Category Archives: Australian politics

Peter Dutton’s plan to move to Sydney instead of Canberra if elected ‘arrogant’, Labor says

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Opposition leader confirms he would move into Kirribilli House if elected PM – a statement Anthony Albanese says shows ‘a fair bit of hubris’

Labor frontbencher Katy Gallagher has accused Peter Dutton of “arrogantly measuring the curtains at Kirribilli House” and disrespecting the national capital.

Peter Dutton has confirmed he and his family would move into Sydney’s Kirribilli House – a harbourside mansion overlooking the Opera House – rather than the Lodge in Canberra if elected on 3 May.

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Dutton flip-flops on proposals for three separate referendums if Coalition wins election

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Opposition leader floats – then walks back – polls on Indigenous recognition, four-year parliamentary terms and stripping citizenship of dual nationals

Peter Dutton has floated – then quickly walked back – proposals for three separate referendums if he wins office, shutting down ideas he had raised to change the constitution for Indigenous recognition, four-year parliamentary terms and stripping citizenship of dual nationals.

The opposition leader had told The Australian newspaper in an interview published on Saturday that he was open to referendums on the three issues if there could be bipartisanship found with the Labor party. “I hope at some stage there will be common ground,” Dutton told the newspaper.

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Bowen says Dutton ‘making it up as he goes’ on gas plan as experts question lack of detail

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Opposition leader promises to release secret modelling within days as former ACCC chair urges Coalition to explain how they would lower prices

Energy minister Chris Bowen claims Peter Dutton is “making it up as he goes” with his gas plan, as experts question how a Coalition government would force gas producers to sell to Australians at cheaper prices.

In his first public comments on Dutton’s plan to bring more gas into Australia’s energy market, Bowen claimed the Coalition was simply dusting off a plan created under the former Morrison government.

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Labor promises price gouging crack down on supermarkets

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Anthony Albanese says his government, if re-elected, will establish taskforce to investigate ‘excessive’ pricing regimes, and it will be enforced by ACCC

Anthony Albanese has promised that a re-elected Labor government will outlaw price gouging by supermarkets, marking the first big policy announcement of the campaign.

The prime minister on Sunday will announce Labor will act on recommendations made by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to improve transparency about supermarket prices, promotions and loyalty programs.

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MP Andrew Gee praises himself as ‘the good guy’ in Facebook fail

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Independent MP for Calare caught doing an ‘Angus Taylor’ by replying to a Facebook post from his own account

Andrew Gee, an independent MP for Calare in NSW, has been caught doing an “Angus Taylor” by replying to a Facebook post from his own account.

Gee posted a statement on Facebook on Friday accusing the Nationals of engaging in “dirty tactics” on day one of the election, claiming they had called an elderly constituent and spread “blatant lies about who I was going to preference in this election”.

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Protesters turn up at Dutton’s events despite secret travel plans – as it happened

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We are currently waiting on the PM, who is due to hold a press conference in … Dickson, which of course is Peter Dutton’s electorate.

Dutton claims comparisons to Trump show PM doesn’t have a plan

If the PM has that attack, know that they don’t have a plan.

If the PM had done a better job over the past three years, if the country was better off, the economy was better off, the PM will be telling a different story.

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Federal election ‘will be won or lost in the suburbs’, Chalmers says

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Treasurer is scathing of Coalition’s pledge to repeal Labor’s tax cuts but admits he is ‘very concerned’ about global trade war

The federal election will be a battle of the suburbs, the treasurer says, declaring Labor’s budget and economic plan is focused squarely on the outer suburban areas which may decide the next prime minister.

In an interview with Guardian Australia’s Full Story podcast, Jim Chalmers also dismissed Peter Dutton’s budget reply centrepiece, a temporary fuel excise cut, as providing “no ongoing help with the cost of living”.

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Labor’s grassroots environmental group dismayed by rushed bill protecting salmon industry

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The Labor Environment Action Network says it won’t ‘sugar coat’ its reaction after working ‘so hard’ on obtaining commitment for EPA

Labor’s grassroots environment action network has told its members it does not support legislation that Anthony Albanese rushed through parliament this week to protect salmon farming in Tasmania, describing it as “frustrating and disappointing”.

