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ESSENTIALS
— How to watch the U.S. midterms results like a Pro
— Walkout from Canberra’s Women’s International Club after Russian ambassador’s wife accepted as member
— 1,086 lobbyists are still waiting for the new Parliament pass
DRIVING THE DAY
The link between Australia’s interest rate rises and the U.S. midterms: Out of control U.S. government spending, breakneck AI development and war in Iran have been driving higher inflation around the world.
BULLOCK’S BAZOOKA POINTS AT JIM CHALMERS
How will Treasurer Jim Chalmers react to Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock undercutting his inflation narrative in her post-rate hike presser? Playbook asked and we didn’t get a response.
Chalmers points the blame for rising inflation at the Iran war, but Bullock used her first words to undermine that idea: “We are not tightening monetary policy because of the direct impact of oil prices on inflation” but “to address domestic capacity pressures,” she told reporters.
Bullock’s mea culpa: The RBA governor said the board underestimated the pressures which existed before the Iran war. “We now think that those pressures were greater and contributed more to inflation than we judged before.”
Bullock also does accept the Iran war is keeping headline inflation high, warning the worst is yet to come. “We think that the next [monthly inflation] number is going to be pretty punchy, too.”
AI boom, for whom?: “We do have an issue,” Bullock said, echoing what Playbook has noted — AI inflation has arrived before measurable AI productivity boosts.
Board split: The RBA board was split 6-3 in favor of the rate increase, but that’s more united than the March vote, when four members voted against raising rates.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Things will get worse before they get better: Inflation will stay above target range for longer, peak unemployment will be higher than predicted, and growth lower than expected. “It’s going to make people feel like it’s a recession,” Bullock said.
But …
Expect a pause on rate hikes: “There’s five interest rate increases in the system now. The last couple haven’t even started to flow through yet,” Bullock said. “So it is probably a good point to just take stock for a minute.”
SEARCHING FOR LIGHT AMONG THE COALITION’S INFLATION AND INTEREST HEAT
A claim as dramatic as a “$170 billion budget black hole” would usually get a lot of attention — but the Coalition didn’t get press gallery-wide attention for it. Why?
Well, it’s not actually a black hole, and is instead a subjective take on the government’s policy choices. The Coalition has plenty of material to work with in criticizing the government’s budget handling: it doesn’t need to engage in budget inflation to make a point.
Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson found a criticism with staying power speaking to Dave Marchese on Triple J:
“The Reserve Bank’s data today very clearly shows that the public sector, the government, is going to continue to outgrow the private sector. So long as you continue to have that problem, you’re going to have a continued problem of inflation and interest rates.”
Chalmers’ office rejects that vehemently. They argue that “private demand” outstrips “public demand” — but in this context public demand excludes borrowing costs, which are rising. So it’s a questionable yardstick, and also not the one Wilson used.
The broader numbers are straightforward: The federal budget grew by 2.6% when announced in May. The economy is growing at 2.1% and trending downward.
However you define it, and whatever precise number you think private sector growth is: Overall growth of 2.1% is only possible if private sector growth is lower than 2.6%. So, Wilson is correct, and that is not where you want roughly 70% of the economy to be.
‘ILL-THOUGHT-OUT’ SOCIAL MEDIA AGE BAN UNDER FIRE
DAY TWO AT HIGH COURT: The Commonwealth will present its defense of restrictions on social media accounts for children under 16, backed by every state and territory. Let’s see if they cop as much heat as Reddit did Tuesday, its High Court challenge against the world-leading laws.
Read Paul Karp’s full story on the first day of hearings.
Day One highlights: Reddit accused the Australian government of “ill-thought-out and overbroad” restrictions as Communications Minister Anika Wells came in-person and watched 25 barristers go at it attacking or defending her laws.
At morning tea, Wells declared she was “confident” the ban is legal but was not saying she expects to win, then deadbatted most media questions.
One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts stayed the full hearing, perhaps a blast from the past from when the court ruled him ineligible to sit in Parliament in 2017.
Judges squinted at printouts of Reddit threads, complaining of lack of color-coding and tiny font, while Reddit’s barrister Perry Herzfeld explained the nuances of Ask Me Anything fora and alluded gently to what a Not Safe For Work post is.
BAD SIGNS FOR REDDIT: Before lunch, Herzfeld was peppered with questions about alternative ways kids could get their political messages across, including on WhatsApp (Justices Simon Steward and Jacqueline Gleeson) or by posting on their parents’ account (from Justices Jayne Jagot and Michelle Gordon).
