Australia Institute Live: Day Seven of the 2025 election campaign. As it happened.

We are going to leave it there, because we all have just one precious life and honestly, you deserve an early mark.

A very big thank you to everyone who has followed along with us this week. We will be back Monday with Day 10 (honestly, if you are following the campaign blow by blows on the weekend and not getting paid to do it, then maybe you might need to touch some grass. I say that with love. Free yourself.

Week two of the election campaign is where we are going to have the first debates so there will be a lot of people doing a lot of preparations for that and then of course, there is the blow by blow of whatever moment captures the media and public attention.

So brace yourself for that.

But also – make sure you have a few breaks of doing nothing except enjoying a simple pleasure and spending time with those you love. It’s rough out there and it can seem very overwhelming, but it is important to find the light when you can.

As Dan Savage so eloquently said: “during the darkest days of the AIDS crisis we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night, and it was the dance that kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for”.

You can’t keep up the fight if all you are doing is fighting. Sometimes you have to make time to dance as well.

I hope you get to dance a little this weekend. We’ll be back to pick up the fight, for facts, for bravery, for a better conversation, on Monday.

Until then, take care of you. Ax

Let’s take a look at how the AAP photographers have seen the campaign today:

You’re probably wondering how I ended up here. Well….record scratch

Bridget McKenzie looking like a match maker at an over 50s event

Try as he might, Anthony Albanese just could not fit the entire child in his mouth at once

Jason Clare isn’t a regular dad, he’s a cool dad

There is a lot of concern and commotion about the US imposing 10% tariffs on Australian exports. But it is important to put this in context.

Movements in the exchange rate over a year are regularly more than 10%. When the exchange rate drops by 10% that means Australian exporters are getting 10% more in Australian dollar terms for their exports. When it goes up by 10%, they are getting 10% less in Australian dollar terms.

For example, 6 months ago, at the end of September an Australian dollar was worth 69.4 US cents. 4 months later at the beginning of February it had dropped 11% to 61.5 US cents. Since then, it risen slightly to 62.7 US cents.

While these 10% tariffs will have an effect, they are not likely to be devastating, particularly for industries that have to contend with regular movements in exchange rates.

And if you needed a lesson in how the mining industry works, here is a classic example.

Q: The Minerals Council of Australia has criticised the idea of a critical mineral strategic reserve saying it would undermine the financial viability of projects and be pointless. What do you think?
 
Husic: 

If I measured every day the Mineral Council were upset with something that governments were doing, I wouldn’t get my day done so I expect that type of comment out of them.
 

Q:  But they represent and understand the industry.

Husic:

Well, we have to do what we think is right in the nation’s interests. Sometimes there will be stakeholders that take a different view. There are a lot of other sectors, a lot of other industry players that recognise that we’ve got their back and that’s what we’ll be doing.

The policy has no detail. It is literally just a sentence ‘critical minerals strategic reserve’.

Which just means – keeping some critical minerals for Australia, instead of allowing mining companies, which pay very little tax and contribute very little to Australia, to take them all and sell for trillions of dollars of profit.

And yet, the framing of this is BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MINING INDUSTRY?

But mining lobbyists are very good at this. It’s why Andrew Carswell is appearing more and more in the media as a commentator on the campaign and politics in general and only being explained as a ‘former political advisor to Scott Morrison and consultant’ with no mention of the fact that he counts the Minerals Council among his consultancy clients. So he’s getting the opportunity to talk up nuclear (which the Minerals Council supports – gee, I wonder why) and criticise renewables in the media as if he is just commentating on politics and doesn’t have a vested interest.

And that’s how power works in this country.

You can add Ed Husic to the list of people spreading the ‘calm the farm’ message about the Trump tariffs.

He told the ABC a little earlier:

A big focus of our government has been to strengthen our economic resilience to help us weather events like the US’s self-imposed Inflation Day. I know they’re calling it Liberation Day but it’s really just about jacking up their own inflation. We have highly-sought-after in-demand exports because we’re a quality producer across a range of areas. If there are other countries that want to pay more for that because of stuff that they do themselves, that’s on them but we will, no doubt, continue and we want to continue making that high-quality product, which is why we’ve announced across a range of areas in the last 24-hours measures to sharpen up and strengthen even further our ability to be economically resilient and to ensure that our product can get exported to willing buyers in other parts of the world

It has been one of those days where everyone is pretty happy to take the foot off the pace and just kinda coast along a little bit. But still, let’s look at what happened.

The Trump tariff hangover continues

The Coalition are still struggling to get a line on this – you get the feeling that they were counting on the Australian tariffs to be a lot worse than they were.

Dutton has said he would have used the prospect of defence contracts (which we are already locked into because of Aukus) and when that was raised, he said he would just expand Aukus to get Trump over the line (because apparently giving the US hundreds of billions of dollars just isn’t enough already)

Dutton has said he would use critical minerals to tempt Trump, which is something Labor has already done.

Both campaigns were in western Sydney for a News Corp conference

The day after the AFR said it was crazy Dutton hadn’t done a press conference in front of a petrol station given the fuel excise cut policy, Dutton did a press conference at a petrol station

The Coalition pledged another $200m or so for western Sydney infrastructure

There is still no detail on the gas policy

After facing criticism for being too close to billionaires like Gina RInehart, there is very conveniently a story from Coalition ‘sources’ that Rinehart has cooled on Dutton because of the gas policy that is still to be released (again DEIDRE CHAMBERS)

Labor has extended the $20,000 instant asset write off (WILL SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE TRADIES)

Labor has committed $200m or so to roads in western Sydney

Albanese’s favourite steak is a T-bone and he will be watching the Rabitohs play.

His dog Toto thinks the Bunnies symbol is actually a cartoon Toto

You’re up to date

The Australia Institute calls on the Reserve Bank of Australia to reconvene its monetary policy board immediately, rather than wait until May, to deliver the rate cuts Australians need now. 

It was clear the Reserve Bank was unwilling to make a decision on Tuesday because of uncertainty regarding the leveling of tariffs by the Trump administration.

Although it was clear even at the time that Trump’s tariff policy would result in a slowing of the global economy and risk rising unemployment here in Australia, now that the scale of the tariffs is known, the RBA should reconvene and cut rates rather than wait until May 19-20.

