Category Archives: Anthony Albanese

Albanese claims victory in Vegemite fight as Canada concedes spread poses ‘low’ risk to humans

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Prime minister said his government had lobbied Canada to reconsider ruling that cafe could not import Vegemite

Anthony Albanese has claimed victory in Australia’s “Vegemite-gate” trade stoush with Canada, which has relented and allowed a Toronto-based cafe owner to sell the spread after initially ruling it did not comply with local food laws.

Speaking at a press conference in Sydney on Saturday morning, holding up a jar of Vegemite, the prime minister declared he had achieved a “win for Australian industry” after his government’s discussions with the Canadian government.

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Leaders’ debate live: PM says he has ‘no reason’ not to trust Trump as Dutton says ‘I don’t know the president’

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Prime minister and Coalition leader face off in showdown hosted by ABC. Follow live updates

Albanese says Labor didn’t commission modelling on negative gearing

Anthony Albanese said Peter Dutton’s suggestion that the housing crisis is something that developed in the last two years is “nonsense”.

Everyone watching this program knows that this has been developing for a long period of time. We have not had enough homes been built. The former government did not bother to have a housing minister for half the time they were in office. What we’ve done since we came to office, is look towards the big issue which is supply.

The experts say that what that potentially [would] do is is diminish supply, not increase it. That’s why the key to fixing the housing issues is supply.

It certainly wasn’t commissioned by us to do so.

We need to do both. We need to particularly give young people a fair crack … The key is supply. That’s why only Labor is offering a plan at this election to increase supply of housing.

That is on the supply side a very significant benefit. The second part is we reduce migration by 25%, so that we can allow the housing stock to be built up again and by doing that – as well as stopping foreigners for two years from purchasing Australian homes – we give young Australians a go.

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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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Australia does not have enough tradies to fulfill Labor’s housing promise, experts say

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Construction industry already faces shortfall of 80,000 workers as government vows to build 250,000 homes a year for four years

Australia does not have enough construction workers and other tradies to meet election pitches to boost housing supply, experts say, casting doubt over the major parties’ pledges to address housing affordability.

Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton announced their competing housing plans this week, with both major parties seeking to increase the number of new home builds above the current annual rate of about 170,000.

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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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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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‘Brutal business’: Brisbane boy charged over alleged terror plot targeting Peter Dutton

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PM reaches out to opposition leader as Brisbane teenager, 16, charged with commonwealth offence

The prime minister has reached out to Peter Dutton after allegations the opposition leader was the target of a terror plot.

A Brisbane schoolboy allegedly planned an attack involving the Coalition leader in the first half of 2024 before being arrested in August, according to News Corp.

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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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Follow today’s news live

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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Trump flags ‘major tariff on pharmaceuticals’ as trade chief says US ‘running up score’ on Australia

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US president says he will shortly announce the new tariff on pharmaceuticals but does not give any details

Donald Trump says the US will soon introduce “a major tariff on pharmaceuticals” designed to force more manufacturing giants to relocate to America, a move that could further strain relations with Australia.

His comments come hours after his trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said the US should be “running up the score” with Australia and using money generated by tariffs to address a broader $1.2tn trade deficit with the rest of the world. The US maintains a trade surplus with Australia.

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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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Port of Darwin operator says Albanese and Dutton are treating it like ‘a political football’ in election

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Labor and Coalition would both end Chinese company Landbridge’s long-term lease of strategically important asset

The Chinese company that controls the Port of Darwin has accused Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton of treating it like “a political football” in the middle of a federal election campaign.

Federal Labor and the Coalition have both announced that if elected on 3 May they would end Landbridge’s long-term lease of the Port of Darwin, arguing it is strategically important and should be controlled by an Australian entity.

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Is Anthony Albanese worried Jacinta Allan’s poor standing will hurt his election chances in Victoria?

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The PM has so far avoided the Victorian premier on his campaign trail. It has some state Labor MPs worrying she could be made a scapegoat

During the 2022 election campaign, Anthony Albanese waited until the 30th day to hold a press conference with the then Victorian premier, fearing Daniel Andrews’ association with Covid lockdowns.

When the two finally appeared together, Andrews didn’t hold back. He launched into an impassioned tirade against Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg, revisiting the fraught themes of the pandemic, while Albanese stood beside him, visibly uneasy. After that, Andrews largely stayed off the campaign trail.

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Albanese declares Chinese-controlled Port of Darwin should ‘be in Australian hands’

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PM says two options on table: for an Australian-owned company to take control, or for port to return to being a government asset

The Labor government is on the hunt for a buyer for the port of Darwin despite the Chinese-owned company who holds the lease insisting it is not for sale.

Anthony Albanese revealed the plan after calling in to local Darwin radio on Friday afternoon in a deliberate attempt to get ahead of a similar announcement the Coalition made on Saturday.

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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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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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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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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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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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