Australian politics and news recap April 11: Albanese labels WA’s resources sector as ‘wealth creator’

Peter Dutton says he never takes his seat of Dickson for granted, accusing Labor of trying to “carpet bomb” his constituency to oust him.

It emerged this week that Labor will pour an additional $130,000 to campaign in his electorate, which Mr Dutton holds onto by just 1.7 per cent, winning by 3,363 votes in 2022.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has made no secret of his offensive plan to pick up seats in Queensland, and chose to launch his own election campaign in the seat of Dickson.

“I never take my seat for granted, and I’ve worked hard every day,” says Mr Dutton, adding that his family goes back to the 1860s in this part of the world and he has incredible respect for his constituents.

“You would have seen the Labor Party emails coming out, which is a fundraising effort.”

“They’re carpet bombing, saying, donate to the Labor Party to get to get rid of me. It’s a PR stunt.

“They’ve used some second-rate polling arrangement to suit their narrative, to fundraise. That’s what they’re doing.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says he has “huge concerns” about Aukus under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, talking up the Coalition’s plans for national security.

He accuses the PM of taking $80b out of the defence budget and says the Coalition will invest more in keeping the country safe.

“I want to protect our national security from a weak Prime Minister,” he said.

“The Prime Minister says we live in the most precarious period since 1945 and then he doesn’t do anything about it. He’s not bolstering our defences, and he’s not investing in keeping us safe.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has side-stepped questions about a new Coalition announcement to seek voluntary redundancies as part of its strategy to trim the public service.

The strategy was revealed by Coalition spokesman Senator James Paterson on ABC Radio News Breakfast on Friday morning.

“We will cap the size of the Australian public service and reduce the numbers back to the levels they were three years ago through natural attrition and voluntary redundancies,” Mr Paterson said.

The proposal has not previously been mentioned by the Opposition, who this week toned down earlier statements about cutting the number of civil servants by 41,000 and reversed an earlier pledge to end working from home.

Mr Dutton said earlier this week, the bureaucracy would be reduced through a hiring freeze and natural attrition but did not mention voluntary redundancy.

Pressed for more details at the press conference in Bayswater, Mr Dutton did not answer.

“We’ve spoken about that a lot and the point I’d make in relation to the issue is that Australians are working harder than ever.”

“There are Australians now who are working second jobs, paying taxes and can’t keep their heads above water,” he said.

Peter Dutton has accused Labor of being “anti-business” at a press conference in a conveyor manufacturing plant in Bayswater, Western Australia.

He repeated his slogan that Australia faces a “sliding doors” moment, warning that a Labor-Greens Government would mean “an attack on the tax system.”

“Australia should be reminded of that, that they’re proposing to tax an asset in your self- managed super fund,” he said.

“It gives an indication of how anti-business and how anti-people who are working hard, the Labor Party has become.”

Dutton then spruiked his own party’s business agenda.

“We want to see more projects coming online. We want to make sure that we can see the growth opportunities, not just in the economy, but for the labor market as well.”

”And it enhances our international reputation. The product that we export helps underpin the economic activity and employment in so many other countries around the world, and we are a reliable trading partner.

“But at the moment, capital is leaving our shores and it’s going to other parts of the world, including Africa and North America and Asia.”

Mr Dutton added that he wants to “make sure that we can invest as much of that capital here in WA and right across the country”.

Peter Dutton’s camp have completed a tour of a conveyor manufacturing plant in Perth.

The opposition leader’s team are spruiking their message to secure votes in WA and have kicked off a press conference after a busy morning at the Leadership Matters forum.

Australian shares have resumed their downward slide after the White House confirmed it was drastically hiking tariffs on Chinese imports, fuelling global recession fears.

By lunchtime today, the S&P/ASX200 was down 112.9 points, or 1.46 per cent, to 7596.7, while the broader All Ordinaries fell 110.9 points, or 1.40 per cent, to 7803.

The slip on Friday came after a broad-based sell-off on Wall Street overnight, after the S&P500 fell 3.46 per cent, the tech-led Nasdaq lost 4.31 per cent and the Dow Jones Industrial index shed 2.50 per cent.

“The roller-coaster ride for Wall Street this week continued as US stocks reversed a chunk of Wednesday’s relief rally on concerns over escalating trade tensions between the US and China and recession,” IG Markets analyst Tony Sycamore said.

Read the full story here.

Peter Dutton has declared Australia has been “treated with disdain” and vowed that he could secure a deal with Donald Trump without giving anything away.

The Opposition Leader hit the campaign trail in Perth today, telling The West Australian’s Leadership Matters special event that strong leadership is the key to managing the Trump administration.

He said the Albanese Government was caught unprepared for the President’s tariffs.

“The problem at the moment is that not one Minister in the Albanese Government has a relationship with their counterpart,” Mr Dutton said.

“On every announcement that’s been made so far, Penny Wong, Don Farrell, Anthony Albanese have found out about it when it’s been reported in the press.

“I can’t recall a time in my lifetime where a Government has been treated with such disdain and it shows the weakness of the Prime Minister.”

Read the full story here.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers will speak to his South Korean counterpart this afternoon as the Government seeks to coordinate efforts to counter the impact of US trade tariffs.

“There is an element of engaging with and comparing notes with our counterparts,” the Treasurer told ABC Radio News Breakfast, confirming that he had also held talks with the British Chancellor.

“We want to make sure we’re still conferring, we’re still comparing notes, we’re still coordinating our efforts in pretty extraordinary times,” he said.

Dr Chalmers said news of progress towards an EU trade deal were “very heartening,” but that Australia had to make sure there was meaningful market access for agricultural products, particularly beef and sheep meat to conclude negotiations.

“When the Prime Minister responded to those tariffs the other day, he talked about resilience.

“He talked about diversification, and he talked about engagement, and the Australia-EU trade deal has the capacity to advance our interests on all three of those fronts,” Mr Chalmers said.

But he remained more circumspect about engaging more closely with China after Ambassador Xiao Qian invited Australia to work “hand in hand” with Beijing to maintain the global trade order.

“I think we’ve got our own way of engaging in the region, our own language to describe our efforts,” he said, while stressing “the Chinese export market for Australia is incredibly important.”

“In an uncertain world with our trade-exposed economy, China and other economies in the region, as well as the economies of Europe, they become more important to us,” added the Treasurer.

“Our interests are best served by more diverse, more reliable, more robust markets, and the big economies in our region have got a big role to play there.”

As a final question to round out the event in Perth, Mr Dutton was asked by Ben Harvey whether he would prefer to be stuck on a deserted island with Anthony Albanese or Jim Chalmers and he had an answer that made the room laugh.

“If it’s a one word answer, swim.”

After being shown a picture of Malcom Turnbull on stage at The West Australian Leadership Matters forum, Mr Dutton was asked to give a one-word description.

Mr Dutton said the picture appeared “very dark and shadowy”.

“I don’t scare of ghosts easily,” he added.