Australian news and politics live: Anthony Albanese hands Victoria’s Labor Government $8.2 billion

Treasury Secretary Dr Steven Kennedy has told a senate estimates committee that the increased global instability caused by escalating trade and political tensions could have “profound economic consequences” for the Australian economy.

He worried that the global policy uncertainty “may dampen business investment, which will pose risks to both growth and employment.”

“The prospect of US tariffs on Chinese exports has exacerbated existing concerns about how weak Chinese domestic demand and the ongoing property downturn in China could flow through to an already weak Chinese demand for Australian exports,” Dr Kennedy said.

His testimony comes as Treasurer Jim Chalmers visits his US counterpart Scott Bessent in Washington, attempting to plead Australia’s case for an exemption from Donald Trump’s sweeping set of trade barriers. Dr Kennedy said Australia had successfully navigated tariffs before and must avoid the path of tit-for tat retaliation, warning it would damage the economy.

He said exporters had shown how to respond to trade restrictions on barley, coal, wine, and lobster placed by China, pointing to the diversion of agricultural products to other markets, including becoming the main supplier of barley to Mexico.

He said that as a mid-sized nation, Australia couldn’t afford to “cut ourselves off from the world” by reacting with reciprocal tariffs.

“If Australia were to impose tariffs, we would bear nearly all the cost, given our size and inability to affect the world prices of the goods we import,” Dr Kennedy said.

Ms McCarthy assured Ms Ruston that Mr Butler would be “making — any day now — a decision in regards to the premium increases” after the long-running negotiation period with insurers.

Health officials admitted the caretaker period, which occurs between an election being called and polling day, presented a “grey area” on whether notifications could be delivered.

Department secretary Blair Comley said he would seek advice from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on how the caretaker conventions would impact premium increase notifications.

Ms Ruston said it was important the 14 million Australians who are privately insured knew how much they would have to pay for their premiums in 2025.

Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy has told Senate Estimates Health Minister Butler is just days away from giving Aussies with private health insurance clarity on potential price hikes.

It came in response to concerns raised by Shadow Health Minister Anne Ruston that insured Aussies wouldn’t receive premium hike notices before any increase could come into effect on April 1 if Labor goes to an earlier election.

The notification period has been a point of concern since late last year — around the timeframe insured Australians are usually informed of any rise in prices.

At the time, Health Minister Mark Butler had put insurance firms on notice that their proposed increases to premiums were too high, urging them to “sharpen their pencils” and present better offers.

“Are you concerned that, given that we’re not much more than four weeks away from the changes coming into effect, that Australians — in a cost-of-living crisis — are not going to have sufficient time or opportunity to be able to shop around to make sure that they can get the best deal that suits their circumstances?,” Ms Ruston asked.

Peter Dutton has made multiple comments about the Chinese war ships off the coast of Australia, saying there are basic questions Anthony Albanese and Defence Minister Richard Marles still need to answer over the whole affair.

“I don’t know what the Prime Minister is doing at the moment, but he’s ducking and weaving and failing to answer basic questions and I hope that the Prime Minister can come out and give an honest account of what the Government knew and when in relation to this naval ship … (and) what warnings the Government had,” he told reporters.

He also said Australia “certainly” needed to increase its spending on Defence and promised “more to say about that in due course” – code for some time before the election, probably.

Peter Dutton is fielding questions about his real estate dealings after the publication of his history of property deals, mentioned earlier.

The Opposition Leader insists he has declared everything he needed to and accused Anthony Albanese’s office of “shopping around dirt sheets”.

“They’ve trawled through every transaction of my life for, you know, my entire adult life and they’ve come up with the fact that we’ve bought and sold properties,” he said.

“My father and I started with nothing in a small building company and half the transactions that are on that list are blocks of land we bought where dad built a house and we sold the house and land. I never lived in the house.”

He said the only assets he now owns are his family property – a 68-hectare farm north of Brisbane – and money in the bank.

He didn’t dispute the published details of the property transactions, which suggested he had made upwards of $6 million in profit over the years.

“I’m proud of what we’ve been able to achieve and I hope I can be a prime minister and provide opportunities for young people to work hard and do their best,” he said.

The PM has been asked about the extensive list of Peter Dutton’s decades of property deals, published in the Nine Newspapers today.

Analysis of the Liberal leader’s trades suggests he has purchased about $12 million worth of property and sold almost all of it for a combined $18 million – pocketing a tidy profit of about $6 million.

