Category Archives: Labor party

Axing Labor’s free Tafe would mean fewer builders and higher house prices, experts warn

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The Coalition remains opposed to the scheme, claiming it is ‘badly designed and poorly targeted’

Australia’s construction worker shortage – and prospects for affordable housing – would worsen if Peter Dutton scraps Labor’s free Tafe program, experts warn, pushing housing prices even further out of reach of prospective buyers.

After a video emerged of Liberal frontbencher Sarah Henderson saying the fee-free Tafe policy was “just not working”, the opposition leader was asked on Tuesday if he would cut the scheme – designed to encourage people to work in priority industries like the construction sector.

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Peter Dutton says he will help his children with a house deposit ‘at some stage’

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Both major parties spruik housing policies, with Anthony Albanese saying critics may not have read all the detail of Labor’s plan

Peter Dutton says he will help his son with a housing deposit “at some stage”, a day after dodging questions about whether he would use his family wealth and salary to assist his children to get into the market.

Dutton on Monday brought his 20-year-old son, Harry, on the campaign trail to talk about the difficulties of saving for a home. Harry said he and his sister, Rebecca, had both been “saving like mad” to scrape together deposits of their own.

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Finance minister vows to slash more consultants and accuses Coalition of importing Trump’s Doge agenda

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Exclusive: Katy Gallagher says focus will be ‘on driving cultural change’ within public service if Labor wins the election

The finance minister has vowed to continue slashing the government’s use of consultants and rebuilding the public service if re-elected, while accusing the Coalition of importing a Doge-style agenda from the US.

In an effort to highlight the public service as a key campaign issue, Katy Gallagher said Labor had inherited an agriculture department that was “going broke”, a “bin fire” at home affairs, a social services department with no internal policy unit and “total disasters” in aged care and veterans’ affairs agencies.

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Guardian Essential poll: Labor pulls further ahead of Coalition as voters back Albanese on cost of living

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The survey is in line with other recent major polls which have all showed movements toward the ALP

Labor has pulled further ahead of the Coalition as the election campaign continues, opening up a larger lead in the latest Essential poll after two weeks of policy confusion and backdowns from Peter Dutton’s Liberals.

Dutton’s approval rating has also dipped, while more voters rate Anthony Albanese as the better leader on addressing cost of living, providing stable leadership, emissions reduction and keeping Australians safe.

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Coalition scores just 1/100 points for environment and climate policies from conservation organisation

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Australian Conservation Foundation says opposition has ‘failed every single test’ while Labor passes with 54% and Greens achieve 98%

One of Australia’s largest conservation organisations has awarded the federal Coalition just 1 out of 100 for its environment and climate change policies – the lowest score it has given the Liberal and National parties in more than 20 years of compiling pre-election scorecards.

Labor scraped through with a pass – on 54% – while the Greens achieved 98%, according to the scorecard, which ranked the major parties and key independents on their policies for protecting nature, championing renewable energy, and rejecting nuclear and fossil fuels.

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Labor announces $10m to provide ‘inclusive, culturally safe’ healthcare for LGBTQ+ Australians

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Exclusive: Funding would go towards third-party training for doctors and nurses, which advocates say would remove barriers to treatment

Labor would provide health workers with training to care for LGBTIQA+ Australians in a $10m package to upskill doctors and nurses alongside a new accreditation program, the health minister, Mark Butler, has said.

The election promise, to be announced on Monday, would see Labor contract a training provider to design programs to train healthcare workers to help give “inclusive, culturally safe primary care” for gay, lesbian and gender-diverse Australians.

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Ten things we learned from Anthony Albanese’s speech at the Labor party campaign launch

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The PM addressed a crowd of 500 people in Perth, spruiking new policies on housing and tax deductions, celebrating WA and invoking Donald Trump. Here’s what you may have missed

Labor’s election campaign launch in Perth was headlined by a $10bn housing pledge, a vow to help first home buyers and a new $1,000 “automatic” tax deduction for all workers.

It also featured a former prime minister, gags about rugby league and more than a few digs at Peter Dutton alongside Labor’s claims that he is copying Donald Trump’s political playbook.

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Revealed: nearly 2m hectares of koala habitat bulldozed since 2011 – despite political promises to protect species

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Guardian Australia is highlighting the plight of our endangered native species during an election campaign that is ignoring broken environment laws and rapidly declining ecosystems

Nearly 2m hectares of forests suitable for endangered koalas have been destroyed since the iconic species was declared a threatened species in 2011, according to analysis for Guardian Australia.