The Reserve Bank should get on the front foot and do what markets and economists know is an almost certain rate cut.  

Inflation is well within the target. Indeed, should the inflation figures for the first three months of this year be only slightly below average, the official CPI risks falling below 2%.

“The risks of the economy slowing more than anticipated are now heightened due to the Trump tariffs,” said Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute.

“The Reserve Bank was wrong not to cut rates on Tuesday. The Australia Institute has been calling for those cuts to help bolster spending and deliver relief to households who have suffered from price rises that are not of their own doing.

“Waiting until nearly the end of May is far too long. The RBA should be nimble enough to realise that the tariffs levied by the USA are an unprecedented move that is already sending shockwaves through the world’s economy.

“It should get out in front and cut rates now rather than wait for Australia’s economy to be damaged further.”

Here is the Coalition’s infrastructure announcement for western Sydney:

The Coalition has already committed $1 billion towards the future southern extensions of the Sydney
Metro Western Sydney Airport Rail, $500 million – to be matched by the NSW Government – to
duplicate Fifteenth Avenue, and the upgrade of Wentworth Avenue to fix the Toongabbie Bridge.
We are further investing in the future of Western Sydney with the following projects:

• $117.5 million to complete the final leg of the Mulgoa Road corridor upgrade (Stages 5A and
  5B).
• $50 million to deliver stage one of the Edmondson Avenue duplication project which will
  provide enhanced transport capacity to accommodate planned future developments of more
  than 20,000 homes.
• $18.8 million for businesses cases to upgrade previously semi-rural roads that will be
  important to movement of freight to and from Western Sydney International Airport;
• $15 million to plan for improved future transport connections with the Old Windsor Road-
  Windsor Road corridor and Werrington Arterial Stage 2 business case.
• $15 million for to improve traffic flow and safety on Pennant Hills Road and Moseley Street,
  Carlingford
• $10 million for improve traffic flow and safety Pennant Hills Roads and Evans Road,
  Carlingford
• $5 million for the intersection improvements at the Kissing Point Road entry to Quarry Road,
  Dundas

At one point this year, Labor thought it might have a chance of winning the Tasmanian seat of Bass, which is held by the Liberal’s Bridget Archer. Archer seems to be loved by everyone but her own party so it always seemed a bit of a dream, but still, Labor had it on their list.

Jess Teesdale is running there and on an ABC radio interview yesterday said she opposed native forest logging. Which is not Labor policy. Today, she has ‘walked that back’ which is code for ‘she’s been told she messed up and told to fall back into line’.

Greens senator Nick McKim said it’s a lesson in party politics:

After repeatedly overriding his Environment Minister on national environment laws, the Prime Minister is now intervening to crush dissent on forests in Tasmania.” 

Labor is in damage control because they know that opposing native forest logging is supported by a majority of Australians and a majority of Labor members.”

Ms Teesdale is learning that in the Labor Party your personal opinions count for nothing compared to the views of the faceless men and Labor’s donors.”

You toe the line or you get crushed.”

While Liberal senator Jonathan Duniam said the Liberal party is united that native forestry needs to continue and said:

What is concerning is that at the last election, the Prime Minister made a promise to the Tasmanians that he’d protect native forestry. He’s got a candidate who clearly, her personal view is, that it should no longer exist. I just don’t buy that there’s any walk back from the one word answer, which is unequivocal.

Except it is not true – Labor isn’t wavering on native forest logging, no matter how many people connected with the party wish they were.

On the seat of Fowler and Labor’s candidate Tu Le, Albanese says:

I have supported, encouraged very strongly Tu Le to run for Fowler. She’s a gun candidate. She is a future Cabinet minister. You can have the – the people of Fowler can have an independent waiting for decisions to be made saying as Peter Dutton has said – that the first call he’ll make if he’s in a minority situation will be to Dai Le. Of course a former Liberal Party candidate. But someone who now sits as an independent. If you’re an Independent, you wait for decisions to be made and then decide whether you support them or not. Or you can have someone who’s a future Cabinet Minister. I have no doubt Tu Le is that. I think she’s outstanding. I encouraged her to be the candidate and I think she’ll make a fantastic member for Fowler.

Q: Prime Minister, we’re here in Western Sydney where there has been considerable unease in the community about the Government’s response to the conflict in the Middle East and the issue of Palestinian recognition. If you are elected, will you act on the wishes of party members and recognise a Palestinian state?

Albanese:

We’ll act in accordance with the position that we have taken of principle – which is that we support two-states. We don’t believe that Hamas has any role in a future Palestinian state and we understand that this isn’t a time just for gestures, this is a time for real progress and one of the things that’s occurred during this debate is that there’s been too much performative actions and gestures and not enough real advance that makes a real difference to people’s lives.

Q: Recognising the Palestinian state is a performative gesture?

Albanese:

Quite clearly, we need to acknowledge that Hamas can have no role in a Palestinian state. That is my position. My position has been my entire political life has been the right of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security.

It isn’t a matter of being on the sideline like at the footy tonight where you’re cheering one side because this is not a situation where that’s appropriate. Israelis and Palestinians both have an interest in peace and security.

The way that I have acted for a long period of time and my Government and we had some criticism from people across the spectrum, is to take that principled view to make sure that we always have our eyes on that solution and that’s something that the prospect of which has gone up and gone down and gone up and gone down again in recent times.

I think it is – it’s essential that out of this crisis emerges a better future for everyone in the region.

Israel has openly said it is annexing more Palestinian territory (which is illegal), has banned any aid from entering Gaza (which amounts to a war crime), is killing between 70 and 100 Palestinian civilians a day (a war crime) and has openly said it will follow through with Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan (a war crime).

Q: Campaigning in Fowler this morning, last time around, Kristina Keneally was parachuted in over the top of your candidate. Do you see why many people took it as arrogance and do you accept it was a mistake?

Albanese:

Yes.

Q: Donald Trump was on Air Force One said every country has called us. Have you or anyone in your immediate ministry contacted Trump or his administration in the last 24 hours?

Albanese:

Yes.

Q: Just before, when you were on stage, there was a bit of a grizzle where you were asked if you were going to the footy and said, “I’m not allowed to have fun in this job.” Serious question – do you feel straitjacketed in this?

