Trump trips up Australia's conservative opposition in election's last laps

By Alasdair Pal

U.S. President Donald Trump is looming large in the final weeks of Australia's general election campaign, spelling trouble for conservative opposition leader Peter Dutton just as a new poll shows Australians' faith in the United States at an all-time low.

A survey released on Wednesday by the Lowy Institute, a research foundation, found only 36% of Australians expressed any level of trust in the U.S. to act responsibly, down 20 points since the last survey in June 2024 and the lowest since the annual poll was launched two decades ago.

Trump's blustery style and often disruptive policies, including "reciprocal" tariffs against long-time allies and attacks on U.S. government agencies, have begun to alarm Australian voters, analysts and academics say, as they have in Canada where the ruling party's fortunes revived dramatically ahead of elections this month.

Similarly, the Labor Party of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has surged in the polls from a deficit of six points against Dutton's conservative coalition as recently as January to a lead now of as much as nine points, with only three-and-a-half weeks until the May 3 election.

"Trump has emerged as the third candidate in this election campaign," said Mark Kenny, a professor specialising in politics at the Australian National University in Canberra.

"He's made it quite difficult for Peter Dutton to get his message across, and made it difficult for Dutton to be seen as an entirely independent figure in this election campaign."

The Lowy survey reinforced polling by Resolve Strategic, conducted after Trump's April 2 tariff announcement and released on Monday, that showed a third of voters - and 35% of undecided voters - said they were now less likely to vote for Dutton because of Trump.

"Given President Donald Trump's norm-shattering approach to his second term, it's no surprise that Australians are less trusting of the United States," said Ryan Neelam, the Lowy Institute's Director of Public Opinion and Foreign Policy.

The Lowy Institute polling was conducted in March, before Trump announced his swathe of tariffs, including a blanket 10% on all Australian imports.

'DOGE-Y DUTTON'

Dutton has campaigned on several policies seen widely as emulating Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), set up by Elon Musk. In January, Dutton appointed Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as a shadow minister for government efficiency, a position inspired by Musk's role, analysts said.

"With Australians sick of the wasteful spending that is out of control ... Jacinta will be looking closely at how we can achieve a more efficient use of taxpayers' money," Dutton said at the time.

But concerns over Trump's policies have begun dragging down Dutton's popularity.

After a voter backlash, Dutton was forced to abandon a policy that would have required government workers to return to the office full time while cutting tens of thousands of public sector jobs.

Polling showed those policies were turning off voters in outer metropolitan areas, home to many of Australia's battleground seats.

The Labor Party has capitalised on the shift in public sentiment, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers repeatedly referring to the opposition leader as "DOGE-y Dutton".

Albanese said on Tuesday Dutton would enact "DOGE-style cuts" to the public sector if he were elected.

"(Australians) are not enjoying the turmoil and the capriciousness of the White House, and Dutton's early enthusiasm along with other conservatives to celebrate Trump's win has been pretty much lead in his saddlebags all the way through this campaign," Australian National University's Kenny said.

"That weight has just got heavier and heavier as Trump has become less and less popular."