Australian news and politics live updates: Anti-Semitism crisis top of list as Parliament returns

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the Albanese Government is not contemplating retaliatory tariffs should Donald Trump hit Australian exports with imposts.

“That’s not our preference, and that’s not something that we’re considering or contemplating,” he said.

He said Labor remained confident Australia could avoid any such tariffs, which came as Mr Trump announced a 30-day reprieve before levies for Canada and Mexico were introduced.

“We did a heap of work before the election to look at the possible consequences of trade tensions, and that has helped inform our approach,” he said.

“That’s one of the reasons why we are well placed and well prepared.”

Essendon assistant and new VFL senior coach Dale Tapping has died aged 59 following a battle with cancer.

The football veteran was first diagnosed with myeloma, a form of blood cancer, in early 2023.

He stepped away from his role three months later to focus on his health but returned to play a key role leading the Bombers’ forwards in 2024.

Late last year Essendon announced he would take over as the club’s VFL coach for 2025 and 2026.

Tapping led the team’s pre-season and just three weeks ago said it had been “an awesome experience so far”.

He died on Tuesday morning surrounded by his family.

Massive losses on the Australian stock market on Monday have started to unwind after trade tensions between the US and its neighbours eased overnight.

President Donald Trump has agreed to hold off the start of punishing 25 per cent tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico after striking deals with the leaders of both countries to shore up security along the US borders.

A 10 per cent tariff on good from China remains in place.

Wall Street trimmed an early 2 per cent loss as news of the deal with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum broke.

Dan Newell is reporting the claw-back buoyed Aussie investors, who ran the ASX200 up 0.7 per cent after the first 30 minutes of trade in Tuesday after a 1.8 per cent rout in the previous session.

All sectors were back in the green, led by utilities, miners, real estate, financial and health care stocks.

Iron ore majors BHP added almost one per cent but Fortescue and Rio Tinto recorded gains of more than 1.7 per cent.

Former US President Joe Biden has set his eyes on Hollywood, signing on to one of tinsel town’s biggest talent agencies.

The 82-year-old has rejoined Creative Arts Agency just weeks after leaving the White House, in a sign he is not planning to keep a low profile.

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Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has revved up his party room with an address claiming Anthony Albanese “is living in a parallel universe” and saying if the Coalition continues talking “very freely and frankly to the Australian people” it can win the next election.

Katina Curtis is reporting Mr Dutton also flagged the Coalition would continue to talk about the problem of anti-Semitism and its plan for mandatory sentencing for hate crimes – which is likely to be an election promise rather than something we see pushed in Parliament this fortnight.

“Australians are watching their Prime Minister, knowing that he’s out of his depth and knowing that he’s not up to the task, particularly in relation to law and order and keeping our country safe,” the former policeman told his colleagues.

“I want a very clear message to be heard by anybody who has evil in their heart that we have absolute zero tolerance for anti-Semitism.”

He thanked MPs for their work to date and noted there was still much to be done over the next couple of months.

“Whenever the election is called, we’re prepared to fight,” he said.

Ellen Ransley is reporting from Canberra that Treasurer Jim Chalmers has hit back after his opponent suggested he had “breached the public service code of conduct” after using Treasury to model the Coalition’s long lunch policy.

Dr Chalmers on Tuesday released Treasury modelling that showed the Coalition’s business lunch tax deduction policy would cost anywhere between $1.6bn and $10bn a year.

Mr Taylor said the Parliamentary Budget Office had costed it at $250 million, and accused the Government of trying to turn the public service “into an arm of the Labor Party”.

“This is an egregious politicisation of the public service to get the Treasury to do this analysis,” he said, suggesting he would write to department secretary Steven Kennedy.

Dr Chalmers said Mr Taylor was “losing it”.

“When it comes to the costings, which have been done by Treasury – I would rather not have to do it, I would rather a responsible opposition provided the costings of their policy and told Australians what they are going to cut and pay for it, that hasn’t happened,” he said.