But Mr Albanese – who last year came under fire for his (mortgaged) purchase with fiancee Jodie Haydon of a $4.3 million clifftop house on the NSW Central Coast – wouldn’t be drawn on his opponent’s dealings.

“I’m making no comment about Peter Dutton’s matters, that’s a matter for him,” he told reporters.

Asked further whether the property trades passed the pub test, Mr Albanese repeated that it was a matter for Mr Dutton.

Health Department officials have admitted it “made an error” after failing to raise a warning letter of anti-Semitism in the health sector with Health Minister Mark Butler in 2023.

The letter, sent by Melbourne psychiatrist Jacqueline Rakov in October and signed by 235 health practitioners, detailed anti-Semitic sentiment among fellow medical professionals.

It came 18 months before anti-Semitic comments by nurses at Bankstown threatening to kill Israeli patients were posted online.

Under questioning from opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston, the department’s secretary Blair Comley conceded to Senate estimates the correspondence didn’t reach the Minister.

“To the best of our knowledge, because we have looked into it, the minister never received a copy of the letter,” he said.

“We would say that the department made an error in the way it dealt with that piece of correspondence at the time and that, if we had our time again, we wouldn’t have made that judgement as a department.

“If we look at this instance, we would say that that piece of correspondence should have been triaged differently.”

Back on the Chinese ships, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese insisted the notification from the New Zealand Defence happened “at around the same time” as Airservices Australia was told.

“We had been monitoring along with New Zealand and the New Zealand vessel of course was tailing the taskforce as well, so they were conscious and notified Defence as well,” he said when asked about the surprise live firing exercise late last week.

“New Zealand notified the Australian Defence Force, which is what we were cooperating on.

“At around the same time, there were two areas of notification. One was from the New Zealand vessels that were tailing (the Chinese ships) … that occurred around the same time as when something like this was occurring Airservices got notified.”

The senate estimates exchange tried to pin Dr Kennedy down on whether he was aware of the political repercussions of providing independent advice.

“Do you reject then that Treasury knew that this policy costing was an Opposition policy, and therefore for public consumption,” Senator Hume asked.

“We were asked to do a costing by the government with specific parameters which we did, what the government does with it after that is a matter for them,” Dr Kennedy replied.

Senator Hume suggested Treasury “rushed” the findings and used “LinkedIn articles or data source from overseas with very, very different taxation arrangements, or data source that was eight years old” in providing a work of “low reliability” that could then be used by Dr Chalmers in attacking Coalition policy.

“How much of taxpayers money was used in paying overtime to cost Coalition policy?” Senator Hume asked.

Senator Hume then brought up Dr Kennedy’s past work as an advisor to then PM Kevin Rudd.

“This is an extraordinary attack on a Treasury official,” Senator Gallagher said.

“Yes, it’s awful what you did to him,” Senator Hume retorted

“What you are doing here is disgusting and outrageous,” Senator Gallagher replied.

“Is it your assertion that Treasury has not been politicised?” Senator Hume inquired of Dr Kennedy.

Dr Kennedy defended the public service and said it “would be a real shame” if treasury officials felt they couldn’t work for political parties, mentioning he had been appointed by Malcolm Turnbull to one post and Tony Abbot to another.

“Sometimes we are put in a challenging position, we serve our advice independently. I reject that assertion Treasury has become political,” Dr Kennedy said.

“Has the Treasurer let you down?” Senator Hume asked as she was cut off for going over her allotted time.

Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy is facing senate estimates and has been put under the grill by Shadow Minister for Finance, Senator Jane Hume over whether his department had been politicised by providing costings for the Coalition’s policy to offer tax breaks for small business entertainment.

In a fiery exchange, which has also seen Finance Minister Katy Gallagher accuse Senator Hume of “talking over the top of witnesses” and “harassment”, Dr Kennedy has been peppered with questions of why his department costed the policy, when it was outside the department’s purview.

The Coalition’s policy, which would offer tax breaks of up to $20,000 for business-related meal and entertainment expenses was released without costings, and was leapt on at the time by Treasurer Jim Chalmers as potentially costing the Budget $1.6 billion per year.

Commissioning Treasury to analyse the policy was described as an “an egregious politicisation of the public service” by Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor. Later Mr Taylor released costings by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office showing it was “under $250 million”.