Musk ‘inspiration' to Coalition treasurer
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor has cited controversial American billionaire Elon Musk as a point of inspiration in a speech outlining the Coalition's economic vision, but has sidestepped questions on whether Trump-style DOGE cuts are coming to the public service.
Mr Taylor, addressing the National Press Club on Wednesday, singled out Mr Musk's Starlink communications system as an example of technological brilliance that had uplifted the lives of farmers across Australia.
'I love innovation that works, that changes the world, from the private sector, from entrepreneurs and from enterprise,' he said during the question-and-answer session.
'There's lots of farmers and others in my electorate who use that amazing technology (Starlink)
'I think (that is) the very best work that we've seen from Elon Musk and I think many Australians in regional Australia will absolutely back me up on that.'
Mr Taylor refused to say whether he would pursue DOGE-esque cuts to government, a reference to the dramatic Musk-backed cuts in public services rolling across the US government, but nonetheless confirmed the Coalition would pursue spending cuts and downsize the APS by about 41,000 workers.
'On the 41,000, that's the growth in the public service under Labor,' he said.
'I want to see a strong and effective public service in this country.
I've lived around Canberra for much of my life and I think it's incredibly important that we have a very strong and effective Canberra-based public service, but I've also learned through the course of my career, a business career … that you don't need to have a bigger team to have a better team.'
The Hume MP used his speech to stress an elected Peter Dutton government would reduce government spending to return the budget to surplus in the next decade, which he argued would lower inflation pressures and elevate the real incomes of working and middle-class Australians.
'Beating inflation sustainably will be always the number one priority of a Dutton government,' he said.
'This is particularly important while prices are still too high, with the Reserve Bank of Australia highlighting yesterday that inflation risks and uncertainties are still strong are still strong.
'The Coalition knows the long term solution to inflation lies in reining in wasteful spending.
'We have identified over $100bn in spending across this term that was not necessary.'
The Coalition expects to save some $7bn from clipping the size of the public service.
It has also confirmed its opposition to the budget's $17bn tax cut.
The Coalition has also opposed manufacturing subsidies, arguing lowering energy prices is the key to building a sustainable manufacturing base in the country.
In his speech, Mr Taylor announced an elected Coalition government would form a new statutory body within the Treasury Department called Investment Australia, which would boast a legislative mandate to cut red tape and trigger project investment.
'It will consolidate and streamline investment facilitation across government under a united function with clear leadership, that reports directly to the Treasurer and to Cabinet,' he said.
'It's about fast tracking investment, not holding it back with bureaucracy.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
15 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Oil rises as U.S. stock futures, Asian shares slip after American strike on Iran
NEW YORK — The price of oil rose and U.S. stock futures fell as global markets reacted to the American bombing of nuclear targets in Iran. The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 2.6% to $79 a barrel. U.S. crude rose 2.6% to $75.76 a barrel. U.S. forces attacked three Iranian nuclear sites early Sunday, further increasing the stakes in the war between Israel and Iran. Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average slipped 0.4%, while Nasdaq futures fell 0.5%. Treasury yields were little changed. The modest moves indicate markets are taking the latest development in stride. That was evident in early trading in Asia. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index fell 0.6%. Other major regional markets also logged moderate declines. The conflict, which began with an Israeli attack against Iran on June 13, has sent oil prices yo-yo-ing, which has in turn caused seesaw moves for the U.S. stock market because of rising and ebbing fears that the war could disrupt the global flow of crude. Iran is a major producer of oil and sits on the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world's crude passes. 'The situation remains highly fluid, and much hinges on whether Tehran opts for a restrained reaction or a more aggressive course of action,' Kristian Kerr, head of macro strategy at LPL Financial in Charlotte, N.C., said in a commentary. An Iran retaliation that includes closing off the waterway would be technically difficult to pull off, but traders are afraid Iran could severely disrupt transit through it, sending insurance rates soaring and making shippers nervous to move without U.S. Navy escorts. Some analysts think Iran is unlikely to close down the waterway because the country uses it to transport its own crude, mostly to China, and oil is a major revenue source for the government. 'It's a scorched-earth possibility, a Sherman-burning-Atlanta move,' said Tom Kloza, chief market analyst at Turner Mason & Co. 'It's not probable.' Kloza thinks oil futures will ease back down after initial fears blow over. Ed Yardeni, a longtime analyst, agreed, writing in a report that Tehran leaders would probably hold back. 'They aren't crazy,' he wrote in a note to investors Sunday. 'The price of oil should fall and stock markets around the world should climb higher.' Other experts aren't so sure. Andy Lipow, a Houston analyst who has covered oil markets for 45 years, said that countries are not always rational actors and that he wouldn't be surprised if Tehran lashed out for political or emotional reasons. 'If the Strait of Hormuz was completely shut down, oil prices would rise to $120 to $130 a barrel,' said Lipow, predicting that that would translate to about $4.50 a gallon at the pump in the U.S. and hurt consumers in other ways. 'It would mean higher prices for all those goods transported by truck, and it would be more difficult for the Fed to lower interest rates,' he said. In trading early Monday in Asia, Taiwan's Taiex fell 1.5% while the Kospi in South Korea lost 1%. Both Taiwan and South Korea rely heavily on oil imported through the Strait of Hormuz. Australia's S&P/ASX fell 0.7%, and the benchmark in New Zealand lost 0.5%.
