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Peter Dutton is in Western Australia for his first visit to the mining state of this campaign, and has come bearing a $600m announcement for roads which are critical to mining and agriculture.

He will spend the day in WA and Perth, before it’s expected he’ll return to the east coast late tonight or early tomorrow.

All candidates were made aware that if they were not coming tonight then they would be represented by an empty chair. This notice was given in advance.

The Liberals have failed to announce a 2030 or 2035 emissions target, committing only to net zero by 2050. The fate of the climate will be determined by cumulative emissions, so this lack of short or medium term targets is deeply problematic.

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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.

On the issue of Aukus, the opposition leader said the Coalition is committed to increased defence spending. Follow today’s news live

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‘Israeli government does not have a lot of palatable options’ – Sharma

The Liberal senator and former ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma was up on ABC News Breakfast earlier to discuss the latest strikes carried out by Israel on Gaza.

If any of us were in their position, we would be single-mindedly focused on the return of our loved ones. I can understand that. This is a politically contentious issue in Israel, there’s no walking away from that, but I don’t think the government has a lot of good choices.

Continuing the ceasefire was not going to lead to the release of further hostages, at least according to the mediators involved in the talks. Hamas had basically said they weren’t planning on returning any more. As I said, in that situation, the Israeli government does not have a lot of palatable options.

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Growing inequality erodes social cohesion – Leigh

In his speech, Andrew Leigh will say growing inequality is an issue because it erodes social cohesion.

When wealth is concentrated among a few, society becomes fragmented. Our sense of collective responsibility diminishes, and the fabric that binds us as Australians weakens.

This approach contrasts with our predecessors, whose tax policies disproportionately benefited the highest earners, widening the gap between rich and poor. By maintaining a fair and responsible tax structure, we can fund essential public services while ensuring that the most fortunate Australians contribute their fair share.

Yet since the 1980s, Australia has seen what economists describe as a ‘Great Divergence’, reversing the gains of earlier decades.

Today, the top 1% of income earners receive nearly 10% of national income, nearly doubling their share from 40 years ago. Wealth inequality is even more extreme, with the richest 10% owning more than 60 times the wealth of the bottom 10%.

‘Palestinian civilians cannot pay the price of defeating Hamas. It has now been two weeks since humanitarian aid last entered Gaza’ says foreign minister. Follow today’s news live

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Labour-hire flight attendants to get pay boost

More than 750 domestic flight attendants funnelled to Qantas by labour-hire firms will get a hefty pay boost, AAP reports, in what is being hailed as a victory for “same job, same pay” laws.

Some of these crew will no longer need three jobs to make ends meet and put a roof over the heads of their families.

These are workers who wear the same uniform, do the same work, work the same rosters but have been paid significantly less than their colleagues. They do the same job and they deserve the same pay.

A crime scene has been established and an arson chemist will attend the scene [this] morning. The investigation into the circumstances surrounding the fire remains ongoing.

The prime minister has ruled out imposing reciprocal tariffs on the US. Follow today’s news live

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Trump tariff decision bad for Australia-US ties – Butler

Mark Butler said the US tariff decision was “bad for our relationship” when asked whether it had a damaging effect on international relations on ABC News Breakfast a short while ago.

This is a disappointing decision. It’s a bad economic decision. It’s bad for our relationship. It’s bad for the US, ultimately, because we think that the exports we send to them - which are significantly less than the exports they send to us - are good for the US economy. They’re good for US industry. They’re particularly good for defence, which is an important area of cooperation.

We think this is a bad decision that’s disappointing, and we’ll continue to press the case for it.

We’ve only been going at this for almost seven weeks that President Trump has been back in office. We intend to continue to press the case at the highest level – particularly ambassador Rudd has been relentless in this, meeting with officials almost constantly to press the American case. We’ve had a lot of senior ministerial engagement.

Obviously the prime minister has spoken directly with the president. We’ll continue to do that. It’s not only in Australia’s interest – which for us, is the most important thing – we’re confident, we’re very sure it’s in both of our interests’ interest to continue the open trade that has characterised particularly the last 20 years under the US FTA.

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Good morning blog readers – this is Rafqa Touma, and I’ll be taking you through the day’s live news updates. Thank you to Martin Farrer for getting us rolling this morning.

More than 125,000 properties are in the dark as crews work to restore power across QLD and NSW in Alfred’s aftermath.

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Chalmers defends Australian defence spending as Trump administration says nation should spend more

Jim Chalmers has defended Australia’s defence spending as having already gone up “considerably”, amid suggestions from the Donald Trump administration that Australia should spend more.

That is a very, very substantial pick-up in defend spending and one of the reasons we’re doing that is to be able to work more effectively with our allies and partners like the United States … We do pay our own way on defence. We are substantially increasing defence spending.

We have got a good relationship with the Americans, particularly that economic relationship which is of mutual benefit, and these are the sorts of things that we have been talking about with our American counterparts as they finalise some of the policies on things like tariffs.