Malcolm Turnbull has delivered another scathing appraisal of Donald Trump before impersonating the US president, and has said he “couldn’t pick between” Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton as a better leader to deal with the current US administration.
Speaking to the National Press Conference today, the former prime minister compared Trump to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin for his stated desire to absorb Canada into the United States.
“There’s an eerie resonance between the language Trump uses about Canada and the language Putin uses about Ukraine: borders are fictional, doesn’t deserve to be a separate country and so forth,” Turnbull said.
“And then I need not remind you of the shameful way Trump has treated Ukraine.”
Turnbull was in power during the first Trump administration, when he secured tariff exemptions from the president, but said the current US government was taking a drastically different approach to global affairs, with flow-on effects for Australia.
“The United States under President Trump does not share the values we’ve shared with every single one of his predecessors, Republican and Democrat, for over 80 years, and he does not pretend to share them,” he said.
“This is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump administration.
“Now Australian sovereignty, sovereign autonomy, has never been so important, and yet in recent years, it has been diminished.”
Turnbull said it was crucial for Australia to increase its defence capabilities to “become a genuine sovereign force capable of defending Australia, of deterring adversaries without American support”, and argued there is “little prospect” Australia would ever receive any submarines under the AUKUS deal.
“The alternative submarine plans are difficult but they’re not even being looked at,” he said.
“Doing nothing, however, is even worse, because then you have nothing. At least if you say, ‘alright, the odds are we’re not going to get any subs… let’s acquire some other long-range capabilities’, that may not be as effective but at least do something.
“It is as though the government and opposition are frozen in some kind of bipartisan terror of admitting the truth. That’s the problem and where the system is failing us.
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“Bipartisanship is all very well but not when the two sides of politics are united in error.”
The former prime minister’s address comes just five days into the federal election campaign and as a second round of US tariffs are set to be announced this week.
Asked about whether current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese or Opposition Leader Peter Dutton would be better placed to deal with Trump, Turnbull said he “honestly couldn’t pick between them”.
He said Dutton faced a “two-edged sword” of being more politically aligned towards Trump and having a good relationship with Gina Rinehart – a massive Liberal Party donor and prominent Trump supporter.
”The difficulty of taking on Trump is you’re then taking on the most popular person in the ecosystem in which you live,” Turnbull said.
“Albanese doesn’t have that. He doesn’t have the advantage of great connections… but he also doesn’t have the problem that his political base, his media environment, if you like, is fan boys for Donald Trump.”
What Turnbull was decisive on, though, was the need for Australian leaders to be more transactional and forthright in dealing with Trump.
“The United States is a friend, but my plea to Australian politicians is: get off your knees and stand up for Australia,” he said.
“Be as transactional with America as it is with us and remember in the imperial capital, they always regard deference as their due.
“Trying to get into a race of who can do the most sucking up, particularly with Mr Trump, as I know from direct experience, is not the way to advance your interests or your nation’s interests.”
He finished his final answer of the Press Club appearance with an impersonation of the US president, which was met with a scattering of laughs and applause.
“Our leaders… have got to be able to stand up,” Turnbull said, before mimicking the US president’s speech.
“And if that means you get a Breitbart or a ‘Truth Social post saying you’re weak and ineffectual, you don’t know anything about China’… if you’re spooked by that, you shouldn’t be in the job.”
