Författare: Michelle Grattan Professorial Fellow University of Canberra

The head of the National Anti-Corruption Commission. Paul Brereton, has rejected calls he resign after a finding of “officer misconduct”, declaring to do so would harm the NACC.

In a spirited defence of his digging in, Brereton argued if he was to be “deterred from discharging my duties by adverse publicity, the important independence if the commission would be undermined.

”It would be a statement that our yardstick should be popularity, not integrity.

”It would say that we should avoid making difficult decisions, lest they be unpopular.

”From there it is a short path to becoming an architect of oppression and vehicle of vengeance, rather than an instrument of integrity.”

Brereton was found by the Inspector of the NACC to have committed “officer misconduct” because he only partially, rather than adequately, excused himself during the NACC’s consideration of whether the body should investigate six people the royal commission into Robodebt referred to it.

He delegated the actual decision-making in the matter to a deputy commissioner because he had had a professional relationship with one of the people, but he took part extensively in the process of consideration.

Whether there should be an investigation into the conduct of the six is now to be reconsidered by an independent person to be appointed by the NACC.

Brereton said that after the “stinging finding” by the Inspector, some had called for his resignation, while one commentator even posted that it was ‘revolver in the library time’, which was “liked” by 1700 followers.

Brereton’s detailed defence of his actions comes ahead of a meeting this month of the parliamentary committee with oversight of the NACC.

Speaking to the National Public Sector Governance Forum, he explained why he had remained involved in the process when the Robodebt matter was being considered.

He accepted his judgement had been found to be mistaken when viewed through the legal prism of “apprehended bias” but said “the legal lens is not the only one”.

He said the referrals were received in the first week of the NACC’s operation, when it was just establishing its processes, policies and procedures, including the scope of its jurisdiction and the meaning of “corrupt conduct” under its act.

“I considered that it would have been irresponsible and negligent to abandon any involvement, to provide no guidance on these issues.”

In the circumstances he considered “an appropriate balance” could be achieved by delegating the decision to a deputy commissioner and excusing himself when it was made, while continuing to provide input on issues of general application.

“There was a balance to be struck between my responsibility as a leader for managing the affairs of the commission and issues that would have lasting implications for it on the one hand, and avoiding the perception that my prior professional relationship with one of the referred persons might influence the decision on the other.”

He accepted he had got the balance wrong.

Brereton said the NACC had amended its conflict of interest provision so a person with a declared conflict who wasn’t the ultimate decision-maker did not take part in the process. Läs mer…

The Albanese government aims to rush through legislation within a fortnight for political donation and spending caps, after in-principle support from the opposition.

The new regime, to be unveiled by Special Minister of State Don Farrell on Friday, would impose a $20,000 “gift cap” on what any recipient could obtain from a particular donor in one calendar year.

The cap on the total amount a donor could give in a year, covering multiple recipients, is expected to be more than $600,000.

That cap is set high, both to stop donors getting around it and to head off a successful High Court challenge on the grounds of limiting freedom of communication.

There would be multiple spending caps for election campaigns.

These include a national $90 million cap per party, state caps for senate campaigns which would vary between states, and a $800,000 cap per candidate in an individual seat.

The regime will also lower the threshold for publicly declaring donations, and provide for real-time – or close to real-time – disclosure of donations.

The threshold for disclosure – currently $16,900 (which is indexed) – would come down to $1,000. Indexation would only be applied once after each election.

Between elections, donations would have to be disclosed monthly, and would be published by the Australian Electoral Commission.

During campaigns, there would be weekly disclosure. In the final week, it would be daily, and that would continue for a week after the election to limit the opportunity for the requirement to be circumvented.

The changes will include an increase in the public subsidy to $5 a vote. It is now $3.346 per eligible vote.

Also, there will be some modest funding for “administration” for parties and independent parliamentarians – $30,000 for members and $15,000 for senators.

Penalties for non-compliance with the new provisions will be substantial.

The legislation will be introduced to the House of Representatives early next week, and put through by week’s end. It will be debated in the Senate the following week – the final parliamentary week this year.

If passed, the new rules will not come into effect until July 1 2026, with a six-month transition period to allow the AEC and political parties to prepare themselves before the full regime starts in 2027.