Albanese:

Look, I wish I could go to the pub with my mates without any of you.

Journalist: We’re not your mates?

Albanese:

No, without security with some of you as well! There are people here who I’ve had really good engagement with. It’s a different dynamic. One of them is laughing right here. You know, you can catch up and stuff. There are restrictions in the job but that’s part of the deal.

That’s part of the arrangement and it’s an incredible privilege that I have and tonight I will be watching the Rabbitohs beat the Chooks on TV and I look forward to that. I’m watching it with Jodie and my son and Toto. All four of us are South Sydney supporters. Toto, in fact, thinks that little rabbit is actually a Toto symbol.

What “phenomenal offers” would Australia give the United States to lift the tariffs? (Trump has said he is open to hearing “phenomenal offers” which means that things are not going well, if he is bending already. But this is what Trump does – bends and reverse ferrets when things go wrong and pretends it is actually a genius masterstroke of negotiation. Which we all know it’s not, but people usually believe the story you tell them and Trump is amazing at selling himself)

Albanese:

What we’ll do is probably not make a phenomenal offer at a press conference but we’ll engage diplomatically in a considered way. That is what serious governments do. What we don’t do is, under pressure, make comments about defence being on the table and these comments that were made yesterday. Serious governments engage, government to government. That is what we have been doing.

Asked when he would “eyeball” Trump in person, Albanese says:

I’ve been invited to the United States, of course, and vice versa. I will go as soon as possible, but I make this point as well – I’m not getting ahead of myself here.

You know the first visit that I want to make after the election is to Government House in Canberra, to Yarralumla. I’m not getting ahead of myself. Elections are hard to win and there are four weeks left in this campaign and I know that for Labor, we’ve been in power, Australia’s oldest and greatest political party, but we’ve been in power for around about a third of the time.

So I’m not getting ahead of myself and I’m not making plans beyond May 3, except for, along with this bloke here, [Chris Bowen] the day after May 3 is of course May the fourth be with you.

He’s a Star Wars nerd, this guy.

Would Anthony Albanese lock Australians out of returning to Australia in the event of a border shutdown due to another global pandemic?

I’ve said clearly the Australian passport means something. I can’t commit to a blanket [opening] If someone is someone who is engaged in an act, potentially, of violence from Australia…

Q: We’re not talking about that, Prime Minister.

Albanese: You asked for a blanket commitment. I won’t do that. What I will do is put the principled position that I have, which I think is very clear.

Anthony Albanese held a press conference a little bit ago where he was asked about the cyber attack on superannuation funds, including Australian Super.

He said:

We will respond in time. We’re considering what has occurred, but bear in mind the context here. There is an attack, a cyberattack in Australia about every six minutes. This is a regular issue. With he have beefed up funding for the Australian Signals Directorate. We have worked, and I’ve sat personally in a round-table with all of the big banks, with the big financial institutions, with superannuation funds, and others, convened with our security ministers, along with our Communications Minister, Michelle Rowland. We’ll have a considered response to it, but the agencies, of course, work very strongly on it

A very big thank you to Glenn for allowing me that break. You have Amy Remeikis back with you now.

The leaders have done their main event for the day – kissing the News Corp ring and making announcements for western Sydney (even if some were hypothetical) and will now move on to the next steps.

Weekends on campaigns (at least this early in the piece) are usually a little quieter because they know no one is watching.

That’s it from me, folks.

Handing back to Amy, who’s just broken the world record for writing 800 words.

Column writing should be an Olympic sport.

Back you, golden girl ….

Anthony Albanese is still taking questions in Western Sydney.

He is asked to expand on his comment yesterday about the dangers of building a nuclear power station near Newcastle … because there are regular earth tremors in the region.

He insists the financial danger is greater than the danger danger:

The main risk with nuclear is shown by the fact that no-one in the private sector will touch it with a barge pole.

I should work for one of those trashy, click-bait “news” websites ….

I’m not even sure what prompted this ground-breaking revelation.

But here’s Anthony Albanese talking about beef tariffs.

Australia produces beef as well that is of a different quality from US beef, just – US beef is fattier and I now know more about beef than I’d like to other than the T-bone is my favourite cut of beef, and so what they say is that they are confident that they’ll continue to be able to sell into that market.

You heard it here first, folks.

Peter Dutton has wheeled out the old … migrants are to blame for the housing crisis … line.

Very popular.

Does well in focus groups.

Just one little catch …

IT’S BULLSH*T

Our Senior Economist Matt Grudnoff explains why:

Migrants are not to blame for soaring house prices – The Australia Institute

“Wake me, shake me, tell me it’s a dream ….”

Peter Dutton is now on stage at this Western Sydney thingy.

It’s hard to stay awake.

Hang on! He has an announcement.

“I can announce today …”

But it’s a hypothetical, retrospective “announcement” about what gas prices would have been under his plan if …

Oh my giddy aunt … tell us what your policy will do to gas prices for households.

Hi everyone.

Happy Friday. Happy day 7.

28 to go.

While I watched Phil Coorey‘s beloved Carlton lose (again) last night, I read his excellent analysis of the campaign so far in the Fin.

The Coalition’s reluctance to really skewer Labor over gas is as curious as Dutton failing to prosecute his alternative to the top-up tax cuts by offering a 25¢ per litre cut to fuel excise for at least one year. Surely by now there would have been a press conference outside a servo in the suburbs.

Guess where Peter Dutton popped up this morning?

The lovely Glenn Connley is going to guide you through the next hour or so while I finish a column for The New Daily.

Please everyone give a big Australia Institute Live welcome to Glenn. Ill see you soon. Ax

(Apologies to Glenn for misspelling his name – it is absolutely a Friday)

Anthony Albanese is delivering a speech which should be a press release at the News Corp western Sydney love in.

We’ll bring you parts of the Q and A instead.

The world markets are continuing to react to Trump’s tariffs, which The Economist has described as “the most profound, harmful and unnecessary economic error in the modern era. Almost everything he said—on history, economics and the technicalities of trade—was utterly deluded” but while America commentators and ‘centrist’ economists discover what the rest of us already knew – Trump does what he says he is going to do – there are signs countries outside of America’s bubble had already been switching things up.