After lunch it was a similar story. Herzfeld’s submission argued “credible risks” of social media (which Reddit has already conceded exist) are unquantifiable, so the ban isn’t justified. “Why?” asked Chief Justice Stephen Gageler and Gordon, in apparent disbelief. Justice James Edelman said they included depression and suicidal ideation: “not trivial.”
Sub-Reddit of the hearing: Gordon alluded to “derogatory terms” for people who accessed but didn’t post on social media. Gleeson was thoroughly confused, but it was a good indication Gordon has spent some time online.
Barrister twink death confirmed: Herzfeld replied that it was apparently a reference to “lurking” but said he didn’t want to speculate because young people use social media in different ways and he was not in that category any more. “Alas,” he quipped.
MIDTERM MADNESS
POLITICO LIVE BLOG: All the inside views from America’s biggest politics newsroom.
POLITICO Elections Live: Tune in at 1.00 p.m. Australian Eastern Daylight Time for on POLITICO.com and in our new mobile app to watch Alex Burns, Jonathan Martin and Playbook co-authors Dasha Burns, Adam Wren and Will Steakin break down the results in a show built for people who want the story beyond the numbers.
HOW TRUMP HURT THE REPUBLICANS: Republicans have been left scrambling to defend their congressional majorities in the face of a midterm shellacking, Jonathan Martin explains. As for what happens once the votes have been counted: expect the biggest fights to be inside each party once the bloodletting begins, John F. Harris says.
On fears Trump will lean into a more aggressive foreign policy: “He can pretty much do what he wants. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be effective,” Fiona Hill, former presidential national security adviser, told “7.30.”
THE PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW
ARTHUR SINODINOS — ‘HE’S GOING TO DOUBLE DOWN’
Australia’s former ambassador to the U.S. Arthur Sinodinos has just returned to Sydney from Washington, D.C. Playbook’s Finn McHugh spoke to him by phone ahead of today’s midterm elections about how Trump will react.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
The polling for the Democrats looks pretty remarkable, doesn’t it?
It does. The probabilities are that the Dems win the House, and in the Senate, it might be that the Dems get to 51.
How would Trump react to a lame duck period and losing the Senate?
He won’t sit down and reflect and say: “Oh, this is what I’ve got to do to correct my political strategy over the next two years.” He’s going to double down doing what he’s doing. He’s just going to act defiant.
They’ve been after him before, and he relishes that. He turned the court cases into a cause célèbre. He was a martyr and he raised money from it. As long as he’s alive, he’ll say: “I didn’t lose anything. I wasn’t on the ballot. I’ve been poorly served and badly advised.”
Lame duck presidents often become more expansive in foreign policy, where they have a freer hand.
If there’s less he can do domestically, that’s what he’s going to focus more on. He’s ruled by executive order, by fiat, by decree and that will continue.
They’ll have to lawyer up now because presumably, if the race goes the way it looks, there’ll be a deluge of subpoenas and inquiries and investigations. They [Democrats] might go for one or two of the senior lieutenants, like Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
Could any result tomorrow alter Trump’s Iran strategy?
I don’t know what the strategy is. You’d think that the Iranians are under some pressure to negotiate, but they’re acting very defiantly. It’s possible that they decide to wait him out, get through the next two years and negotiate with a different president.
What are the potential implications for Australia?
We’re not going to be greatly affected either way because there’s strong bipartisan support for the relationship, and the thrust within the administration to operate in the Indo-Pacific will continue. Whether it means that the president and his administration are distracted, so they’re not necessarily pursuing more initiatives with countries like Australia? That’s a question mark.
What will tomorrow tell us about 2028?
We shouldn’t read too much into this — presidential elections always turn importantly on the character and the policies of the nominees. But if we are seeing the peak and decline of Trumpism, that doesn’t necessarily bode well for Vice President JD Vance‘s chances.
Read Finn McHugh’s full interview with Sinodinos.
CANBERRA PLAYBOOK PODCAST
Amanda Copp examines the New Zealand election, coming up Saturday.
There are clues about what new types of right-wing governing coalitions can look like: Imagine a world where a nationalist party, urban neoliberals, and rural and business party need to work together to deliver a parliamentary majority.
BY THE NUMBERS
1,086: The number of Parliament House orange passes yet to be reprocessed by the Department of Parliamentary Services under its new system, as of Nov. 1. (The cards remain active, pending assessment, so don’t panic.)
The cards that have been processed are up on DPS’ new transparency register.
