Australian news and politics recap: NSW father camps outside Albo’s mansion after desperate TV housing plea

The PM has been asked during his Brisbane press conference on Thursday if he maintains his position that the Russia-Indo aircraft base report was fabricated after the Russian envoy to Indonesia poured fuel on the claim overnight.

“Peter Dutton said that the Indonesian President had issued a statement saying that there would be a Russian air force base in west Papua. It was simply wrong,” he said.

“It’s just extraordinary that Peter Dutton has doubled-down, including last night.

“It’s not happening. There’s not a base. There was no statement from the Indonesian President.

“No statement from the Indonesian Defence Minister, no statement from the Indonesian Foreign Minister.

“And the question is - how could Peter Dutton, if he is successful on 3 May, deal with the President of Indonesia?”

Questions on the Russian-Indo relationship came up during the debate after the issue was thrust into the spotlight following reports that Moscow had requested access to an Indonesian air base just 1400km north of Darwin.

Labor scrambled to dismiss the claims, while Mr Dutton went on the attack — before wrongly suggesting Jakarta had released the report himself.

Mr Albanese struggled to say when he last spoke to his Indonesian counterpart during the debate and dodged questions about whether they had discussed the growing influence of Russia in the region.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese used the tail end of his opening remarks at a Brisbane childcare centre to slam Peter Dutton about his debate performance last night.

The Labor leaders dug into Mr Dutton’s answers to climate change questions, saying he could provide clear responses.

“One thing that stunned me about last night… it was Peter Dutton being asked not a very difficult question about whether he agreed with the science on climate change,” Mr Albanese said.

“He said he’s not a scientist and couldn’t say, there were different views.

“I would have thought that the science is very clear on climate change.

“The fact that in 2025 you have someone, running for Prime Minister who can’t say that the science is clear that climate change is real and it is happening… I don’t know what it takes to give a wake-up call to the Coalition.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is speaking at Goodstart Early Learning centre in the suburb of Wishart in Brisbane’s seat of LNP-held seat of Bonner this morning.

The Labor leader is speaking about gender pay equality which comes after women’s interest was largely skipped over in last night’s ABC leaders debate.

He’s spruiking his industrial relations record and said he wants to see the pay of frontline social service sectors increase.

“We had an outcome yesterday from the Fair Work Commission, an interim decision, that spoke about the need to do more about gender pay equality,” he said.

“One of the things that my government did as part of our IR reforms was to put gender pay equity in as an objective of the Fair Work Act, something that had to be taken into account. I’m really proud that 62,000 workers in this sector have already benefited from the 15 per cent pay increase that we legislated.”

Labor’s campaign spokesperson Jason Clare has followed Anthony Albanese’s lead and refused to put a dollar figure on how much energy bills would reduce in a second Labor term.

It follows the Prime Minister’s reluctance to do so in last night’s ABC leader’s debate.

Mr Clare would only say: “Energy bills will be lower under Labor than they will be under Peter Dutton and the Liberals”.

“The simple reason for that is building $600bn worth of nuclear react costs. It’ll increase the power bills of every Australian by up to 1000 bucks,” he told ABC Radio.

Education Minister Jason Clare has reiterated that the initial round of pay increases for childcare workers is already accounted for within Labor’s previous commitments.

Mr Clare has been asked about the Fair Work Commission’s recommendation for pay rises of up to 35 per cent for hundreds of thousands of early childhood workers and health professionals on Sky News on Thursday.

He was pressed on whether the government would cover these costs or if families would see higher childcare fees as a result.

“What that decision said yesterday was that for childcare workers, that their salary should be increased by anywhere from 9 per cent to 27 per cent over the next five years and the first tranche of that should be 5 per cent I think, starting on the first of August,” he said.

“So they’ve put that advice out. They haven’t made their final decision yet, but if they were to do that and increase the award by 5 per cent, that would be absorbed within that 15 per cent that we’ve already announced.”

The Albanese government has legislated a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood education and care workers, phased in over two years, with a 10 per cent rise from December 2024 and a further 5 per cent from December 2025.

When asked to guarantee childcare prices wouldn’t go up, Mr Clare added, “A future government will need to look at this over the next couple of years. It’s (a pay increase for childcare workers) between 9 per cent and 27 per cent over five years.”

Liberal Senator James Paterson has launched a spectacular attack on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, saying he “lied” during Wednesday’s Federal election debate.

“The Prime Minister has lied – there is no other way of spinning this; there’s no other way of explaining this,” Mr Paterson told Sky News Australia on Thursday.

“Last night, when challenged by Peter Dutton and when followed up by David Speers, the Prime Minister says the government did not commission any advice on negative gearing or capital gains tax changes, but the Treasurer admitted last year that’s exactly what he did.”

“He asked the Treasury Department to model changes on negative gearing and capital gains tax.

“If the Prime Minister will lie about this, what else will he lie about? I mean, this is a guy who’s lied about our record when it comes to health, our record when it comes to education.

“He’s even lied about falling off the stage when it was captured on video.

“This is not a Prime Minister Australians can trust.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said the investment was way to boost levels of young people taking up trades, and help plug critical skills shortages, like construction and carpentry.

“Not enough students are taking up the skills we need to solve the urgent national challenges we face,” the Opposition Leader said.

“A new national network of Australian Technical Colleges will help skill the next generation of workers we need to build more homes and infrastructure, and our efforts in areas like defence and nuclear energy.

“I want to fix the skills crisis. Under Labor, we have lost 90,000 apprentices and trainees and we are determined to reverse that decline.”

A Coalition government has pledged $260m to get more high school students to take up trades instead of pursuing university, after the opposition indicated it would cut the Labor’s Free TAFE program if it wins government on May 3.

The funding will go towards rebooting a former Howard-era policy to significantly upgrade or create 12 Australian Technical Colleges, with a minimum of one campus in each state.

The speciality schools allow students in years 10 to 12 to enrol in apprenticeship or traineeship based courses while also studying academic courses, which allow them to obtain both a Year 12 Certificate and trade accreditation.

Coalition’s skills and training spokeswoman Sussan Ley pointed towards countries like France and Germany where 50 per cent of school student pursue “critical skills pathways in schools’.

In comparison, “just one per cent of Australian secondary school students take up a school-based apprenticeship,” she said.

“We have always rejected the idea that if you haven’t made it to university then you haven’t made it in life — and that principle underpins this significant announcement,” she added.