Source : the age
Key posts
Sticking with the reaction to S&P’s warning that Australia’s AAA credit rating may be at risk from off-budget spending proposed by both major parties.
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, appearing on Seven’s Sunrise, has said that “every Australian will pay more when they borrow money, not just the government, but all Australians” should the rating fall.
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor during a debate with Jim Chalmers last week.Credit: Eamon Gallagher
Taylor, speaking from western Sydney, squarely blamed the issue on Labor, accusing them of overspending and not demonstrating budgetary discipline.
With four days left in the campaign Taylor was asked when the Coalition would reveal its costings, to which Taylor replied: “you’ll see them in the next couple of days … the sneak preview is you’ll see a stronger budget position than Labor’s, and we saw from Labor’s costings yesterday — deficits as far as the eye can see, we’re on our way to $1.2 trillion of debt, and our credit rating is at risk.”
When further questioned on the Coalition’s spending proposals, including the plan to fund seven nuclear power sites Taylor said the proposed transition would be “absolutely affordable”.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has called Welcome to Country ceremonies “a political statement” and compared them to wearing masks during the COVID pandemic.
Speaking on Ben Fordham’s 2GB program, Abbott said: “Wearing masks became a political statement during the pandemic. If you weren’t an enthusiast for masks, you weren’t taking the pandemic seriously enough.
Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison at the Liberal Party campaign launch at Liverpool Catholic Club.Credit: James Brickwood
“Well, I think now [Welcome to Country ceremonies have] become something that is, is forced on people as a way of trying to persuade them that the fundamental Australian project is illegitimate because it was based on this act of injustice, the original dispossession of the Indigenous people”
The former Liberal leader said he had a “fundamental problem” with the ceremonies, saying that he felt they elevated one group’s contribution to the country over another’s.
“I think that Peter Dutton has done us all a favour by admitting and acknowledging that these things are overdone,” said Abbott.
He went on to say that “what happened on the 26th of January 1788 was wonderful”, and was a day in which “the rule of law, notions of freedom, notions of equality, came to a country that previously didn’t have anything like the same thing”.
Abbott said he hoped that voters would “not reward failure” as he accused the Albanese government of having performed “economic vandalism”.
“Its emissions obsessions put power prices through the roof. Its spending addiction has kept interest rates higher for longer, and its union loyalties are making it all, making it harder and harder to manage businesses. This is why Australia desperately needs a change of government.”
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor has criticised the Prime Minister for “attacking” S&P Global following the release of a report yesterday that suggested Australia’s AAA rating was at risk from both major party’s election spending commitments.
In a post on X last night, Taylor said it was “extraordinary to see the PM attacking S&P Global because he can’t manage the budget. Mocking the ratings agency shows he’s not fit to lead – and Australia can’t afford another three years of Labor.”
In a statement yesterday, S&P said sound budget management had underpinned Australia’s AAA rating for years. However, the agency believes growing risks to the global economy, plus both parties’ use of off-budget commitments to meet their spending pledges, are putting the budget at risk.
“The budget is already regressing to moderate deficits as public spending hits post-war highs, global trade tensions intensify and growth slows,” it said, “how the elected government funds its campaign pledges and rising spending will be crucial for maintaining the rating.”
On ABC’s 7.30 last night, the prime minister said off-budget commitments were used because they “can only be off-budget if essentially it’s going to produce a profit for the government”.
When asked why the Whyalla Steelworks and the NBN were marked as off-budget despite not being profitable, Albanese said: “They will be, and Finance has to make that assessment that you get a return in order for it to be off-budget.”
Albanese used questions on the warning from S&P to swing back at the opposition, saying: “The AAA credit rating is there … [S&P] must have been beside themselves, whoever wrote that particular report, when the Coalition left us with a $78 billion deficit. We turned that into a $22 billion surplus. We followed that up with a $15 billion surplus.”
The prime minister went on to criticise the Coalition’s spending proposals before host Sarah Ferguson said those claims could be put to the opposition leader. Albanese replied: “Good luck getting Peter Dutton on the show, given that yesterday he described the ABC as the ‘hate media’.”
With Shane Wright
A separatist Christian sect which tells its members to hate the world and objects to voting is campaigning for the Liberal and National parties ahead of Saturday’s federal election.
The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, formerly known as the Exclusive Brethren, has dispatched hundreds of its members to pre-polling booths in marginal seats while instructing them to keep secret that they are members of the controversial religion.
Plymouth Brethren Christian Church members at a polling booth in Reid.