The scale of habitat destruction in Queensland and New South Wales – states in which the koala is formally recognised as being at risk of extinction – has continued despite political promises it would be protected.

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Police remove homophobic banners hung over Melbourne highway targeting Labor MP Julian Hill

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Exclusive: Police confirm report of two offensive signs targeting Bruce MP Julian Hill, who is gay, hung on overpass bridge

Police have removed two offensive and homophobic banners targeting Labor MP Julian Hill that were hung over a major Melbourne highway on Friday morning.

The banners prompted bi-partisan condemnation and were described by Victoria police as an example of “hate-based behaviour” that would not be tolerated.

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Gender politics: will the 2025 election send more female MPs to Australia’s parliament?

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Labor has made great strides towards gender equality among its MPs and senators, but the number of female Coalition members remains stubbornly low

The 47th parliament was Australia’s most diverse to date. Both houses broke records for gender, ethnic and cultural diversity.

Across both houses in the outgoing parliament, the gender split was 55% to 45% in favour of men. Women made up 39% of the House of Representatives and 58% of the Senate.

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Australia election 2025 live: Bowen says Coalition modelling on gas bill savings is a ‘scamphlet’ missing important detail

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Health minister grilled on Labor’s $1bn mental health package

The health minister, Mark Butler, says Labor will not technically be building new mental health centres under its $1bn mental health promise.

We’re not building them. This is to fund the operations of these centres. Generally, they will rent existing premises.

They won’t be brand-new buildings. What we will do, say, in a particular area of say, north Brisbane or regional Queensland – we say we want to establish - let’s use the word establish other than build.

Head to Health – no one knew what it was, okay?

We did research. We basically, looked at how the existing services, which had started under the former government, were performing.

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Albanese accuses Coalition of ‘gaslighting’ public over energy as Dutton touts economic credentials in first leaders’ debate

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Prime minister asks ‘how can you believe what they’ll do after the election’ as opposition leader accuses Labor of having the wrong priorities

Anthony Albanese has accused Peter Dutton of “gaslighting” Australians on key Liberal policies in a spirited first leaders’ debate of the election campaign which focused heavily on energy, health and tax policies.

Neither man made a major misstep in the Sky News forum on Tuesday evening in western Sydney, where Albanese was voted the winner in a poll of 100 undecided voters. Albanese won 44 votes, Dutton won 35 and 21 remained undecided.

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Could the Coalition’s spectacular backdown be the circuit breaker that Peter Dutton needs?

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Junking a signature policy to focus on his pet areas could help get his rocky campaign back on track

As mid-election mea culpas go, it was a big one.

After campaigning for months on a crackdown on those “entitled” Canberra public servants, those fat-cat bureaucrats supposedly taking hard-working Aussies for a ride with their generous work-from-home conditions, Peter Dutton’s latest policy backdown has seen the Coalition spectacularly concede defeat on plans to “bring our public servants back to work” and apologise for raising it.

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Guardian Essential poll: Albanese’s approval rating takes a hit but Labor inches ahead of Coalition

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Voters scored both PM and Peter Dutton poorly on key leadership questions including trust, competence and being out of touch

Labor has ticked ahead of the Coalition on a two-party-plus basis in the first Guardian Essential poll of the election period, as Anthony Albanese turns the blowtorch on Peter Dutton in the opening days of the campaign.

Essential’s “2PP+” measure, which allows voters to remain undecided, put Labor ahead 48% to 47%, with 5% undecided. The survey of 1,100 people was of a piece with recent major polls from Newspoll, Resolve and YouGov, which showed small movements toward Labor in recent weeks.

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

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This blog has now closed

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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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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Controversial bill to protect Tasmanian salmon industry passes despite environmental concerns

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Critics say industry threatens the endangered Maugean skate and laws were rushed through with ’no proper process’

Controversial legislation to protect the Tasmanian salmon industry has passed parliament after the government guillotined debate to bring on a vote in the Senate on Wednesday night.

Government and Coalition senators voted in favour of the bill, which was designed to bring an end to a formal reconsideration by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, into whether an expansion of fish farming in Macquarie harbour in 2012 was properly approved.

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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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