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Opposition’s energy spokesperson vague on when Australians will see power bill reductions under Coalition’s gas plan
The opposition energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, has not confirmed when Australian households would start seeing savings from the Coalition’s gas plan.
O’Brien has been interviewed on ABC Radio National Breakfast after the Coalition released modelling for its gas reservation policy, claiming that it would shave 7% off household gas bills and take down electricity bills by about 3%.
Modelling by Frontier Economics, released yesterday evening, estimated the changes would bring down new domestic gas supplies to $9 or $10 a gigajoule.
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O’Brien said the plan would result in the wholesale price of gas coming down “very quickly” but there was “likely to be a lag” on when consumers saw a reduction on their power bills.
He was asked specifically when households would start feeling these reductions directly through their gas bills, or indirectly through their electricity bills. O’Brien said if a Coalition government were elected, it would immediately introduce legislation to implement the gas policy.
He said the savings should start coming through “within the 12 month period” but it “had to be subject to whatever contracts they are on”. He said:
We are certainly looking, by the end of this calendar year, that you would start seeing wholesale gas prices coming down.
That means that as that then filters through with contracts, then by the end of the first 12 month period, industry [and] households should be seeing the impact.
Key events
Peter Dutton says his father is doing well after suffering heart attack
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has said his father is doing well after suffering a heart attack right before last night’s televised leaders’ debate. Speaking on Sydney’s Nova radio earlier this morning, Dutton said he considered pulling out of his first formal debate against Anthony Albanese, which went ahead at a Sky News event in western Sydney.
Asked on Nova how his father was doing, Dutton said:
He’s good. I spoke to him this morning. He’s 80 this year.
He’s a great man. He’s stoic and he’s a tough old bugger. So he’ll be fine.
Dutton continued:
Look, I thought: ‘Do I pull out of the debate? Do I?’
But … my sisters were up there with him and giving me regular reports, which was good, but yeah, he’s a great man, and I love him very much.
Health minister grilled on Labor’s $1bn mental health package
The health minister, Mark Butler, says Labor will not technically be building new mental health centres under its $1bn mental health promise.
Yesterday, Labor pledged $500m for 20 youth specialist care centres, as well as $225m for 31 new and upgraded Medicare mental health centres and $200m for expanding or starting 58 Headspace centres. Speaking to 4BC Radio earlier, Butler said the services will be new but the buildings themselves will not.
He said:
We’re not building them. This is to fund the operations of these centres. Generally, they will rent existing premises.
They won’t be brand-new buildings. What we will do, say, in a particular area of say, north Brisbane or regional Queensland – we say we want to establish – let’s use the word establish other than build.
They are new in the sense the service doesn’t exist, and a mental health organisation will then bid to to receive the funding that we’ve made available in yesterday’s announcement.
Butler said the policy also includes rebranding the existing 61 Head to Health centres that the former Coalition government set up by changing them to Medicare mental health centres.
He said:
Head to Health – no one knew what it was, okay?
We did research. We basically, looked at how the existing services, which had started under the former government, were performing.
ASX to plunge as tariff tensions rise
Jonathan Barrett
In more tariff-related news: Australian shares are poised to fall sharply today as Donald Trump presses ahead with plans to hit China with huge retaliatory tariffs.
Futures prices are pointing towards a steep 2% loss when the S&P/ASX 200 opens later this morning, erasing yesterday’s rebound. The anticipated price move would push the benchmark back under 7,350 points, the level it closed at on Monday after the market suffered its worst trading day in five years.
Trump’s latest threat to raise his tariffs on China by an additional 50% if Beijing does not withdraw its own retaliatory tariffs is scheduled to come into effect today, just after 2pm (AEST).
This equates to a 104% tariff on goods the US imports from China, taking into account past tariff announcements.
Global markets have been recording huge swings in response to the US’ new trade regime. The US benchmark index, the S&P 500, fell 1.6% overnight, wiping out an earlier gain of 4.1%.
Over the past week, share markets have tended to rebound when there are signs the US will strike trade agreements with key economic partners and fall when trade relations deteriorate. There is growing concern that if the tariff regime is implemented without significant changes, a “full-blown trade war, imminent recession and a liquidity crunch last seen during the early pandemic” may ensue, according to IG analysts.
Trump trade official defends tariffs against Australia
Jamieson Greer, a United States trade representative, has defended the Trump administration’s decision to impose tariffs on Australian imports.