Campaign workers in five marginal seats in Victoria and NSW told this masthead they had encountered 20 or more Brethren members wearing Liberal or National campaign T-shirts handing out how-to-vote cards, some of whom identified themselves as members of the sect.
Read the whole story here.
To Melbourne’s hot seats, where it appears our yellow-vested friends are back at it in Kooyong, undeterred after being reported to the Australian Electoral Commission.
Volunteers handing out anti-teal pamphlets were spotted at pre-polling in Malvern on Monday, wearing bright-yellow vests with “Community Advisor” printed on them.
Volunteers in Kooyong were spotting handing out anti-teal pamphlets in Malvern on Monday, wearing bright yellow vests with “Community Advisor” on them.Credit: Rachael Dexter
Are the vests intended to look like official AEC uniforms and confuse voters? We’ve certainly asked the question.
Despite volunteers identifying themselves as being linked to Advance Australia, another third-party group called Better Australia is claiming the credit.
Read more from our Victoria Hot Seats blog here.
Dutton finds himself in a tight election race where every seat counts. On Monday night, he offered a full-throated endorsement of the controversial candidate for Bennelong, Scott Yung.
Yung is one of the Liberal Party’s best prospects of taking a seat from Labor at this weekend’s poll, after the electorate’s boundary was redrawn to absorb large parts of the abolished North Sydney seat, which means Bennelong is now tilted in favour of the Liberals.
Scott Yung and Peter Dutton at Gladesville Sporties yesterday. Credit: James Brickwood
Despite several negative stories about Yung’s candidacy, Dutton fronted up to Gladesville Sporties, branded the friendly club, to endorse Yung and rev up his campaign crew.
Yung admitted in March to falsely claiming he had raised $60,000 during a dinner with John Howard ahead of the 2019 state election. Earlier this month, a Lane Cove principal complained to the Department of Education after Yung handed out Easter eggs outside a school.
“Scott Yung will be the next member for Bennelong because he is somebody who people can see has a genuine desire to help fellow Australians,” Dutton said. “He’s somebody who has worked hard, who has achieved, he’s somebody who is sincere, and he will make a great member of parliament.”
Speaking to media at Monday’s event, Yung said he believed his donations were above board and questioned media coverage of his Easter egg fracas.
“Can I just say what a joke that I got slammed for that? I think it’s in the spirit of Easter, I asked parents if I could give an Easter egg to their children,” Yung said.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has labelled ABC and The Guardian reporters as “biased” and “activists”, doubling down on earlier remarks in which he labelled them “hate media”.
Dutton was interviewed by Sky News host Sharri Markson, who stated that Dutton received “hostile interrogations from the press pack” during the election, while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is lobbed friendly questions.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton at a rally in Melton, Victoria, on Sunday.Credit: James Brickwood
Markson asked Dutton if he thought “that sort of media … hate mainstream Australian values”.
Dutton did not challenge the premise of the question when he responded with disparaging remarks about the reporting of his campaign.
“I just think they’re so biased, and many of them just activists, not journalists, that their position becomes counterproductive, and they’re playing to a particular audience, to a Green voter,” Dutton said.
The Coalition’s support in the polls has ebbed during the campaign, with this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor finding Labor’s primary vote had risen, and Coalition support had fallen, giving the government a lead of 53.5 per cent in two-party terms.
Dutton first labelled the ABC and The Guardian hate media on Sunday, during a campaign rally in Melbourne.
“Forget about what you have been told by the ABC, in The Guardian and the other hate media. Listen to what you hear [at] the doors, listen to what people say on the pre-polling, know in your hearts we are a better future for our country,” he said.
Speaking on Monday after Dutton’s initial remarks, Coalition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume said her leader’s remarks were in jest.
“I doubt you would hear that from me. However, you can safely say that was a tongue-in-cheek comment by Peter Dutton yesterday,” Hume said.
However, Dutton’s decision to take a second dip at his media adversaries left little room for doubt about his opinion.
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the 2025 Federal Election.
My name is Nick Newling, and along with my colleague Olivia Ireland, I will be taking you through the morning’s events.
Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese on the campaign trail.Credit: James Brickwood, Alex Ellinghausen
There are just four days until polling closes on Saturday, and campaigning is powering on until the very last minute.
The leaders will begin their mornings in each other’s home cities, with Anthony Albanese starting the day in Brisbane and Peter Dutton in Sydney.
Follow along as we bring you all the news as it happens.