The package will also include provision for truth in advertising, based on the South Australian model. But Farrell does not have enough support to get this through and it won’t be passed with the other measures. It is strongly opposed by the AEC (which doesn’t want to have to police such a regime) as well as by the opposition.

Labor has long been committed to donation and spending reform but has been particularly galvanised by the huge spending of Clive Palmer, who outlaid $123 million at the last election.

Farrell said: “Years of inquiries and evidence from multiple elections show us that the biggest weakness to our electoral system is big money influencing our political system.

”Over the last decade we have seen billionaires repeatedly attempt to sway our elections, not through policy or participation, but through money and misinformation.

”This significant package of reforms has been drafted to tackle big money in our electoral system and protect our democracy into the future.” Läs mer…

The government is standing by Kevin Rudd, albeit with gritted teeth, in the face of calls for him to be replaced as Australia’s ambassador to Washington. But the row is an unhelpful and potentially damaging distraction for a prime minister beset by problems and under the shadow of an approaching election.

Rudd was always set to be controversial if Donald Trump returned, so Anthony Albanese’s appointing him was a gamble.

Moreover, Rudd doesn’t help himself. For example, why didn’t he delete his social media posts graphically disparaging Trump as soon as he was named for the post? Instead, he did so last week, after Trump’s election. His accompanying personal statement announcing the fact just drew fresh attention to the comments, producing a story in the New York Times.

The controversy around Rudd can only intensify with Trump’s naming of Dan Scavino as his deputy chief of staff. Scavino this week posted an hourglass on social media linked to Rudd’s statement.

Although the government is perennially anxious about the risk of some unfortunate fresh “Ruddism”, there is wide agreement he has been effective in building contacts on both sides of US politics.

Those pressing for his replacement are showing scant concern for Australia’s national self-respect. In effect, they are anticipating Trump will bully Australia and advocating we get in first and act the supplicant. That is not what an ally and middle power should do.

Or, in some cases, the attackers just want to damage the Albanese government as the election approaches. The Liberals have backed Rudd, but on Thursday Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was using dog-whistling language.

I want to make sure that we can have an ambassador who can work effectively with the government, whether that’s the US or wherever an ambassador might be appointed.

Peter Dutton campaigning with Maggie Forrest, LNP candidate for Ryan.
Darren England/AAP

The general uncertainty of the looming early days of Trump’s presidency adds to Albanese’s challenges as he gets closer to the federal election, the skirmishing for which has already been raging for months.

If, as is likely, Trump moves quickly to install his tariffs regime, the Albanese government will be under pressure to secure an exemption for Australia, as the Turnbull government did during the first Trump presidency.

This might need some difficult direct lobbying by the prime minister, who says he has already discussed trade in his phone call with the president-elect last week.

I pointed out that […] the United States has a trade surplus with Australia. So it’s in the United States’ interest to trade fairly with Australia.

This week, Albanese’s options for timing the election were thrown into relief when Western Australian Premier Roger Cook revealed he had sought advice about the possibility of moving the March 8 (fixed date) WA election, in the event of a clash with the federal poll.

While possible, a March federal election is considered the least likely of Albanese’s options. Not only would there be overlap with a WA campaign, but the government would probably want more time to hang out for a reduction in interest rates.

Those suggesting (or advocating) an April election argue this would avoid the government having to bring down a budget, currently scheduled for March 25. A budget would show deficits into the distant future, they say, which would give ammunition to the opposition.

This point is undermined, however, by the fact that early in the election campaign, the bureaucracy produces the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, which is a budget update that contains these figures.

The advantage of a budget is it can give a government a good launchpad.

The third option is for Albanese to wait until May, with the last date May 17 (so the result can be finalised for a July 1 start for the new Senate).

Some in Labor circles believe the prime minister will want to wait as long as possible. On the other hand, others note that when time is running out, it becomes harder for the government to get clear air and it has no flexibility to delay if the unexpected arises.

Albanese this week told journalists the election “will be called April or before” – in other words, he told them nothing.

Meanwhile, the government is announcing a host of things it says it “will” do – but not this term. They amount to election promises. The big one is forgiving one-fifth of people’s HELP debt – that will only be delivered if the government is re-elected.

Next week, parliament sits for its final fortnight of the year, with a big agenda – much of which will be crowded out. A high priority will be given to changing the electoral funding and spending regime, which the government expects to pass before parliament rises for Christmas (although the new provisions would not apply to this election).

