think Howard was a
wonderful politician, a great unifier. Look at what happened to
Port Arthur, all those people slaughtered down there in Tasmania.
Howard stood up, took on the gun lobby and he
persuaded them to give up their guns. Now, for me,

(04:48):
one of the single most important acts of political courage
that I've ever seen. And John Howard had that ticket.
I'm not sure. I'm not sure Peter Dutton's got that.
Scott Morrison certainly didn't.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, I'm not sure. We've got many around the world,
not just in Australia. Marie, appreciate your time, Marie Old's
Australia correspondent, and we're looking forward to the debate tonight.
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