Particularly in clean energy supply chains.  The Carbon Brief survey of trade experts has pulled together these examples:

• Germany’s recent shift to deficit financing will enable new investments in climate.
• The EU’s fiscal rule overhaul and over €100bn in industrial deal funding support clean manufacturing.
• Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has launched the Nova Industria Brasil to build green industrialisation. 
• Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has announced and funded Plan Mexico for strategic investments.:
• Within Asia, negotiations continue to green the world’s largest trade bloc – the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (a grouping that includes Australia).
• China, Korea, and Japan have reportedly agreed to jointly respond to Trump, and have discussed cooperation on supply chains and renewable energy specifically.  
• Europe is actively revamping trade deals between Mexico-EU, EU-Brazil, and Canada-EU to allow more green trade. Macron is urging Europe to pause US investments. The South Africa-EU Clean Trade and Investment Partnership is seen as a new model of EU investment targeting critical minerals. The EU-India Summit in February laid out the contours of a new free trade agreement as well, including on cleantech. 
• Countries such as Brazil and South Africa are leading diplomatic efforts through their presidencies of BRICS and G20 this year to articulate new trading and financial architecture that gives them the policy space to pursue green structural transformation to meet domestic and global climate goals.

Andreas Sieber, Associate Director of Policy and Campaigns at 350.org said:

Trump’s tariffs will harm the economy and working people—but they won’t stop the energy transition. China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of clean technology, yet only 4% of its solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles are shipped to the U.S., compared to 15% for its overall exports. With global sales in this sector surging by 30% in 2024 alone, the U.S. is fast becoming an isolated, shrinking player in the clean energy race.

Trump claims to understand economic policy, but his record tells another story: his tariffs have triggered market selloffs and sent inflation soaring. He is punishing ordinary Americans while doing nothing to halt the clean energy revolution.The U.S. is already too marginal in the global clean tech trade to dictate its terms.”

The prime minister is still to stand up, although we will be told that will be happening quite soon.

But it is a bit of a slower campaign day – think of it as a campaign hangover day, after the insanity of yesterday’s Trump tariff announcements.

And we also don’t want to create a false sense of urgency where there isn’t one. So we are going to be a little bit more spaced out on posts than usual, because you also deserve to have a mental space break.

There are still four weeks to go, so no one should be too comfortable thinking that they know which way the nation will vote. Nothing is set in stone.

But it is no secret that the Coalition have not exactly started this campaign with it’s A-game. The campaign seems lacking in momentum, and energy and Peter Dutton appears to be struggling to find a narrative (not having a policy platform tends to do that).

When people can see that their message is not being heard, they usually start to try and trick people into listening. Like copying a more successful method: Ahem.

In Western Australia there is a very intense battle going on between the Liberals and independent MP Kate Chaney for the seat of Curtin.
Chaney won the seat off the Liberals and they have been pretty angry about it ever since, aided by a media company owned by a billionaire with vested interests.

This is what Chaney is up against:

Angus Taylor has been saying that he can find savings of around $100 billion by, among other things, raiding the Housing Australia Future Fund and the various other Funds, but not the Future Fund itself. So how much money is in these funds?

Investment funds balances at 30 June 2026

Source – 2025-26 Budget Paper 1

On the face of it there is $61,148 million that could be cut if you don’t touch the Future Fund (which, because it was set up by Peter Costello, is regarded as a holy of all holies by the LNP).

Angus also seems to think that there is also $19 billion in the rewiring the nation fund and a further $15 billion in the national reconstruction fund. These operate in a different way but to the other funds, but let’s be kind and believe that is can be done. Tat gets us to about $95 billion—close to Taylor’s $100 billion just by attacking the funds.

So that’s great? Money saved!

Unfortunately, no.

The problem is abolishing those funds does not “save” any money. These funds are usually put into the Future Fund and new funds are raised to match it. The new fund is matched by new debt and there is no change in the government’s net worth.

If that sounds confusing think of it like if you borrowed from the bank and left the money in the bank, you are neither better off nor worse off.

So Angus Taylor could eliminate all of the funds but it would have zero effect on budget spending.

Preferential voting is one of the best parts of the Australian voting system and we should all be working very hard to protect it.

So Peter Dutton is saying we need all that mining revenue to pay for roads in western Sydney?

Nope.

We get this claim a lot mostly from mining companies, who would have you believe they are the backbone of Australia’s economy,

Well economies don’t have backbones and if they did and ours was mining, then we would be truly stuffed.

I mean even if we ignore the fact that their profits are made off the back of public resources, and are heavily publicly subsidised our research of the federal and state budgets has found:

• Just 5% of all state and federal revenue comes from the taxes and royalties paid by the mining industry.
• So yeah, 95% of Australia’s public services are paid for by other industries.
• Mining is also heavily subsidised in Australia, receiving the vast bulk of the $11 billion fuel tax credit scheme.

If Australia really did rely on the low-employing, tax-avoiding, high-polluting, and largely foreign-owned mining industry for its economic security, we would be in serious trouble.

It’s even worse when we focus on the gas industry – and industry which hates two things – paying taxes and royalties, and selling gas to Australians.

Nurses for example pay more income tax that does the entire gas industry, and of course former uni students pay around 4 times more in HECS each year than do gas companies on PRRT.

If Peter Dutton thinks mining company taxes are so great for Australia, then he really should be in favour of making sure they pay much, much more.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Chief Economist Greg Jericho and co-host Hayden Starr discuss Trump’s tariffs, the Reserve Bank’s magic 8-ball monetary policy, and why minimum wage increases don’t drive up inflation.

After finally achieving a life long dream of putting petrol in a car, Peter Dutton could, at last, smile again.

Labor have flipped on the instant asset write off and are now extending the $20,000 figure (it was due to go back to $1,000) because – yup, you guessed it, they are in western Sydney today.

The Coalition want to make it $30,000 because everyone loves the giant ute vote.

Dutton:

Let’s look at a local tradie in Western Sydney. Under Albanese on budget night is you could have an instant asset write-off for capped at $1,000. The Government doesn’t believe in this. What they have done now by flipping it to $20,000 is to try and patch up a problem of their own making to get them through the election. And then I think it reverts back to $1,000. What we have got is a $30,000 instant asset write-off available for small businesses so what it means is that the coffee shop can go out and purchase new equipment and write that off as a deductible expense in that year.