Albanese, in South America for the APEC and G20 summits, will miss the first of these weeks. How the government, which sets the parliamentary timetable, had parliament’s sitting coinciding with his absence is a mystery. These final weeks of the year are times of legislative argy bargy and uncertainty.

Anthony Albanese, and his partner Jodie Haydon arrive in Peru for the G20 meetings.
Guadalupe Pardo/AP

At home, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who has been busy with a round of major speeches, will next Wednesday deliver in parliament a statement on the economy.

On his trip, Albanese has multiple bilateral meetings, but of course not the crucial one he needs – with Trump. However, suggestions from the opposition he should fly to the US on his way home were political point-scoring. Just at the moment, the president-elect is busy with organising his new team.

As he tours the country, Dutton, encouraged by the Trump victory, is asking voters – in a version of Trump’s election question – “do you feel better off today than you did when Mr Albanese was first elected?”

Labor, in turn, will try to focus the election on what alternative plans are being presented for the future. Over the coming months it will announce big policies (like the debt forgiveness one) for a second-term agenda.

Labor’s aim is to push back on Dutton’s question with another question: “Who is going to make you better or worse off over the next three years?” Läs mer…

The government has embarked on a raft of new online safety measures aimed at protecting Australians from the excesses of misinformation and social harm online.

However, these policies have been met with backlash. Experts criticise the plan to enforce an age limit of 16 on social media access. Both the federal opposition and several crossbenchers have come out against Labor’s misinformation bill.

At the same time, the government has to produce its long-anticipated changes to gambling advertising.

On this podcast episode we’re joined by shadow communications minister David Coleman to discuss these issues.

On the government’s proposed misinformation and disinformation reforms, Coleman is trenchant in his criticism:

The fundamental problem here is it gives the digital platforms an immense financial incentive to censor the free speech of Australians because if ACMA [Australian Communications and Media Authority], the regulator, decides that a digital platform isn’t doing enough in the eyes of ACMA to censor misinformation, they’re up for massive fines.

So, what’s a digital platform going to do in that circumstance? It’s going to say we don’t want big fines. We care about our profits. They don’t care about the free speech of Australians. So, the sensible thing for them to do economically is err on the side of caution and censor a whole lot of material.

I think it is literally one of the worst bills ever put forward by a government. And whilst it’s changed a bit since the first version, it actually hasn’t changed all that much, and the fundamental problems remain, and it’s just utterly unacceptable.

On the move to age limit access to social media, which the opposition advocated head of the government, Coleman advocated action as quickly as possible:

We’d like to get it through the parliament this year. And then in terms of implementing it. It should be implemented as soon as it possibly can because this needs to happen. These platforms, for far too long, have got away with basically abrogating their responsibility towards children. There is no question that the very significant rises in mental health conditions that we’ve seen in the past decade – there is a strong link between that and social media.

We cannot trust the social media platforms to do the right thing, and it is appropriate that we put in place rules to require them so that they can’t just let an eight-year-old child on their platforms with impunity as they do today.

On gambling, Coleman outlines what a future coalition government would do and contrasts the lack of movement so far from the government:

We put legislation back in June-July last year to implement the ban on gambling advertising during live sport. The government walked into the Senate chamber and blocked that legislation. Now, if that legislation had gone through, we would now be in a situation where kids would not be seeing that gambling advertising during live sport. We would be better off as a community as a consequence, and the government is just dragging the chain to a dramatic degree on this topic, and it needs to be resolved.

Minister Rowland, who ultimately is responsible, just needs to do something, frankly, because this has gone on for far too long. Läs mer…

The Albanese government will develop and legislate a “Digital Duty of Care” to place the onus on platforms to keep people safe and better prevent online harms, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has announced.

In a speech to the Sydney Institute on Wednesday night, Rowland said a change of approach was needed.

“To date, the Online Safety Act has been a crucial tool for incentivising digital platforms to remove illegal content, usually applied remedially and case by case. However, it does not, in a fundamental sense, incentivise the design of a safer, healthier, digital platforms ecosystem.

”What’s required is a shift away from reacting to harms by relying on content regulation alone, and moving towards systems-based prevention, accompanied by a broadening of our perspective of what online harms are.”