In an email on Thursday, the Labor Environment Action Network (Lean) said it would not “sugar coat” its reaction to a bill that was introduced to end a formal government reconsideration of whether an expansion of fish farming in Macquarie Harbour, on the state’s west coast, in 2012 was properly approved.

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Australian home affairs secretary admits to using disappearing messages on Signal for work

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In wake of Trump administration group chat scandal, department’s chief operating officer tells Senate there is no ban on staff using the feature

The department of home affairs secretary, Stephanie Foster, has admitted to using disappearing messages on Signal, but says she complies with record-keeping obligations, as officials face scrutiny of their use of encrypted messaging apps in the wake of the Trump administration group chat scandal.

The editor of the Atlantic, Jeff Goldberg, published a story this week saying he was accidentally added to a Signal group chat of top US officials discussing operational details on a plan to strike Yemen.

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Wong calls ‘reprehensible’ letter targeting Hong Kong activist in Australia a ‘threat to national sovereignty’

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Ted Hui received letter offering reward for information about his family after China accused Australia of interfering with its internal affairs

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has described another threatening letter sent to an exiled Hong Kong dissident in Australia as “reprehensible”, a “threat to our national sovereignty” and “the safety and security of Australians”.

The anonymous letter, mailed from Hong Kong and sent to Ted Hui’s Adelaide office, offered his colleagues $203,000 for information on his whereabouts and his family. It arrived just days after China’s foreign ministry accused the Albanese government of interfering with its internal affairs.

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Australia to redirect $100m in foreign aid to Indo-Pacific region after Trump pulls funding

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Foreign affairs minister Penny Wong says ‘hard strategic decisions’ need to be made

Australia will redirect more than $100m in foreign aid toward the Indo-Pacific region to urgently plug funding gaps after Donald Trump announced the US would cancel around $US54bn worth in overseas development assistance programs.

The official development assistance budget for 2025-26 will reach $5.1bn, an increase of $135.9m from 2024-25, but $119m will be reprioritised to support economic, health, humanitarian and climate responses in the neighbouring regions.

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Coalition may rethink rules that push car markers to create cheaper EVs and hybrids for Australians

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Opposition says Labor’s national vehicle emission standard is ‘poorly designed’, despite data showing uptick in green vehicle sales

Australia’s love-hate relationship with fuel-guzzling utes and SUVs is now a looming election issue, after the Coalition indicated it may rethink Labor’s vehicle emission standard.

On Tuesday the shadow transport minister, Bridget McKenzie, called Labor’s vehicle emission standard “poorly designed” and said the Coalition will have “more to say” about it when the opposition releases its own transport policy before the election.

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ALP under fire for ‘repurposing racist meme’ with ‘we love Medicare’ T-shirt

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Labor admits it ‘missed the mark’ with social media posts sharing T-shirt that states ‘This is Australia, we eat meat, we drink beer and we love Medicare!’

An Australian Labor party social media post has left followers scratching their heads, with its apparent send-up of white nationalist messaging triggering the question: “Have you been hacked?”

The Instagram post – which was uploaded on Sunday and then deleted on Monday – features a white man wearing a T-shirt with a flag-themed map of Australia and the words: “THIS IS AUSTRALIA / WE EAT MEAT / WE DRINK BEER AND WE LOVE MEDICARE!”. The Instagram caption stated: “CALLING ALL AUSSIE PATRIOTS NOW IS THE TIME TO PROTECT OUR MEDICARE.”

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‘Apoplectic’ environment groups halt Coalition attack ads to take aim at Albanese over species’ ‘death warrant’

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Exclusive: Australia’s top green organisations suspend anti-nuclear power ads to fund campaign against Labor’s move to protect salmon industry

Australia’s leading environment organisations have abruptly suspended advertising campaigns attacking the Coalition’s plan to introduce nuclear power and are instead funding ads accusing Anthony Albanese of signing “the death warrant” of an endangered species.

The shift from criticising the Coalition to Labor on the cusp of an election campaign was agreed by the bosses of green groups – including the Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace, the WWF Australia and the Climate Council – at what campaigners described as an emergency meeting on Saturday.

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What a $5,000 ticket will and won’t get you at one of Canberra’s budget night fundraising soirees

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As you decipher how the budget may alter your life on Tuesday night, your politicians will be raking in the cash by wining and dining donors and lobbyists

As you decipher how the federal budget may alter your life on Tuesday night, your politicians will be raking in the cash by wining and dining donors and lobbyists in Canberra.