New York Post
22 minutes ago
- New York Post
Miranda Devine: Trump's ‘spectacular' Iran strike could carve his place in history as most courageous leader since Ronald Reagan
What an impressive sight it was Sunday, when the futuristic B-2 stealth bombers sliced through the powder-blue Missouri sky on their triumphant return to home base in the American heartland after dropping their Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs on Iran's underground nuclear sites. The strikes were 'a spectacular military success,' President Trump told the world Saturday night, after emerging from the Situation Room. 'Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,' he said. Advertisement While Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan 'Razing' Caine said Sunday it was 'way too early' to know the full extent of damage at Iran's Fordow uranium-enrichment complex, satellite images show several large holes and a layer of gray-blue ash where all 14 massive 'bunker buster' bombs, each weighing 30,000 pounds, hit their target Saturday night in Operation Midnight Hammer. The strikes were also a spectacular political calculation by the president who ran on no new wars, and managed to keep a poker face all week as he was given advice by all and sundry. 'Unconventional' He made the right decision, and it appears to have been executed flawlessly. A limited strike, in and out. Iran's nuclear capability has been eliminated or at least severely degraded. No regime change. If the nuclear threat from Iran is indeed neutralized, leading to the extension of the Abraham Accords and peace in the Middle East, Trump will have achieved what countless predecessors failed to do. Advertisement If he pulls it off, without embroiling us in a larger war, he will have carved his role in history as the most courageous and consequential leader since Ronald Reagan. The man who rose from the stage in Butler, blood pouring down his face, raised his fist in the air and said, 'Fight, Fight Fight,' is exactly who you want as commander in chief at a time like this, especially as it's not his first rodeo. Photographs released by the White House show a serious-faced Trump inside the Situation Room Saturday night, wearing his trademark suit and red tie, not cosplaying a flyboy as his more casually-attired predecessors liked to do. His only bow to informality was a red MAGA hat with '45-47' on the side, representing his bifurcated presidential terms and the relentless grit it took to come back from the political dead. Advertisement So much for 'TACO Don.' He outfoxed everyone. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, just after emerging from the Situation Room last week where he watched the president deal with the complexities of the Iran-Israel war, likened Trump to Winston Churchill. 'He has a strategy and it's not a conventional strategy, but what conventional person has ever done great things?' said Bessent, in an interview for my new podcast Pod Force One. 'Does anybody think that Winston Churchill was conventional? '[Trump is] also so flexible in terms of the way he looks at things,' Bessent said. 'We've just spent basically the past 24 hours in the Situation Room over the Iran-Israel conflict, and I can tell you that the American people should know, and the American troops should know, that Donald Trump is doing an incredible job looking after their interests in what could turn, without someone like him, could turn into a widespread conflict that US soldiers and interests could get sucked into.' New team Advertisement In one fell swoop, Trump also restored the prestige of the US military, which had plummeted under Joe Biden. Most welcome was the upgrade from Gen. Mark 'Thoroughly Modern' Milley of 'white rage' fame, whom Biden had to give a preemptive pardon on his way out the door, presumably for his Trump-deranged outbursts to the Chinese. In Milley's place we now have 'Razing Caine,' once a daring F-16 pilot, and as cool and contained a general as you could find. 'This mission demonstrates the unmatched reach, coordination, and capability of the United States military,' he told reporters in a Sunday news conference alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, another veteran whose rapport with 'war fighters' has helped revive recruitment to record levels. 'In just a matter of weeks, this went from strategic planning to global execution,' said Caine. 'As the president clearly said last night, no other military in the world could have done this.' Every week, Post columnist Miranda Devine sits down for exclusive and candid conversations with the most influential disruptors in Washington. Subscribe here! What a contrast to the previous administration. Under Biden, our military was humiliated. Preposterous wokery and weak leadership led to a breakdown in discipline embodied in online displays of perverts in uniform dolled up in kinky dog masks and bondage gear. Advertisement Under Biden, incompetence was the order of the day, from the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, leaving behind $7 billion of equipment, to the failure to bring our astronauts home from the International Space Station, to the $230 million Gaza pier debacle which resulted in the death of one young soldier and dozens of troops injured while delivering minimal aid. The morale and reputation of our armed forces was severely depleted, making a mockery of Biden's frequent refrain' God bless our troops.' Under Biden, Obama's benighted Iran deal that Trump axed in his first term was reanimated. Trump 1.0 left Iran on its knees, unable to fund its proxies to attack Israel. Biden, in his wisdom, empowered and enriched Iran, reappointing Robert Malley, Antony Blinken's childhood friend from their prestigious Parisienne école, as Iran envoy. Malley was then suspended without pay pending an FBI investigation into an Iranian influence ring and his 'mishandling' of classified information. Naturally, the Ivy League came to his rescue, giving him gigs at Yale and Princeton. That is Biden's legacy. Advertisement But