The change would bring Australia into line with the United Kingdom and European Union approaches. Platforms would have to take reasonable steps to prevent foreseeable harms, underpinned by risk assessment and risk mitigation and informed by safety-by-design principles.

A duty of care was “a common law concept and statutory obligation that places a legal obligation to take reasonable steps to protect others from harm. It is a proven, workable and flexible model,” Rowland said.

“This, as part of a growing global effort, will deliver a more systemic and preventative approach to making online services safer and healthier.

”Where platforms seriously and systemically breach their duty of care we will ensure the regulator can draw on strong penalty arrangements,” Rowland said.

The duty of care model was recommended by a review of the Online Safety Act, which went to the government last month. The government brought forward the statutory review of the act by a year to ensure online safety laws were up to date.

The government says legislating a duty of care will mean tech platforms will need to continually identify and mitigate potential risks as technology and services alter.

The changes will support the existing complaint and removal schemes for illegal and harmful material. under the Online Safety Act. Läs mer…

The furore over Australia’s ambassador to Washington, Kevin Rudd, is a “self-licking icecream” created by some at Sky News, former defence chief and former ambassador to the United States, Dennis Richardson says.

Richardson told The Conversation on Wednesday that the whipping up of the issue  was driven by a combination of personal and political motives: to have Rudd removed from his post and to get at the Albanese government.

He said the Australian government should do “precisely nothing”
in response, except to express its confidence in the ambassador, who had been doing “an outstanding job”, working across the aisle in Washington.

Richardson, highly respected on both sides of politics, previously headed ASIO (1996–2005), the foreign affairs department (2010-12) and the defence department (2012-17).

He was ambassador to Washington in 2005–10.

Rudd has come under fire over his previous social media posts denigrating Trump, which last week he deleted. Sky recently played footage of him describing Trump as a “village idiot”.

Richardson said the present controversy around Rudd “is not an issue  that arose out of any normal process. This is an issue that’s been pursued by one news outlet.”

He said the origin went back to an interview British political figure Nigel Farage did with Trump earlier this year. Farage, resurrected what he described as some “most horrible things” Rudd had said about Trump. He said “our friends at Sky News Australia” had requested he ask the question.

Richardson said Trump’s response suggested he didn’t know who Rudd was, and his answer that “if he’s at all hostile, he will not be there long” was qualified.

Some presenters and other commentators on Sky had created a “self-licking ice cream” in relation to Rudd, Richardson said.

In political jargon a self-licking ice cream is described as “a self-perpetuating system that has no purpose other than to sustain itself”.

Richardson said Rudd had in the past said “some pretty strong stuff” about Trump – but so had people around the now president-elect, including the vice president-elect, JD Vance.

He pointed to a number of Liberals, including former ambassador to the US Joe Hockey and former prime minister Scott Morrison, who had said Rudd was doing a good job.

He said the campaign on Sky might well create a difficult situation. Some at Sky “may feed stuff to people around Trump or put questions [about Rudd] to people around Trump.”

A senior Trump aide, Dan Scavino, has posted on social media, replying to Rudd’s message congratulating Trump on his victory, an hourglass with the sand running.

On Sky this week, a former Trump White House press secretary Sean Spicer said “Mr Rudd is going to have some problems, Donald Trump doesn’t forget these kind of comments”.

Richardson said it would be “extraordinary” for a government to withdraw an ambassador because it thought he might not be acceptable to an incoming administration.

Who Australia’s ambassador was wouldn’t be in the top 200-300 issues in  the minds of the Trump administration, Richardson said.

“Left to itself this wouldn’t be an issue.”

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has said on his podcast Australia’s Future with Tony Abbott, “I am confident that Kevin has been hyper active on our behalf as he sees it in Washington. So I would be surprised if there is any pressure from the Americans to change our ambassador.

”I have no reason to think that Kevin is not doing a good job at present. He will do whatever he humanly can to win over senior people in the incoming administration. And he’s already done everything he humanly can to row back his previous ill-advised remarks about the incoming president.”

Opposition leader Peter Dutton told the ABC on Wednesday: “We’ve supported Kevin Rudd and we’ve made public commentary before about our support of the ambassador.