This year’s budget night fundraisers – often concealed from the general public – could be something of a final hoorah. New laws capping campaign spending will soon make these budget night soirees less important, at least financially.

Tickets will have to be publicly disclosed as gifts, meaning there will be a record of those who sipped champagne with politicians and filled the party coffers. But these changes won’t apply until 2026. For now, the show goes on.

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Labor vows to support working from home as Coalition touts public servants cuts – as it happened

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Angus Taylor calls Labor’s energy bill rebate ‘Band-Aid on a bullet wound’

The shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, also says the Coalition will not “get in the way” of the government’s $150 energy rebate, announced last night.

We’re not going to get in the way of it. The starting point here though is very clear which is Labor’s failed on delivering its promise of a $275 power price reduction.

We’re not going to stand in the way of Labor cleaning up their own mess. This is putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. The solution here is to get a structural outcome which is a reduction in underlying electricity prices, which has not been achieved, of course. It’s gone the other way.

They are both supplied by the US with little to no sovereign input, are expensive and outdated. Like Aukus, this equipment is much more about signalling our loyalty to the US than defending Australia.

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Changes in Help to Buy housing scheme will make ‘most first home buyers’ eligible, Labor says

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Minister announces increase in both income and property price caps as part of 2025 budget

Labor will increase the income and price caps for its signature Help to Buy scheme as part of next week’s budget, which it has promised will deliver cost-of-living relief.

Under the shared equity scheme, the commonwealth provides first home buyers with 30% of the purchase price of an existing home, or 40% for a new home.

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Bob Brown urges Greens to punish Labor at election if Albanese amends law to protect salmon farming

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PM’s pledge to protect Tasmanian industry will weaken laws already failing to protect natural sites and at-risk species, environmentalists say

Former Greens leader Bob Brown has urged the minor party not to preference Labor ahead of the Liberal party in Tasmanian seats at the upcoming election if the Albanese government legislates to effectively exempt salmon farming from national environment laws.

Conservationists have sharply criticised Anthony Albanese’s pledge that he will rush through legislation next week to protect the salmon industry in Macquarie Harbour, on the state’s west coast, from the potential results of a long-running legal review.

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Police investigating alleged online threats to third Sydney mosque – as it happened

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Jim Chalmers was also up on ABC News Breakfast this morning, where he was asked if there’s a reason the government can’t commit to more of the 20 recommendations.

He said it was committing to all of the recommendations “in principle” and, like earlier, that the government was working on some of them already.

The ACCC has handed down a 441-page report and not on any of those pages does it support the divestiture powers which have been proposed by our political opponents.

If you make one of the big chains sell in the community, there’s a risk that it’s just snapped up by the other big player in the supermarket sector and that would be counter-productive. Or if it chases supermarket options out of town in regional communities. It’s got hairs all over it, frankly.

We’re making the food and grocery code mandatory. We’re empowering the ACCC. We’re cracking down on mergers and acquisitions. We’re working to make it easier for new entrants to compete with the two big supermarkets in particular. These are all of the things that we’re cracking down on when it comes to the supermarkets.

We don’t want the supermarkets to be treating Australians like mugs.

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Major-power conflict ‘no longer unimaginable’, Australian intelligence review finds

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Independent assessment, which was handed to government before US election, warns of ‘global geopolitical and economic fragmentation’

Australia faces a world more volatile and dangerous than it has known for more than four decades, and “major-power conflict is no longer unimaginable”, a review of the country’s intelligence agencies has found.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, commissioned the review of the work of the 10 agencies that make up Australia’s national intelligence community in September 2023.

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There have been shifts in relative global power balances, accompanied by a sharp contest between nation-states for power and influence. This contest is at once diplomatic, military, economic and technological, and is pursued within Australia’s borders as much as beyond them, including through cyber-attacks and foreign interference.

New technologies are being used to amplify some old threats while creating entirely new ones.

There are a range of transnational challenges, including climate change, pandemics, irregular migration, terrorism, and polarisation and fraying social cohesion in many democracies. In a globalised world, the ripples from even geographically distant conflicts inevitably reach Australia, with significant, often grave, consequences.

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