STATE OF THE NATION
APS PAYOUTS OUTWEIGH OUTSOURCING SAVINGS
Australia’s federal departments and major agencies spent more on voluntary redundancies in the last financial year than they collectively saved on slashing contractors and consultants, a consequence of Labor’s push to find savings within the government.
Expenditure on voluntary redundancies surged by AU$156.2 million in the 2025 to 2026 financial year, to $202.2 million across federal departments, as well as Services Australia and the Australian Taxation Office. Defence is the only major agency missing from the analysis — the department still hasn’t published its annual report.
Collectively, the agencies saved $34 million on consultants and contractors, compared to the 2024-25 financial year, as part of a broader push to reduce outsourcing and restore public service jobs.
Miriam Webber has the full story.
ANOTHER DAY OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE
VICTORIA — ONE NATION VOLUNTEER BRUTALLY BEATEN: A 60-year-old One Nation volunteer received brutal head injuries after being allegedly attacked with a baseball bat at his Torquay property on Sunday evening by a pair accused of damaging One Nation campaign signs outside his property. A 37-year-old man has been charged with intentionally causing injury, and his 14-year-old son was issued with a caution.
“What message does that send?”: One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s question about the 14-year-old’s “slap on the wrist” punishment. “I don’t want to use what this family is going through,” she told reporters yesterday, but “we’re stating the facts of what’s happened, and I’m crying out now for something to be done.”
Premier Ben Carroll told reporters: “No one should be coming under attack. Let’s have a civil, peaceful election.”
Reminder: One Nation wants to lower the age of criminal responsibility in Victoria to 10, and crime levels are a major focus of opposition parties in Victoria’s election on Nov. 28.
CHOGM, META UPDATES ON ABUSE OF MPs
Social media giant Meta has promised more tools to women in public life to manage abusive comments and to consider tightening its enforcement of standards, after complaints from Australian MPs about abuse on its platforms.
In a statement released Tuesday Meta Policy Australia and New Zealand acknowledged feedback it had received from “women who serve in public life in Australia about the harassment and threats they’re experiencing across online platforms, including ours.”
Separately, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting the U.K. and Australia have committed to help protect parliamentarians from online abuse. They will hold a forum for Commonwealth countries in 2027 to “bring together technology, expertise and practical solutions” to the problem.
In October POLITICO revealed that in the week before the attack on independent member of parliament Helen Haines, Labor women had confronted Meta vice president and global head of safety Antigone Davis with “robust” and “frank” feedback about threats, including rape and death threats, received online.
“Women should be able to represent their communities, share their work and participate in public debate without facing threats, sexualised abuse or harassment,” Meta said.
“We are working with female MPs and senators in the Australian Parliament to better understand what they are encountering, identify trends, and find opportunities for further collaboration and solutions.”
Context: Meta does not publish a clear headcount for its civic and election teams, or a comparable measure of resources devoted to abuse targeting women politicians. The company conducted layoffs in 2022–23 which hit staff who worked on election and civic integrity teams, and the company shut down CrowdTangle in 2024, a public monitoring tool that journalists and researchers had used to understand debate on the platform.
EMBASSY ROW
RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR’S WIFE JOINS CANBERRA CLUB, PROMPTING WALKOUT
The spouses of Ukraine’s, Italy’s and Estonia’s ambassadors to Australia have resigned from the Women’s International Club of Canberra after it admitted Irina Petrakova, wife of Russia’s ambassador, reports Ryan Heath.
WIC president Sandie Kaine said via email that the club admitted Petrakova after receiving legal advice that refusing her membership because of her country of origin would breach discrimination law.
Liana Myroshnychenko, spouse of Ukraine’s ambassador, said in an email to club members, seen by Playbook, that her objection was to Petrakova’s role as a representative of Russia, not her nationality.
“This is not about a Russian woman simply because she is Russian,” but because she is in Australia representing “the country that killed my cousin, burned my friend alive, took the lives of many of my friends from school and university,” Myroshnychenko wrote. “She represents a Russia that kills, maims, commits sexual violence and subjects people to horrific torture.”
The Russian government declined to comment.
Lawrence Meredith, the EU’s ambassador, told Playbook that the bloc’s ambassadors are “deeply disappointed” by the decision to admit Petrakova. “The EU can accept no normalization of Russia’s brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine, whatsoever.”