”It’s important that he does work in our country’s name. He’s been a very effective contributor to public debate, particularly as a former prime minister, he’s well respected. I hope that he’s able to form a relationship with the new administration as he’s done with the current one.” Läs mer…

Treasurer Jim Chalmers will announce a fund of up to $900 million for states and territories to improve productivity and competition, in a Wednesday speech urging an all-out effort to tackle one of Australia’s biggest structural economic issues.

States will be able to choose from a “menu of options”, with Chalmers pointing to streamlining commercial planning and zoning, and removing barriers that inhibit the take-up of modern construction methods.

Speaking to business economists, Chalmers will also outline findings from the Productivity Commission’s modelling, which he commissioned, on the impacts of revitalising national competition policy.

“The benefits on offer are substantial, if not staggering,” he says in his speech released in part ahead of delivery.

The commission’s modelling indicated a reinvigorated national competition policy could increase Australia’s GDP by up to $45 billion annually and cut prices by 1.45 percentage points.

“That GDP boost represents about $5,000 per household, per year,” Chalmers says.

He says “there is no more important structural problem in our economy than productivity – no higher priority for reform”.

In 2022 treasury downgraded its assumption for long-run annual productivity growth from 1.5% to 1.2%.

Chalmers says new treasury analysis attributes half of this downgrade to Australia’s changing mix of industries. These days more people are working in services, where productivity grows more slowly.

Flat labour productivity in 2023-24 “partly reflects the enormous gains we’ve made and preserved in the jobs market”.

Productivity and employment growth.
Jim Chalmers Press Release

Progress on improving productivity will need commitment from federal and state and territory governments, Chalmers says.

He will meet state and territory counterparts on November 29.

While not all the Productivity Commission’s reforms will be adopted “we want to make meaningful progress where we can”.

“I expect we’ll start by fast-tracking the adoption of trusted international product safety standards and developing a general right to repair – both Commonwealth-led reforms.” The “right to repair” involves access for households and businesses to repairs at competitive prices and repair information.

“Both involve small implementation costs but provide significant benefits in the order of $5 billion over the next ten years for product safety, and over $400 million per annum for right to repair.”

The head of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood, interviewed on The Conversation’s politics podcast recently, said if the government could revitalise national competition policy effectively, “if they can actually get the states to come to the table and agree on areas where we can reduce regulatory and other barriers to competition across the country, that’s a really important lever for getting economic dynamism moving again”. Läs mer…

Anthony Albanese prides himself on his eye for a good candidate.

In 2020, when he was opposition leader, he drafted Kristy McBain to run for a byelection in the marginal NSW seat of Eden-Monaro. If Labor had lost the seat, Albanese’s leadership could have been in trouble. McBain, now a junior minister in his government, won narrowly.

In the 2022 election, he made a captain’s pick in the Western Australian seat of Pearce with candidate Tracey Roberts, who wrested the seat from the Liberals.

Now Albanese is playing godfather again, hoping that in Tasmania a clever choice of candidate might snatch a Liberal seat where the opposition has had a lot of trouble, and that another well-known face could shore up a marginal Labor seat where the ALP member is retiring.

Anne Urquhart, 67, is currently chief government whip in the Senate; she has been in parliament since 2010. Albanese prevailed on her to run, despite her tilt at the seat of Braddon being a long shot. The Liberals hold it by an 8% margin.

Despite the margin, Labor reckons in reality Braddon, while tough, is more winnable than it appears.

Last election, Labor’s candidate had all sorts of problems; as well, Jacqui Lambie had a runner in the field (which she is not expected to have at next year’s election). There was an anti-Labor swing on primary votes in Braddon of nearly 10%.

Since the election, the Liberals have had their own pain. The present Liberal member, Gavin Pearce, who has held the seat since 2019, is retiring at the election. Some time ago he reportedly said he would not run again if the Liberals re-selected Bridget Archer.

Archer, in the neighboring seat of Bass, is an outspoken moderate. Pearce is on the conservative end of the Liberals’ broad but not always harmonious church.

Archer was re-selected and Pearce did indeed decide against another run, citing the toll of the job and family reasons. The Liberals’ problems weren’t over, with a messy preselection following.

The other Labor candidate announced on Tuesday is Rebecca White, 41, who will run in Lyons. She is a former state leader of the party and her state seat is also Lyons. She says she will stay in the state parliament until the election is called.

The current federal member for Lyons, Brian Mitchell, is retiring and, on a margin of under 1%, Lyons would be vulnerable if there was a swing against Albanese. Labor reckons the White name is the best insurance it can take out.

Albanese on Tuesday appeared at two news conferences, one in each electorate, to unveil his candidates. “I don’t mind saying I’ve encouraged both of them to run,” he said. Läs mer…

Western Australian Labor premier Roger Cook has  asked for advice about  the implications of a possible March federal election clashing with the state poll.  

The WA election is on March 8.  The state has fixed terms.

The Albanese government could hold its election in March, April or (at the latest) May. Federal terms are not fixed.

Federally, WA is a vital state for both sides of politics. Labor won several seats there in 2022 and Albanese has visited the state constantly since then. The opposition is counting on getting back some ground there.

Cook said on Monday: “We have to be ready for any contingency.

”We have limited ability to switch our election if the federal election comes in over the top of that.

”So  […] we’re doing a lot of work at the moment and the [state] electoral commission is doing a lot of work, just understanding what some of those complexities might be in the event that the federal government decides to have an election close to ours.”

The WA electoral act prohibits a state election on the same day as a federal election.

In “exceptional circumstances” the state election date can be postponed briefly, if the premier and state opposition leader agree.

The issue would not just be the actual polling day but how staff could cope if the two elections were within a week or two of each other.

On the present timetable, federal parliament resumes in February, and March 25 has been set for an early budget.

Albanese has referred to the planned budget several times. Last week he referred to legislation being debated by parliament in February.

Meanwhile the Australian Electoral Commission has again ruled out two people being able to nominate as dual candidates.

The AEC said in a Monday statement that it would be required  by the Commonwealth Electoral Act to reject any nomination made by multiple  individuals for one  candidacy.

Two professional women, Bronwen Bock and Lucy  Bradlow, say they want to job share a Victorian Senate position. They first aimed to run in Higgins to show politics could be “done differently”. But the seat was abolished in the redistribution; they  then turned their attention to the Senate.

The AEC has said multiple times only one person can nominate for a single seat.

In Monday’s statement it said the legislated timeframes in a federal election were “incredibly tight”, and resolving legal interpretations and disputes in this period  was “incredibly challenging”.

“Also, if the election was to be held in late May 2025, delays in the election process may impact on the AEC returning the writs before 30 June 2025. This may result in delays for incoming Senators being able to take their seats.”  Läs mer…

Donald Trump’s trade and tariff policy would bring a small reduction in Australia’s output and extra price pressures, especially in the short term, according to Treasury modelling.

But our flexible exchange rate and the independence of the Reserve Bank would help mitigate some of the effects.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who commissioned the modelling ahead of the US election, will outline the analysis in a Monday speech to the Australian Institute of International Affairs. Extracts were released ahead of delivery.

Chalmers warns the analysis found that globally the potential impact of Trump’s policies – which include a general 10% tariff and a huge 60% hit on Chinese goods – was much more substantial than the immediate effect on Australia.

“The timing of this, and the responses and ramifications that might follow – what economists call second-round effects – are difficult to predict.

”But we wouldn’t be immune from escalating trade tensions that might ensue.

”This is consistent with the views expressed by the Prime Minister, Treasury Secretary, Reserve Bank Governor, and CEO of the National Australia Bank.”

Chalmers says the government is confident of being able to navigate, “as partners”, the changes a Trump administration would bring.

“Nobody should underestimate our ability to make it work.”

In his speech, the Treasurer also talks up the role of Australia’s Ambassador to Washington, Kevin Rudd, in preparing for the new administration. Rudd’s future has been questioned by some, given his past strong language about Trump. Last week he deleted his old social media posts.

Chalmers says: “Prior to the US election, Ambassador Rudd helped many of us build and deepen our connections across the political aisle. He introduced me to Lael Brainard, the Director of President Biden’s National Economic Council and a key figure in Vice President Harris’ orbit.

”And he introduced me to Scott Bessent [a candidate for treasury secretary].

”We had a long discussion after dinner, at the Ambassador’s residence, two Thursdays ago.

”Getting more than a hour with a key member of President Trump’s economic team 12 days before the election was a very valuable opportunity.

”We spoke about monetary policy, inflation, and tariffs and trade.” Läs mer…