Under Mr Albanese’s plan, businesses will delay the purchase of equipment and, therefore, it hits the economy.

A tradie who can go out and purchase a ute can do so under our scheme, much more effectively than they can under the Labor’s scheme.

The other thing too to point out – we’re not going to have Labor’s car tax, not have Labor’s ute tax which tradies and others in Western Sydney and right across the country will be paying under this government. So that’s the different.

And shock me, shock me, shock me – one of the biggest criticisms of Peter Dutton has been how cosy he is with billionaires like Gina Rinehart and suddenly there are stories from Coalition sources that the relationship between Dutton and Rinehart has cooled over the gas plan.

DEIDRE CHAMBERS.

And would you look at that – now Dutton is talking about how he will sometimes have a different point of view to his friends because gosh darn it, he’s just got to stand up for Australia you know?

Dutton has been on this bender since Malcolm Turnbull publicly made the point that Dutton’s eco-system of billionaires – like Rupert Murdoch and Rinehart – were an asset in some ways, but also a golden leash in others, because how does he stand up against Trump when his besties are Team Trump all the way?

In response to the sudden cooling of his relationship with Rinehart, Dutton says:

I have respect for Gina Rinehart as Australia’s most successful businesswoman. She employs thousands of Australians and normally the Labor Party would celebrate that as well. There is an enormous contribution that the mining sector makes to Australia and we just evidenced that yesterday in Western Australia.

Without WA pumping as an economy, we aren’t paying for roads here in Western Sydney and we aren’t paying for schools and we aren’t building tunnels and infrastructure without that revenue from the mining sector*.

And we’ll have points of difference with many people, but that doesn’t mean it impacts your friendship or your relationship with different business people. So that’s the best response I can give you.

*Incoming fact check on this.

Where is the gas plan?

Peter Dutton:

We got a month-long campaign and there’s a lot that we’ll talk about over the course of this month but the main message is – who can you trust at the next election to manage the economy effectively? Who can you trust to bring down the price of petrol?

Mr Albanese is promising higher electricity prices, higher gas prices, higher petrol prices, and we are the party that will deliver that immediate relief to families and will provide medium-term through more gas coming into the system and longer-term through our zero emissions energy system with nuclear power as the baseload.

Now, that is a game-changer for our country. We’ll talk about that everyday between now and the election because I don’t believe that Australians can afford three more years of an Albanese Government.

Peter Dutton is holding this press conference at a petrol station, which comes a day after a column in the Financial Review said they couldn’t believe he hadn’t yet held a press conference at a petrol station, given the main cost of living offering from the Coalition is a cut to the fuel excise.

Asked why it has taken so long for Dutton to stand in front of fuel pumps, Dutton said:

We have spoken this from budget night. That’s, I think, a game-changer in terms of family budgets. If you vote for Mr Albanese at the next election, you’ll get higher interest rates, higher electricity prices, higher gas prices, you’ll get higher petrol prices, into imper pe tutety under the Albanese Government. Families need help, not in 15 months’ time. 25 cents a litre off, every litre you pump into your tank, if you’re a two-car family, it’s about $30 a week. That is a very significant savings for families and, you know, I’m very pleased with what we have been able to offer.

Q: Just to be clear on this point – are you saying you would tailor some of our defence spending, some of our defence priorities, to win favour with Donald Trump on tariffs?

Peter Dutton:

I’m saying that the obvious point – that when the Prime Minister says we live in the most precarious period since the end of the Second World War and he takes 80 billion out of defence, that’s not keeping us safe.

We will acquire capability and we will provide support to the Australian Defence Force with one objective in mind – and that is to keep us safe.

But I think our interests align with the United States. We buy the F-35s from the United States. The Labor Party cut that program. We have guaranteed that we will have another squadron of F-35s pause it’s in our country’s best interest.

What I think is what’s happened, I don’t think the Australian Prime Minister has been able to make the US President aware of then opportunities that exist in our relationship. That’s why every Australian is worse off under this Government and now including those who export. I want to make sure that we can keep our countries strong and we’ll do that through good economic management and that’s what we’re doing.

Does Peter Dutton realise that one of the reasons the world is less safe is literally because of Donald Trump, the man he is advocating for?

Q: Are you saying you wouldn’t go ahead with certain elements of AUKUS pillar two until your secured that?

Dutton:

No, I want to go may head with more. I think there is more opportunity in the relationship. I made the point yesterday about the surface fleet. When you are looking at what the Japanese are doing with the Americans, they’re able to provide sustainment of their fleet because the Americans can’t keep up with – with their service fleet servicing.

So there are so many opportunities, the Government’s missed every one. The Prime Minister hasn’t spoken about this at all. I spoke about critical minerals last year. I spoke about it in January again this year. We are a reliable partner for the United States but the Government hasn’t done anything in this regard. So you need to look at off-take Agreements, you need to look at stockpiles, look at every opponent component of what that deal looks like. This Prime Minister hasn’t been able to do that. So I think there is upside in the relationship for both the United States and Australia, I want to get the 10% tariff off because there are small businesses.

You know, mums staying at home who created small business from nothing in their garage or in their back bedroom, they’re exporting to the United States and other companies that are much bigger and I spoke to some of those yesterday. I want to make sure we can expand our economy and that’s why a Liberal Government and a Coalition Government will always be better for families and for our economy.

Would Peter Dutton commit to buying American F-35s to get him to drop the trade tariffs?

Dutton:

Well, just to be clear in relation to where I think the opportunity is: I’ll give two examples.

One is the international agreement that we arrived at that we negotiated with the US and the UK for AUKUS, which is going to be underpinning our security for the next century, that – there’s been a lot of concentration on the submarine element of that, but there’s a lot that’s been done – or needs to be done in pillar two, certainly we envisaged that would happen.

And there’s opportunity there for us to purchase more from our allies including the United States, and for them to purchase more from us.

In relation to the guided weapons explosive ordinants, the program we had, that’s about keeping our country safe.

The government has defunded that program and there are components in the assembly line that can be purchased from Australia, from Australian companies, and there are weapons systems obviously that we can purchase from the United States.

So that’s why I think there’s a mutual interest to be found in the discussion with the United States. But you can’t have that discussion if the Prime Minister of the day can’t get a phone call or a meeting with the President of the United States.

The Prime Minister and his colleagues have been, you know, talking a big game, but why haven’t they been talking this game from January 20? It was well-known to the Albanese Government that there was going to be a tariff imposition. When we were in Government last, we negotiated for Australia to be exempt and this Prime Minister has failed that test. The precedent was there for it to happen. It hasn’t happened. I think that’s the difference between the two parties. We have a lot that we can bring to the table to enhance the relationship and I think that’s what Australians would expect.

So Dutton is promising to cosy up to Trump even more. WHAT COULD GO WRONG

Peter Dutton is the first up today. He is at Parramatta where he is going on about choices and the fuel excise (which has been already been debunked as being overstated in savings)

Asked whether he is disappointing the business community by not committing to repealing the same job same pay legislation (which prevents companies from hiring labour force hires for less money than staff) Dutton says:

We’re the party of making sure we can manage the economy effectively (what does that even mean) and we want to create an environment where people are able to expand their businesses and where families can afford to live again.

I want to make sure that small businesses and bigger businesses but pensioners and families as well can get a 25 cent a litre cut in the fuel price that they pay at the bowser every time they fuel up. And that’s what we’re offering at this election.

The Prime Minister’s offering 70 cents a day. It’s – it’s just not going to cut it. Families have gone back by $50,000 under this government. There’s – I think there’s more pain out there than what Australians realise and that’s what we’re focused on at the moment.

Meanwhile, the Guardian’s Sarah Basford Canales has taken a look at the Liberal candidate for Whitlam who appears to have shaped his entire identity around looking like Joe Rogan was drawn from memory:

From the story:

Benjamin Britton, who has been praised by Peter Dutton as an “outstanding candidate”, ran unsuccessfully for the United Australia party at the 2022 federal election.

He has since claimed “diversity and equity quotas, Marxist ideology and woke ideologies” have weakened the country’s defences, singling out a 2013 change allowing women to be recruited into frontline combat positions.

Among Britton’s other claims expressed on the podcasts are:

• Exposure to pornography leads to gender dysphoria and “transgender desires”;
• Labor intentionally keeps some electorates poor to have a better chance of winning them;
• Australia should “look at the Isle of Man” for lessons on introducing a flat tax rate to attract billionaires;
• The education system has “brainwashed” young Australians with Marxist ideology.

Can someone please ask one of these people to actually define what they mean by ‘Marxist ideology’? Do they have any idea what any of the words coming out of their mouths even mean?

I mean let’s go through this bullshit one by one.

If exposure to pornography leads to gender dysphoria and transgender desires, then why isn’t every teenage boy since about the 1800s or so experiencing gender dysphoria? Trans people make up about 1% of the population.

If Labor is intentionally keeping some electorates poor, than what exactly are the Nationals doing? The Nationals represent the poorest electorates in the country. At the last election, Labor electorates, on average, now outstrip Coalition electorates on earnings.

Why does every white man with a podcast want to simp for billionaires? They are never going to love you. We are all closer to becoming homeless than we are to getting anywhere near a billionaire’s circle and that’s not going to change.

Karl Marx helped shaped the Republican party. This was obviously a completely different time, but this idea of ‘Marxist ideology’ “brainwashing” school students is code for ‘schools sometimes explain things outside of the conservative prism and I don’t like it’ but these people who throw around these terms have as much understanding of Marxist ideology as they do female anatomy.

Meanwhile, in Kooyong, where the Liberals are trying to win back the seat from independent Monique Ryan, they have narrowed their entire campaign down to…corflutes.

Every single time a Liberal party corflute is damaged, or someone says something nasty about the Liberal party, someone runs to Sky News to say it was probably Monique Ryan.

In this economy. In this world. With these issues. Fricking corflutes is what has the Liberal party in a chokehold in Kooyong.

The problem with the Coalition’s message on this, which boils down to ‘we would have done everything the same, but also begged’ is that an increasing number of people don’t feel the same way about Trump as they do. Canada’s population has been energised by the ‘Elbow’s up’ campaign against the US. The UK is reviewing AUKUS. South Korea and Japan have united with China in a sign of (extraordinary given their histories) solidarity against Trump’s trade policies.

And in Australia, more people are looking at Trump as a threat, rather than an ally. The Australia Institute polling found that early last month, and the SMH polling found the same thing earlier this week.

It turns out that when the Face Eating Leopard party starts eating faces, suddenly things change.

Jason Clare then managed to get in his favourite line:

The Liberal Party is on Team Trump and we’re on Team  Australia..

Campaigns have spokespeople who say the things the leader, who is supposed to look dignified and sensible, can’t say.

So you can have the Praetorian Guard out the front making the quips and speaking in plain language, and then you have the leader who then says the same thing but in much more diplomatic language. Jason Clare does it for Labor and James Paterson does it for the Coalition.

Who have you heard more from, this campaign?

The Coalition are shouting about how they could have gotten a better deal from Trump, (Trump who campaigned on tariffs, who has made tariffs his identity, and who has imposed tariffs with no rhyme or reason for no other reason than he is an egotistical madman intent on revenge and destroying as much as he can, just because he can) and the way they would have gotten that ‘better’ deal (which would be no tariffs I assume) is by dangling critical mineral deals in front of him (Labor did that), appealing to him about the ‘friendship’ between Australia and the US (Labor did that) and oh, flying to see him in person.

Jason Clare:

Japan did  that, the UK did that, they can’t  get a better deal. Donald Trump put tariffs on an island where there are no human beings, there are just  penguins, so it is just ridiculous for Peter Dutton to be saying this could have happened but that’s just typical of Peter Dutton.

Enter Sussan Ley who looks like she is questioning every life choice she has ever made (which we assume also includes adding an extra S to her name for better numerology results)

Ley:

Can I say, these blows are a real blow to our exporters including the wine producers of western NSW  and in rural areas, where I come  from. But there has been a clear  failure of leadership here. Anthony Albanese has not done everything  that he could possibly do to spare Australians from this economic pain. How can he say that he left  everything on the field when he  didn’t even lace up his boots and  run out onto the pitch. This was a Team Australia moment. The captain of the team did not even turn up. We know that this was the disposition of the US administration from over four months ago. We’ve got a Prime Minister who can’t get a call, an Ambassador who can’t get a meeting. Meanwhile it is our exporters  suffering today?

Honestly.

Labor campaign spokesperson Jason Clare appeared on the Seven Network’s breakfast program where he criticised Peter Dutton for his (based on nothing) claims he would have got a better deal from Donald Trump. Dutton is now claiming that he would have dangled critical minerals in front of Trump (Trump loves himself a critical mineral) but Clare is like ‘duh, of course we did that?’

Clare:

We’ve already offered that to the US and they’ve rejected. What the US has done here is wrong. There is zero tax on American goods coming to Australia so there should be zero tariffs on what we sell to the United States. This is why we  say this is not the action of a  friend.

Peter Dutton was on this  morning talking about this. You  know, we’ve all got mates who are gibberers who could have said, “I  could have done a better, I could  have done something better.” But  they’re not running to be the Prime  Minister of Australia.

He beats his chest, pretending his tough. He’s  talking about doing a deal with the United States. Peter Dutton would  more likely write a book on the art of the kneel. We’re not going to bend the knee.

We’re not going to bend the knee to the States. We’re stand up for ourselves every single time.

It has been a slower start to the election campaigning today – there is a News Corp event in western Sydney, so both campaigns are in the Emerald City today. Both leaders, of course, will appear at the event.

The first debate is next Tuesday, which will also be a News Corp event and will also be hosted in western Sydney.

Then Jim Chalmers and Angus Taylor will debate each other (lol) on the Wednesday of next week.

Then there is another debate between Albanese and Dutton, this time hosted by the ABC, the week after.

Huzzah.

Penny Wong said she wouldn’t engage in the “hypothetical” of whether or not Australia would follow through with its obligations under the International Criminal Court and carry out its arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when asked by the Coalition in senate estimates.

Michaelia Cash wanted to know if Netanyahu, who is wanted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, was “welcome in Australia”.

Wong said she wouldn’t engage in hypotheticals. But Cash said “under a Dutton government he would be very much welcomed here”.

Which puts a Dutton government on the same side as the authoritarian Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary.

As AAP reports Hungary has announced it is withdrawing from the ICC and welcomed Netanyahu with open arms:

In an announcement timed with Netanyahu’s visit on Thursday, Orban said Hungary would withdraw completely from the ICC, an organisation set up more than two decades ago to prosecute those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

“This is no longer an impartial court, a rule-of-law court, but rather a political court. This has become the clearest in light of its decisions on Israel,” Orban said at a news conference with Netanyahu where they did not take questions.

Orban had invited his Israeli counterpart to Budapest in November, a day after the arrest warrant was issued over Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip that was launched following an attack by the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas on southern Israel.

Well The Economist is not mincing words.

Updated analysis by the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute reveals that a fair and appropriate increase to the minimum wage, and accompanying increases to award rates, would not have a significant effect on inflation.

The analysis examines the correlation between minimum wage increases and inflation going back to 1990, and finds no consistent link between minimum wage increases and inflation.

It also reveals that such an increase to award wages could be met with only a small reduction in profit margins. 

The report, authored by Greg Jericho, based on previous work by both he and Jim Stanford, finds that an increase to the National Minimum Wage and award wages of between 5.8% and 9.2% in the Fair Work Commissions’ Annual Wage Review, due in June, is required to restore the real buying power of low-paid workers to pre-pandemic trends. 

The report also finds that this would not significantly affect headline inflation. 

Key findings of the report include:

• Last year’s decision, which lifted the minimum wage and award wages by 3.75 per cent, offset the inflation of the previous year but still left those on Modern Awards with real earnings below what they were in 2020.
• By June this year, the real value of Modern Award wages will be almost 4 per cent below what they were in September 2020.
• Despite increases in the minimum wage over the past 2 years above inflation, inflation fell by a combined 4.5 percentage points.
• There has been no significant correlation between rises in the minimum wage and inflation since 1990.
• Raising wages by 5.8 to 9.2 per cent this year would offset recent inflation and restore real wages for award-covered workers to the pre-pandemic trend.
• Even if fully passed on by employers, higher award wages would have no significant impact on economy-wide prices.
• A 9.2 per cent increase in award wages could be fully offset, with no impact on prices at all, by a 1.8 per cent reduction in corporate profits – still leaving profits far above historical levels 

“Australia’s lowest paid workers have been hardest hit by inflation over the past 3 years,” said Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute’s Center for Future Work.

“The price rises of necessities always hurt those on low incomes harder than those on average and high incomes.

“This analysis shows there is no credible economic reason to deny them a decent pay raise above inflation.

“It’s vital the Fair Work Commission ensure that the minimum wage not only keeps up with inflation but also returns the value to the real trend of before the pandemic.”

Labor has teased it will be releasing detail on plans for a critical minerals strategic reserve, which is politician talk for ‘we have worked out from giving away our other natural resources like gas that we probably should have kept a lot more for ourselves, so now we have found this other stuff, we’re not going to be complete idiots and let mining companies have it all at the detriment of the Australian people’.

Don Farrell is talking about that a little more today because the Trump tariffs are still dominating the news cycle (Israel is killing between 70 and 100 Palestinians a day on rough estimates and bombed a school sheltering families as we all slept last night, but trade impacts rich countries so….)

Australia has critical minerals needed in the energy transition and new technologies (batteries are very big right now) and so everyone is looking for their critical minerals source. The US does not have an abundance of critical minerals and rare earths, so it is trying to hoover up as much as it can (you may remember Trump tried to get Ukraine’s in return for support against Russia) so critical minerals are hot right now.

Farrell:

Australia is often described as the lucky country and when it comes to critical minerals and rare earths Australia is again a lucky country.

We either have the most or the second-most reserves of critical minerals in the world and, of course, we think we can provide those minerals to all of those countries that are part of the net zero project.

We have reached agreement with the Europeans, so we – we couldn’t get an agreement with the Europeans on a Free Trade Agreement, but we did get an agreement with the Europeans on critical minerals.

You’ll have seen President Trump talk about Greenland, talk about the Ukraine in the context of access to critical minerals. Well, we got them right here. We got the technology to extract them. We’re one of the most efficient countries in the world for the extraction of minerals and we can do the same for those critical minerals, and, of course, we can process them here.

