Australian news and politics recap: Coalition releases full costings, takes aim at Labor’s ‘lies’

The shadow finance minister has also taken aim at the Albanese Government, saying it has lied repeatedly.

“All Labor and the Prime Minister have been capable of doing throughout this is lying.,” she says.

“They lied on health and education, where we have said that we will invest more than $9.4 billion into Medicare, and committed to the school funding arrangements with the States.

“They have lied about the cost of our nuclear plan, despite being called out on numerous occasions, often by people that are in this room, and the fact is it is nothing more than a lie that has been concocted by a Labor donor.

“And our costings today confirm that. They have even lied about offsetting spending with savings, but the fact is that across the three Budget years that they have delivered, since March, Labor has made the Budget bottom line worse.

“Labor’s latest Budget made $35 billion in new net policy decisions. Now, in the pre-election economic and fiscal outlook, they added a further $1.1 billion in new net policy decisions. Their election costings, delivered on Monday, improved the bottom line by just $1.16 billion. The maths simply doesn’t add up.”

The shadow treasurer says the conventions of releasing costings require the Opposition to lay out their Budget improvement position.

“But we’ve done something that hasn’t been done in the past, which is also to lay out the improvement in the debt position, and part of that is driven by the increase of Labor of using off-budget spending,” he says.

“This is the biggest improvement in the Budget position since the current costing conventions were put in place at most 15 years ago, and outside of the time when Labor decided to impose $389 billion of economy wrecking taxes.

“We know that, if productivity and growth were to get back to where they should get back to, to where they historically have been, but not under Labor, we will see a vast improvement than what we have laid out here.

“We are staying with the assumptions in the Budget of a productivity level, which is unsatisfactory, and a growth level, which is unsatisfactory.

“We have done all that at the same time as making sure we balance improvement in the government Budget with balancing improvement in household budgets.”

“That means beating inflation sustainably, that means boosting growth and investment by backing small business, that means fixing energy markets, it means fixing housing markets, getting more supply into the market, balancing that with immigration,” Mr Taylor says.

“It means protecting our nation with an appropriate spend on defence of this great country but it also means getting our Budget back into balance, at the same time as we are helping households to get their budgets back into balance.”

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor and shadow finance minister Jane Hume are releasing the Coalition’s costings.

We’ll bring you all the latest as it comes to hand.

Speaking alongside Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff and local Liberal candidate for Lyons, Susie Bower, Mr Dutton talked up his plan to save Australians money by cutting the fuel excise.

The Opposition Leader highlighted the importance of events like AgFest, spruiking his credentials of caring for families and farmers.

Mr Dutton then issued a warning of sorts to those who had gathered to hear him.

“It was obvious in the Prime Minister’s trainwreck interview today with Andrew Clennell that he wasn’t able to say that there wouldn’t be changes to negative gearing and new taxes under a Government that he leaves,” Mr Dutton said.

“It is obvious to Australians now that this Prime Minister is not telling the truth.

“If you have doubts about Labor, doubts about what will happen to the voice, doubts about what will happen with Labor’s new taxes, don’t vote for them.”

Mr Dutton did not take questions, instead going on a walk-through of the event.

The Opposition Leader paused his walk-through to take photos with a handful of attendees.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has arrived at Tasmania’s Agfest Field Days in Carrick in the Federal seat of Lyons.

Mr Dutton will join Tasmania Premier Jeremy Rockcliff and Susie Bower for a walk through the showgrounds.

Anthony Albanese has vowed to “continue to look for savings” while ruling out cuts that “hurt people”.

Both Labor and the Coalition have pledged tens of billions in taxpayer dollars to fund their campaign commitments, prompting a caution from global analysts that Australia’s AAA credit rating was under threat no matter who won Saturday’s election.

With the last budget forecasting $178bn in deficits over the coming four years, the Prime Minister said on Thursday he had not given up on surpluses and that he “didn’t promise to deliver a surplus” but ended up delivering two.

“And this year’s deficit is $27bn but that’s almost half of what was anticipated,” Mr Albanese told Sky News.

“So we’ve worked really hard on budget savings, over $100bn that we’ve delivered during this term.”

Pressed on whether his government could get the budget back in the black, Mr Albanese said he would not “speculate”.

“We’ll continue to look for savings where they’re appropriate, but not savings where they hurt people, and savings where they will have a negative effect on the economy,” he said.

Read the full story.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has predicted a Labor egos “meltdown” if the party is returned to government on Saturday.

Speaking with Chris Smith on Radio 2SM, Mr Dutton was asked if Anthony Albanese and himself should walk if there party isn’t successful at the election.

While the Liberal leader batted away questions about himself, saying he’s confident he would win, he highlighted a potential leadership jostle that could engulf Labor next term.

He said Jim Chalmers, Tony Burke, Tanya Plibersek, and Richard Marles would be eyeing to take top spot.

“Anthony Albanese won’t serve out three years of he’s re-elected, that much is obvious,” he said.

“Jim Chalmers and others are biting at the bit.

“If the Prime Minister loses on Saturday night, then Jim Chalmers is just one step closer to his ambition.

“But then there’ll be an unholy row between him and Tanya Plibersek.

“And don’t forget Tony Burke and Richard Marles fancies himself.

“You’ll have Penny Wong out there talking about how quickly they can implement the Voice.

“It’ll be a typical meltdown from the Labor Party and that’s going to come this term anyway.”

When asked if he would walk from leadership if he had a poor showing at the polls, Mr Dutton said he needed to “save our country from three more years of Labor”.

“From my perspective, Chris, we’re going to win the election on Saturday,” he said.

“We’ve put in the hard work, we’ve been an incredible, united opposition.”

Overnight, new figures showed the US economy went backwards by 0.3 per cent in the first quarter. Does the PM worry about a recession at home? And does he think the US President has “lost the plot”?

The PM wanted to stay close to home to start with, saying his Government has presided over growth in every quarter since they came to office.

He went on to attack his opponent.

“I’m optimistic about Australia’s future. I want to not just talk us up, but raise us up as a nation,” he said.

“Peter Dutton spends every waking moment trying to talk Australia down, trying to divide Australians, and that does nothing for confidence in the economy - which is so important.”

As for the US, he said it will “present challenges to the global economy”.

“I said on the day that President Donald Trump made his (tariff) announcement: this was an act of economic self-harm. I firmly believe that,” he said.

With that, the press conference finished, with Mr Albanese heading to Adelaide for his next round of campaign stops.

Anthony Albanese turned again to energy, addressing a question about predictions on gas shortages along the east coast in a few years.

“We need more supply, it needs to be done in a sustainable way,” he said.

“On gas, on the day of the election, in 2022, gas was $34, today it’s $13. We have mandated the gas code of conduct. We changed the Domestic Gas Security to ensure that we can intervene to ensure supply domestically,” he added.

WA Premier Roger Cook also jumped in.

“I can speak for Western Australia, where I say that we understand and know that gas will provide a very important fuel as part of the clean energy transition,” he said.

“That’s why we’ve continued to make sure we support our oil and gas industry, not only to reap the rewards of providing gas to their overseas customers, but also to make sure we’ve got energy security in Western Australia,” added Mr Cook.

“And a hallmark of successive Labor governments in Western Australia is to implement a domestic gas reserve, to ensure that local industry and local residents or households have access to affordable, reliable gas.”