WIC’s admission of Petrakova follows it electing Irina Logvinova, spouse of the then Russian Ambassador Grigory Logvinov, as club vice-president for 2017-18 — that’s three years after Russia seized and annexed Crimea, ahead of its full invasion in 2022. The embassy posted on Facebook at the time that one of her responsibilities in the role was to “promote favorable image of #Russia in #Australia.”
CANBERRA MEETS WORLD
CUTTING STEEL, NOT BACKPACKERS
U.K. PM Andy Burnham invited Anthony Albanese to come to Barrow-in-Furness, “sometime next week” to mark physical construction of the first AUKUS submarine.
Read POLITICO’s story on why that isn’t a sub for Australia, and why there’s a lot more work to do before any AUKUS subs are headed Down Under.
Backpackers to the future on trade: As Playbook went to bed, Albanese hadn’t convinced Burnham to allow him to reinstate regional and rural worker requirements for British working holiday makers in Australia.
Of note: The reason we have so many British backpackers (around 87,000 last financial year) is the Coalition offered those rights in the Australia-U.K. free trade deal. The deal was signed by then trade minister Dan Tehan … yes, the same Dan Tehan fuming about what he views as a poorly-negotiated free trade deal with the EU.
CARNEY JETS OFF: There will be no pics of Carney kicking back with a Molson or Wadadli lager, alongside Albo as the midterm results roll in. The Canadian PM is wheels-up at 11:00 p.m. local time.
WHAT IS UP WITH CANBERRA’S GIFT GAME?
Playbook was wondering if Albo would use a sneaky gift (nothing too weird like a posh melon, obvs) to convince Burnham to help him out on the backpacker issue. Perhaps a nice Australian wine (from winemaker turned trade minister Don Farrell?) Maybe some Indigenous artwork to hang in Number 10? Instead, Burnham got … a Rabbitohs cap.
That’s the same cap Albo gifted cricketer David Warner in 2022 (read more on the government’s rugby league diplomacy policy from Ryan Heath here and Finn McHugh here).
How does that compare to Albo’s other gifts?
— U.S. President Donald Trump: A two-foot model of a Virginia-Class submarine (mounted on gold, of course.)
— Former U.S. President Joe Biden: A Royal Australian Air Force flight jacket and a painting of Australian flora.
— Indian PM Narendra Modi: A commemorative cricket bat.
— NZ PM Jacinda Ardern: Classic Australian vinyl albums.
— PNG PM James Marape: A photo of the pair on the Kokoda Track.
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING
ISRAEL — EISENKOT GETS FIRST SHOT AT FORMING GOVERNMENT, AHEAD OF NETANYAHU. Israeli President Isaac Herzog is expected to give Benjamin Netanyahu’s rival Gadi Eisenkot the first opportunity to form a government this week.
Why? Five leaders of the country’s three opposition parties endorsed Eisenkot as prime minister, and met Tuesday afternoon
What happens next? Eisenkot needs to find another eight votes among minor parties to get to 61 votes in the Knesset to confirm confidence in a government. Jerusalem Post has a live blog.
AGENDA ASSISTANT
Former Labor Minister Peter Garrett and former Chief of the Australian Defence Force Chris Barrie will present the findings of their AUKUS public inquiry at the National Press Club from 12:30 p.m.
Unions including the ACTU and the Productivity Commission will appear before a Senate inquiry into Barbara Pocock’s bill to establish a right to work from home two days a week from 11 a.m.
The Tech Council of Australia and the Department of Home Affairs appear before an inquiry into cybersecurity for businesses from 11:30 a.m.
COMMUNITY CORNER
YOU’RE INVITED: POLITICO is partnering with “What’s Your Poison” at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Nov. 25 — join us for a live taping of the Peter Lewis and Damian Damjanovski-hosted podcast, followed by end-of-year drinks.
Come meet the Canberra Playbook team, along with Danielle Elston and Caroline Croser-Barlow from the Westminster Tradition podcast.
There are 25 free tickets here — grab yours now.
MOVES AND APPOINTMENTS
Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia and New Zealand, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, has been appointed the first country’s “non-resident ambassador to Fiji.” He told Playbook the title matters: he’s been doing the work, but without the ease of engagement that comes with being an accredited ambassador. And with the new responsibilities, there’s a higher chance his posting to Australia will be extended beyond 2027.
Rebecca Tan is now Asia Correspondent at The Economist.
Brooke Kraindler is now Associate Director (Research and Insights, Australia) at More in Common.
BIRTHDAYS
TONY AWARDS: Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, former PM and current Liberal Party president Tony Abbott.
Texan teammates: Former U.S. first lady Laura Bush, Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey.