Australian news and politics recap: Peter Dutton savages Tanya Plibersek, says shes interested in votes not WA

It was a massive weekend with politicians racing out the gate to secure votes.

Strap in for a few more weeks of promises and pledges as Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese make their case to secure the votes needed to form Government.

Our live coverage is wrapping for today. Keep up to date with the latest news and updates on the home page.

The gas reservation policy that was the centrepiece of Peter Dutton’s budget reply speech and opening election pitch is all about power prices on the east coast, given WA has had a reservation in place for almost 20 years now.

Asked what he would do to lower power prices in WA, he says he will work with the Cook government.

“To make sure that we can work with the Cook government, first and foremost, and I believe if we can do that, it’s to approve the North West Shelf project, which has been put off conveniently until the 31st of May,” he said.

The extension to 2070 of Woodside’s offshore gas export plant was given approval by the State government in December after six years of assessment.

However, the Federal department has now extended its decision deadline twice after environmental groups lodged protests that legally require certain parts to be worked through again.

Mr Dutton accused Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek of not wanting to make a decision before the election.

“I think it’s a complete and utter con job. And I think West Australians understand that Tanya Plibersek is more interested in votes in her own seat in inner-city Sydney than she is in Western Australians,” he said.

Peter Dutton is visiting a brickworks in Labor minister Chris Bowen’s electorate in western Sydney, where the Liberal leader is talking about energy prices and his east coast gas reservation plan.

“People have spoken for years and years about an east coast gas reservation, we have put this policy on the table and it’s about action now,” he says.

“Natural gas is a key ingredient in the production of electricity in our country.

“If we don’t get the price of gas down, if it keeps going up under Mr Albanese’s plan, then we will see manufacturing close.”

Labor has pledged to form a taskforce to further investigate overseas laws and report back within six months to advise on an “excessive pricing regime” with recommendations on how to move forward.

The Prime Minister on Sunday also committed to adopting the proposals of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC)’s inquiry into supermarkets, including recommendations on price transparency, promotions and loyalty programs.

The report, released earlier this month, was inconclusive about whether price gouging was taking place.

Asked directly if the Government’s plans would bring down the price of a weekly shop, Mr Albanese said, “it will definitely have an impact”, referring again to “overseas” experience in putting more pressure on supermarkets.

Read Nicola Smith’s full story

The Coalition has criticised Anthony Albanese for not being able to define price gouging when asked on television.

“His plan hasn’t survived three questions or three minutes. It fell apart because he couldn’t define price gouging,” Coalition campaign spokesman James Paterson told ABC’s Insiders.

“Now he says he’s going to ban price gouging, but if he can’t tell you what price gouging is, how on earth are they going to do it?”

At his press conference, Mr Albanese offered two definitions: one that’s in European law and one in Australian colloquialism.

“In the EU, a price is unfair and excessive if – and to quote their law – it has no reasonable relation in the economic value of the product supply,” he says.

“How do you know what’s price gouging? Price gouging is when supermarkets are taking the piss off Australian consumers.”

Every time the PM has been asked when the election date will be over the past six months or so, he’s said he really wants to see fixed four-year terms for the Federal Parliament, just like every State and Territory now has.

One small problem: doing so requires a constitutional change.

Just now Mr Albanese has definitively ruled out holding a referendum to make that change – saying the Coalition would probably oppose it even if it likes the idea.

“If there’s something that’s defined Peter Dutton’s leadership, it’s saying no. Sometimes he doesn’t say no straight away; usually he does,” he says.

“He is the most negative leader of the Liberal Party that we’ve seen in my time in politics.

“I intend to not hold a referendum in the next term, I can confirm that.”

This last comment means that any prospect of a referendum for a republic is also off the table, which will disappoint some Labor faithful.

Anthony Albanese has made a short trip from the Insiders studio to a suburban Canberra backyard where, standing in front of a Hills Hoist, he announced the plan to ban supermarket price gouging.

He says the Government will implement all the recommendations from the ACCC examination of competition in the supermarket sector and legislate by the end of the year to make price gouging illegal.

That report from the consumer watchdog found that profits for the big supermarket companies had grown substantially over recent years but said there was no evidence of deliberate price gouging.

“We want Australians to have this protection. This is good for Australian families. It’s good for Australian workers as well, and Australian farmers to make sure that everyone’s getting a fair crack, because that’s the Australian way, and that’s what my government will deliver,” the Prime Minister says.

Both Mr Albanese and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher mentioned the morning tea provided by the family whose house they are visiting – it must have been good!

“The diet for the campaign’s gone out the window,” Mr Albanese jokes.

Liberal campaign spokesman James Paterson has condemned “ratbag protesters”.

“I don’t think we want to move to a style of politics we see in some other countries, where our political leaders are cocooned in a security bubble and can’t interact with Australians,” he said.

“These rat bag protesters who are turning up at events might think they’re being clever, but all they’re going to do is make our politicians more removed from the public, and I don’t think that’s a good thing.”

His comments come after both Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton had events disrupted by protesters who had to be bundled away by security on the first day of the election campaign.

Read more on the security scares.

A nasty campaign targeting Tony Burke in his Sydney electorate of Watson has escalated after it was revealed he had been threatened in a video message.

Labor campaign spokesman Jason Clare said on Sky News that the video contained the chilling taunt, “Come back here without the police”.

The revelation comes a day after the Home Affairs and Immigration Minister was forced to leave an Islamic prayer event on the advice of the Australian Federal Police.

Mr Burke has also reportedly been the subject of an unauthorised flyer, labelling him a “racist immigration minister”.

“That’s not how democracy’s done in Australia,” Mr Clare said.

“You know, this shouldn’t be the way that elections happen. You should be able to go about your day, talk to people, encourage them to vote for it. If they don’t want to vote for you, then there’s somebody else.”

Asked if he thought Muslim Vote candidates should be doing more to condemn the actions, Mr Clare said he wasn’t suggesting they were behind it.

“What I’m saying is that, you know, in an election we’re going to make sure that people treat each other with a little bit of respect and we’re seeing examples where that isn’t the case.”

Mr Clare said he didn’t think Mr Burke had been scared by the threat but was following the advice of police.

Liberal campaign spokesman James Paterson is reading from the same book as Ted O’Brien earlier, saying the Opposition won’t promise households how much their power bills would go down by under the East Coast gas reservation plan.

Senator Paterson says the claims of lower bills are based on modelling done by Frontier Economics – who also costed the nuclear power plan – but admits he hasn’t seen it yet.

He promises it will be released “very soon”.

“We’re not planning on putting a dollar figure on how much your personal bills will go down,” he tolls the ABC.

“Long before the first Australian cast their vote, these policies will be out in the public domain for people to scrutinise.”