This Government as part of our made in Australia policies, we believe we can process those minerals. So we think we can be a reliable supplier of those minerals into the future. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, he’ll be making some more comments and some more statements about what we propose to do in this critical minerals space.

Al Jazeera has reported on the US Geological Survey’s Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025 which ranked critical mineral countries this way:

• China – 44 million metric tonnes (mt; 1mt is equal to 1,000 kilogrammes). It also controls about 70 percent of global rare earth mineral processing
• Brazil – 21 million mt
• India – 6.9 million mt
• Australia – 5.7 million mt
• Russia – 3.8 million mt
• Vietnam – 3.5 million mt
• United States – 1.9 million mt
• Greenland – 1.5 million mt
• Tanzania – 890,000mt
• South Africa – 860,000mt
• Canada – 830,000mt
• Thailand – 4,500mt

The ABC Investigations team have uncovered “a textbook case of astroturfing” (when fake campaigns attempt to look like grassroot support for an issue) with the company which is doing the internal polling for the Coalition also attempting to boost public support for the gas industry.

As Pat McGrath and Kirsten Robb report:

Corporate records show the group was set up by the CEO of Tamboran Resources — a gas company developing fracking operations in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin, which is listed on the Australian share market and New York Stock Exchange.

Freshwater Strategy has also been hired by the Coalition to conduct internal polling and voter research during the federal election campaign.

Emails obtained by ABC Investigations show Freshwater Strategy director Jonathon Flegg offering to give a personal briefing about Australians for Natural Gas to figures in the business community.

“All of the published opinion polls are pointing to the likelihood of a hostile minority government after the forthcoming federal election,” he wrote in an email sent earlier this year.

“The future of our domestic energy security hinges in the balance, impacting all Australians.”

You can read more on that, here.

Bandt says in a minority government, the Greens would make putting dental into Medicare a priority in any negotiations.

Many of the experts are saying it’s (a hung parliament) likely and when you got, you know, you just have to look at the first week of the campaign, it’s the battle of the bandaids.

We’re facing these big crises in this country. People can’t afford to buy a home, people are skipping healthcare because they can’t afford it, we got floods, we got fires, and instead we just got this tinkering around the edges.

People have got a choice between the timid and the terrible really. I think people deserve better than that. Now, you have got less than 1-in-3 people across the country voting less than a third of the country votes for the government.

A bit more of the country voting for the opposition and about a third voting for someone else, and so, I think there is a really strong desire to have more voices there in Parliament, and we’re saying in that situation, we’re being really clear -we want to kick Peter Dutton out and get Labor to act on issues like getting dental into Medicare.

Now to the giant toothbrush.

Putting dental into Medicare has long been the Greens policy, but Bandt said it’s beyond time for the major parties to back it in.

People are putting off going to the dentist because they can’t afford it. If your child needs braces, it can run into the thousands of dollars.

When we had minority Parliament last time, the Greens got Dental into Medicare for children, and so if you haven’t used it yet, it’s worth it, you can take your child to the dentist and use your Medicare card for treatment for under 18s.

Now, we want to get it in for everyone. Australians are already spending huge amount of money going to the dentist.

By bringing that into Medicare, it will deliver real savings. How do we afford it? Well, at the moment, 1-in-3 big corporations in this country pays no tax at all and so we have released a costed plan to make these big corporations start paying their fair share of tax. But more than covers the cost of getting dental into Medicare.

To Adam Bandt’s point about what Canada is doing, prime minister Mark Carney (who is also in an election campaign) wants. countries to band together and create a new free trade system, which would exclude the United States.

This was what former Clinton economic advisor Robert Reich suggested yesterday.

Carney has said: yup, let’s go.

Adam Bandt continues:

Peter Dutton wants to bring Trump-style politics to Australia. Anthony Albanese wants to bring Trump to Australia. He invited him in the middle of all of this, he’s invited him to come to Australia and visit.

… I don’t think that’s how you should relate to bullies like Trump and demagogues like Trump. I think clearly – take a look at the Ukraine, for example, they hope that Donald Trump would always be there for them and clearly he left them in the lurch, and so this should be an opportunity, I think, to reset the relationship with the United States, but instead they’re talking tough, Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton, but behind the scenes, it is more of the same. Other countries, like Canada, are saying, no, we want to reassess our relationship with Donald Trump and Australia should do the same.

Greens leader Adam Bandt is a guest on ABC News Breakfast and he has brought a giant toothbrush on set.

But before we talk about the giant toothbrush, Bandt speaks on the Trump tariffs:

I think should be clear we should be detaching ourselves from Donald Trump. Donald Trump is dangerous, danger to peace, danger to democracy.

Very clearly these aren’t the acts of a friend, but still Australia acts as if Donald Trump is going to ride to the rescue, but when it comes to defence, for example, I think this is an opportunity for Australia to detach itself from Donald Trump, have a much more independent relationship.

We have got the capacity to now forge those new alliances with other countries that Donald Trump is doing this to, but we should certainly not be tying ourselves at the hip to Donald Trump now and basing our whole defence policy on Donald Trump riding into the rescue.

Hello and welcome to Friday! We have made it through the first week of the election campaign. Almost. Just one month to go!

Today is still dominated by Anthony Albanese’s stumble off a stage. (jks, although it is being labelled a ‘campaign mishap’ by the right wing press, so yup – we called it!). It is still all about Donald Trump’s tariffs and the Coalition remains just as delusional that there was a “better deal” for Australia.

As if Trump didn’t make his entire election campaign about doing this.

As if Trump doesn’t always do what he says.

As if Australia didn’t actually come through comparatively lightly.

As if Peter Dutton – PETER DUTTON, and we assume David Coleman (the shadow foreign affairs minister in case you have forgotten – most people do) could somehow get Trump to change his mind through their sparkling personalities and charm.

Because lets remember here, the Coalition are not saying they would deviate from what the lines the Albanese government has set in terms of biosecurity, regulation of the tech giants and the PBS. So what extra cards do the Coalition have?

‘We’d stick to the same guns, but he’d just like us better’ is as flimsy as the Coalition’s policy platform.

But yet, here we are.

News Corp have an event in western Sydney today, so no doubt both leaders will make their way to that at some point today.

It’s at least a four coffee day. And a sweet treat. Go on.. You’ve earned it.

Ready? Let’s get into it.