instead of thanking Trump for saving the world from a nuclear Iran, Democrats are pretending that he did something unconstitutional, and are whining because he didn't inform Democrat leaders in Congress before the top-secret operation. They only have themselves to blame for proving to be so unreliable with secrets in the past. Hello, Schifty Schiff. Dems were fine with Obama bombing Libya, Syria and Pakistan an estimated 13,000 times, killing thousands of people, without asking Congress for permission. Remember then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cackling over Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy's gruesome end when he was sodomized and brutalized to death on camera as she watched lasciviously from afar: 'We came, we saw, he died,' she said. Strong stance Advertisement Democrats should sit this one out. Despite their threats to impeach him, Trump has seized the moral authority and no doubt his already buoyant approval ratings will soar. That's the political dividend of strong leadership. What GOP senator could refuse to pass Trump's beloved Big Beautiful Bill now? And as with everything Trump does, the visuals were impeccable. The icing on the cake was his brand new 100-foot flagpole out the front of the White House, with Old Glory waving languidly in the night breeze as the B-2s worked their magic half a world away. Advertisement You're paying for radical Zoh New York, we have a problem. How could a candidate as toxic and radical as Zohran Mamdani be so close to victory in Tuesday's Democratic mayoral primary? An antisemitic socialist who is running to defund the police and raise more taxes for illegal migrants should be a political impossibility, yet he has surged to second place behind Andrew Cuomo in the polls. Attorney Denise Cohen, who writes a substack as 'Rational New Yorker,' has figured out this dangerous man 'could attain the highest office in NYC using public money that most of us didn't approve through a slush fund that we unwittingly paid for.' Mamdani has the highest social media engagement of all mayoral candidates with almost 6 million likes on TikTok, and has created the false appearance of a vibrant grassroots campaign with tens of thousands of small dollar donors, she writes. But he didn't amass a $8.4 million war chest from grassroots donations. Eighty percent of it came from taxpayers thanks to a New York campaign finance law in which the New York City Campaign Finance Board matches small donations by $8 for every $1 raised. If Mamdani wins, you and I probably paid for his campaign.
Los Angeles Times
22 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Trump says he's open to ‘regime change' in Iran, even as his aides insist otherwise
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Sunday called into question the future of Iran's ruling theocracy after a surprise attack on three of the country's nuclear sites, seemingly contradicting his administration's calls to resume negotiations and avoid an escalation in fighting. 'It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change???' Trump posted on social media. 'MIGA!!!' The post on his social media platform marked a stark reversal from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Sunday morning news conference that detailed the aerial bombing of Iran early Sunday. 'This mission was not and has not been about regime change,' Hegseth said. The administration has made clear it wants Iran to stop any development of nuclear weapons, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on Fox News' 'Sunday Morning Futures' that any retaliation against the U.S. or a rush toward building a nuclear weapon would 'put the regime at risk.' But beyond that, the world is awash in uncertainty at a fragile moment that could decide whether parts of the globe tip into war or find a way to salvage a relative peace. Trump's message to Iran's leadership comes as the U.S. has warned Iran against retaliating for the bombardment targeting the heart of a nuclear program that it spent decades developing. The Trump administration has made a series of intimidating statements even as it has called for a restart of negotiations, making it hard to get a read on whether the U.S. president is simply taunting an adversary or using inflammatory words that could further widen the war between Israel and Iran that began with Israeli attacks on June 13. Until Trump's post Sunday afternoon, the coordinated messaging by his vice president, Pentagon chief, top military advisor and secretary of State suggested a confidence that any fallout would be manageable and that Iran's lack of military capabilities would ultimately force it back to the bargaining table. Hegseth had said that America 'does not seek war' with Iran, while Vice President JD Vance said the strikes had given Tehran the possibility of returning to negotiate with Washington. But the unfolding situation is not entirely under Washington's control, as Tehran has a series of levers to respond to the aerial bombings that could intensify the conflict in the Middle East with possible global repercussions. Iran can block oil being shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, attack U.S. bases in the region, engage in cyberattacks or accelerate its nuclear program — which might seem more of a necessity after the U.S. strikes. All of that raises the question of whether the U.S. bombing will open up a more brutal phase of fighting or revive negotiations out of an abundance of caution. In the U.S., the attack quickly spilled over into domestic politics, with Trump spending part of his Sunday going after his critics in Congress. He used a social media post to lambaste Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a stalwart Trump supporter who had objected to the president taking military action without specific congressional approval. 'We had a spectacular military success yesterday, taking the 'bomb' right out of their hands (and they would use it if they could!)' Trump wrote. Boak and Pesoli write for the Associated Press.