“Part of my job is to understand risks to the budget, and this is a very substantial risk to the budget.”

The Prime Minister on Tuesday signalled he would support Coalition calls for threats against places of worship to be covered by hate crimes legislation due before parliament.

Asked if he would support Coalition amendments on Tuesday he replied: “Certainly. Forget about the opposition. I’ve been talking about the need to protect places of worship very clearly. I’ve made the government’s position on that very clear.”

But he fobbed off further questions about what he knew and when about an explosives-laden caravan containing anti-Semitic messages that was found in Duval, near Sydney, in January.

“I’ll do two things. One is my priority in keeping Australians safe. The second is to engage constructively and to support our police and security agencies,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has previously cited operational security for refusing to answer questions about his knowledge of the incident.

Turning on Peter Dutton, he noted the Opposition Leader had also declined to reveal details of his own briefings from security agencies.

“We need to engage with our security agencies in a way that takes national security seriously, not in a way that seeks to play politics with it,” he said.

“I will always treat national security seriously, and quite frankly, that should be something which occurs across the parliament now the opposition.”

US President Donald Trump will speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping within the next couple of days after he threatened to ramp up tariffs on China further on Monday (local time).

Trump has temporarily paused tariffs on Canada and Mexico after the two countries adhered to some of the US governments requests.

But those pauses have stopped short of Trump’s campaign promises for vast new tariffs on Chinese goods, and he described the initial tranche as an “opening salvo.”

“China hopefully is going to stop sending us fentanyl, and if they’re not, the tariffs are going to go substantially higher,” Trump said.

“China will be dealt with,” he added.

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Treasurer Jim Chalmers has questioned the efficiency of the Coalition’s planned “government efficiency” portfolio, suggesting it’s a “gimmicky” show of no confidence.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has announced plans to embed an Elon Musk-style minister for government efficiency within Prime Minister and Cabinet if he wins the next election, to be filled by Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

With 30 chief executives descending on Canberra this week to make the case to Dr Chalmers to rein in government spending, re-introduce a deregulation minister and improve efficiency overall, the Treasurer said he always listened “respectfully” to their ideas.

“But when it comes to suggestions around a new Government Department for Efficiency, I think that would be a strange way to seek efficiency, by creating in another department the same thing as the Finance Department (does). That would seem to me, really inefficient,” he said.

He said the appointment of Senator Price was a “vote of no confidence” in shadow treasurer Angus Taylor and finance spokeswoman Jane Hume.

“Without doing that (department), we found $92 billion worth of savings in our budgets… We are already working in a diligent way to make sure we can find savings in the budget to reflect into some of the big investments we’re making,” he said.

The Nightly’s Nicola Smith is in Canberra with the a cheerful Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who emerged from St Christopher’s Cathedral on Tuesday praising a sermon about “hope in an uncertain world.”

“As we begin the parliamentary year, that’s precisely what I have, optimism for the year ahead, and optimism that we can create a better future for Australia if we seize the opportunities that are before us,” he told reporters after an ecumenical service to kick start the parliamentary year.

The coming two weeks of the parliament sitting may be the last before the Federal election, when Mr Albanese hopes his own plan for dealing with uncertain economic times in Australia will be the path voters choose to follow.

“We know that there’s more work to do, and in this sitting period, we’ll continue to push forward with cost of living relief,” he said.

“We have legislation before the parliament that will make a difference in the short term, but also in these turbulences,” he added, flagging measures to expand skills training and extend childcare provisions, including for single parents.

“Kindness is a strength, compassion is a strength. It’s a strength of our country, and it’s something that I don’t shy away from,” he said, in a reference to his Bible reading inside the church.

“The fact that I care about vulnerable people. You judge a society not just by how it looks after the most wealthy, how it looks after the Gina Reinhardts of this world, but how it looks after the vulnerable,” he said.