Australian news and politics recap: Anthony Albanese forced to defend spending, foreign diplomacy

Mr Dutton says he is focused on “Australian families in the suburbs … being smashed by this government” when asked whether he takes responsibility for whatever the result on Saturday night is.

“The focus that we’ve got between now and the election day is to make sure that we can save Australians from three more years of this Labor government,” he says.

“I’m the leader of the party and I intend to lead us to success on Saturday night, because Australians can’t afford three more years of Labor.”

Peter Dutton has let loose with another spray of personal insults towards the Prime Minister.

“Labor has done enormous damage, and people just can’t afford three more years of the incompetence of Anthony Albanese,” he says.

“This guy’s out of his depth, as John Howard says.

“John Howard is one of our most successful prime ministers, and he gives this assessment that Prime Minister Albanese is totally, completely, utterly, out of his depth.”

Then he reverts to the Coalition’s main line of attack that the Government has a problem with the truth.

“I never see the Prime Minister look down the camera like Mr Albanese does and just deliver lie after lie after lie,” he says.

Peter Dutton is asked about comments from Nationals frontbencher Bridget McKenzie on Sunday when she said there wouldn’t be any cuts to the number of backpackers coming into Australia, given they provide significant numbers of workers for farms and regional businesses.

“Do you concede that it’s now mathematically impossible for you to reach your migration cuts?” Mr Dutton is asked.

He returns to a favourite response of his, saying the Coalition has been “very clear” on its migration policy.

“We’re going to reduce migration, permanent migration, by 25 per cent … We’re going to reduce the NOM (net overseas migration) figure by 100,000 relative to where Labor’s is,” he says.

“We’ll take advice from Department of Treasury, Finance and central agencies about the settings within the economy and what we need to do.”

He says the Coalition also has a policy to let pensioners and veterans on pensions work more, which should “replace some of that international labour that people are relying on at the moment”.

“We’ve thought through it very carefully, but our policy is to cut migration and stop foreigners from buying Australian homes so that we can get young Australians into homes more quickly,” he says.

Australian families are telling the Coalition that “the cost of everything has gone up,” Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says at his first stop in the last week of campaigning.

Mr Dutton has been touring Good Food Distributors, a wholesale grocer located in the small township of Salamander Bay in the electorate of Paterson.

“The cost of everything has gone up in the household budget,” he says.

“I was talking to some people in far north Queensland this morning [about] their insurance bill,” he says.

“We talked about it going up by 35 per cent. Their lived experience is it’s doubling.

“And it’s not just food and it’s not just electricity, it’s insurance … everything under this government that continues to rise.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton opens his press conference with a long string of lies and obfuscations he says Anthony Albanese has made over the past month.

He refers to the Prime Minister’s refusal again to answer questions about what Australia knew about Russian and Indonesian talks over military cooperation.

“The Prime Minister refused to answer these questions, but he needs to answer them, and he needs to be honest,” Mr Dutton says.

“Others who have been out talking about Loch Ness monsters and all this nonsense, you get an insight into the way in which this government operates.

“It’s not transparent, it’s not modest, and it is acting against our national interests when they’re not providing the information that Australians should be informed on.”

Peter Dutton has toured Good Food Distributors, a wholesale grocer located in the small township of Salamander Bay in the electorate of Paterson.

Inspecting the facilities, the Opposition Leader walked through the front of the store with his wife Kirilly, viewing the wide selection of produce available.

“What an excellent range,” Mr Dutton remarked as he picked up a box of chocolate covered sultanas, before later making his way through the cool rooms at the rear of the facility.

Speaking with the proprietor Tony Marino, who has run the family business for more than 30 years, Mr Dutton heard that the business was mulling expansion plans but was facing a challenging operating environment.

“There’s so much uncertainty,” Mr Marino said, lamenting that the business had witnessed a sharp increase in the price it paid to food producers

The business was also struggling to find suitable staff, Mr Marino said.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has had a laugh while playing a word-association game on a Gold FM radio station this morning.

In a rapid-fire segment called “Don’t make it political”, he has been asked: “Delulu with no solulu”.

The Gen Z favourite shortened term, for delusional without a solution, was used in a parliament question time sledge by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Mr Dutton responded by saying it’s a “who can’t tell a good story about the last three years”.

His next word is “Welcome to Country”.

Mr Dutton responded: “Respectful, but overdone”.

Next up: “Donald Trump”, to which he responded, “is a disrupter”.

“We’ve got to stand up for our country’s interests. And that’s exactly what I would do as prime minister,” he said before answering “yes” when asked whether he’d get him on the phone.

“Have you got his number?” he was also asked.

“I haven’t got his number,” Mr Dutton said.

The last word Mr Dutton was asked to respond to was “backflips”.

Mr Dutton said: “Appropriate. If you have made a mistake, you should own up to it and fess up to it.

“I mean, all of us are human in this job.”

The question comes after several backflips this election campaign, including the Coalition’s work-from-home policy.

He said it was arrogant to pretend you haven’t made a mistake.

With just five days until election day, millions of Australians have already had their say in the 2025 federal election.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) reports more than 2.39 million people have voted at early polling centres, while 535,000 completed postal votes have been returned so far.

Postal voting remains popular, with around 2.47 million applications lodged ahead of Saturday’s deadline.

The strong early numbers come as more than 18 million Australians are enrolled to vote in this election.

Anthony Albanese has dodged questions about what the Government knew about Russia’s request to Indonesia to use one of its military airbases.

The Australian reported on Monday that the Government knew in February that Russia had asked to use an Indonesian airbase to “transit” military aircraft through.

By April, respected defence journal Janes reported the request had been to establish a base for Russian aircraft on Indonesian soil.

The difference between these two positions prompted Defence Minister Richard Marles to urgently seek clarification with his Indonesian counterpart, after which Australia said there were no plans for a permanent base.

But Mr Albanese didn’t answer a question seeking to clear this up on Monday, instead going on the attack over Peter Dutton’s reference in last night’s debate to intelligence briefings the Opposition Leader had received, warning about fears of the threat from China.

“What adults do on intelligence (briefings) is receive them and not conduct it through the media,” he said.

“Adults, when it comes to intelligence, act like adults. They don’t engage in seeing every international issue as a domestic political opportunity.”

The Greens will demand Labor block any new coal or gas projects if they hold the balance of power in the event of a hung parliament, the leader of the minor party will reveal today.

Adam Bandt will make his move in the electorate of Sydney, currently held by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, making the point that he holds her personally responsible for the approval of more than 30 new coal and gas projects since 2022.

The Greens will use Parliamentary Library analysis to claim Climate Minister Chris Bowen could block new projects under existing laws.

The minor party argues that the new legal analysis proves that the climate minister already has the power to block all projects through the Safeguard Mechanism due to earlier Greens amendments.

The Greens say the use of these latent powers removes any need for new legislation to pass the Parliament, and also deals with any objections from the Environment Minister that climate-destroying projects can still proceed.

This has the potential to impact controversial plans like the WA North West Shelf gas project, which is awaiting Federal approval to go ahead.

If Labor falls short of the 76 seats needed to govern in majority, it will depend on the crossbench, including the Greens, to form government.

“In the middle of a climate crisis, Tanya Plibersek has approved new coal mines that will release 2.5 billion tonnes of climate pollution. If the Environment Minister won’t act, the Greens will get the Climate Minister to do it,” said Mr Bandt.

“The Greens gave the Climate Minister the power to stop new coal and gas mines with the stroke of a pen, and with more Greens in minority Parliament, we’ll get him to use it.”

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