“Australia stands with Ukraine. We understand that this is an issue not just of a sovereign nation being invaded illegally with an act of brutal aggression from Russia, that Vladimir Putin has imperialist designs, not just on Ukraine, but on the region,” the prime minister told reporters in Melbourne on Sunday.
Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley on Sky News said she believed any peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, which would occur only if a ceasefire was reached, was a matter that was “better handled by Europe”.
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“This is a government that couldn’t even get a shipload of coal to Ukraine to keep them warm during winter. This is a government that cut up helicopters and buried them in the ground instead of sending them to Ukraine,” she said.
The dispute with the US, and the prospect of additional trade strikes, is likely to run into the Australian election campaign as Trump’s protectionist officials continue to review US trade relationships.
Farrell said an Australian offer to give the US greater access to Australia’s plentiful critical minerals had been rejected.
“The offer to the Americans was, ‘we’ll work with you. You want these critical minerals, you want them for electric batteries in cars, you’ve mentioned some of the other things, mobile phones’,” he said.
“But the process of extraction is expensive, we need capital. It’s not about cheaper prices; it’s not about preferred access. It’s about ensuring that they’ve got a reliable supply chain to ensure that when they need these critical minerals, you’ve got a reliable country like Australia.“
Farrell, speaking on Sky News, said his conversation with Lutnick on Friday “wasn’t a pessimistic one” but that he had given no assurances about relief for Australia.
Flagging trade diversification with India, Farrell trumpeted Labor’s record of removing Chinese trade barriers and he countered Dutton’s criticism of Labor’s handling of the US dispute by saying the Coalition leader “couldn’t go two rounds with a revolving door”.
“I wish I could tell you exactly what the American government is finally going to do. To be honest with you, I suspect they don’t even know themselves right now,” Farrell said.
“Our beef exports is that most of it goes into McDonald’s hamburgers. And if you push up the price of those beef exports by 25 per cent or 10 per cent or whatever the figure is, then you simply push up the price of hamburgers in the United States. It doesn’t make any sense.”