In a fiery exchange during a US senate finance committee hearing, Greer was questioned about Australia by Mark Warner, a Democratic senator from Virginia. Warner said the tariffs undermined the Aukus defence pact and the strong trading relationship between the two countries and did not make sense given the US had had a longrunning trade surplus with Australia.
He said “insulting the Australians undermines our national security and, frankly, makes us not a good partner going forward”.
But Greer hit back, saying the tariffs were about “running up the score” and that, despite the free trade agreement that exists between the two countries:
They ban our beef, they ban our pork. They’re getting ready to impose measures on our digital companies. It’s incredible.
He continued:
We have a global tariff on everywhere. We’re trying to address the $1.2tn debt that [Joe] Biden left us.
Opposition’s energy spokesperson vague on when Australians will see power bill reductions under Coalition’s gas plan
The opposition energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, has not confirmed when Australian households would start seeing savings from the Coalition’s gas plan.
O’Brien has been interviewed on ABC Radio National Breakfast after the Coalition released modelling for its gas reservation policy, claiming that it would shave 7% off household gas bills and take down electricity bills by about 3%.
Modelling by Frontier Economics, released yesterday evening, estimated the changes would bring down new domestic gas supplies to $9 or $10 a gigajoule.
O’Brien said the plan would result in the wholesale price of gas coming down “very quickly” but there was “likely to be a lag” on when consumers saw a reduction on their power bills.
He was asked specifically when households would start feeling these reductions directly through their gas bills, or indirectly through their electricity bills. O’Brien said if a Coalition government were elected, it would immediately introduce legislation to implement the gas policy.
He said the savings should start coming through “within the 12 month period” but it “had to be subject to whatever contracts they are on”. He said:
We are certainly looking, by the end of this calendar year, that you would start seeing wholesale gas prices coming down.
That means that as that then filters through with contracts, then by the end of the first 12 month period, industry [and] households should be seeing the impact.
Jason Clare says Labor not willing to revisit changes to property tax concessions
Clare has also ruled out revisiting potential reductions on tax concessions for property investors.
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, is set to revive the political fight over negative gearing and capital gains tax in a speech to the National Press Club later today, where he will announce the minor party will insist on changes to the tax breaks if there is a hung parliament. The progressive party had tried to force Labor to revisit the tax concessions during bitter negotiations on housing legislation before conceding Anthony Albanese wouldn’t touch them.
Asked on ABC RN if Labor would be willing to take a second look at the tax breaks, Clare said:
No. What we want to do is build more homes. We’ve seen Australia over the first three years of this government, build half a million homes.
We want to build another 1.2m homes over the next five years. But not just that – the Housing Australia Future Fund is about building affordable homes as well as social housing for people who really need it, in particular women fleeing domestic violence.
Jason Clare defends Labor miss on power bill reduction
Clare has defended Labor’s failure to meet its 2022 election promise to lower power bills by $275 a year.
He told ABC RN:
Australians are smart. They know that Australia, like the world, has been hit by the biggest energy crisis since we were kids. You know, that’s just a fact, triggered by Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine, as well as other things.
Now, the thing is, what do you do when that happens? Well, we respond by providing financial help for people to lower their energy bills, those $300 payments last year, the 150 bucks this year.
Jason Clare says Labor is well placed to handle market volatility caused by Trump tariffs
The education minister, Jason Clare, says the government has “got the settings right” to ride out problems on the share market.
Clare, who is acting as the federal Labor election spokesperson, has been speaking on ABC Radio National breakfast before the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, meets with the leaders of the nation’s financial regulators later today discuss the share market volatility caused by the Trump administration’s tariff regime.
You can read more about the markets here:
Clare didn’t answer directly when asked if the federal government had “any levers to pull at this stage”. Instead, he said:
This is about discussing the outlook, making sure that we’ve got everything that we need in place. We do have the settings right.
We’ve got inflation coming down. We’ve got wages going up. And this is a government that has created more jobs in our first term than any government in Australian history.
We’re making real progress, but there’s more work to do.
Sarah Basford Canales
New Liberal candidate for Whitlam defends 2019 claims about ‘Marxist ideologies’ in schools
The new Liberal candidate for Whitlam has defended claims he made in 2019 while he was a NSW MP that students were being “brainwashed” by Marxist and woke ideologies in schools
Nathaniel Smith, who replaced Benjamin Britton as the opposition’s frontrunner in the long-held Labor seat, said in a statement on Tuesday evening he advocated for “better education standards for our kids” and would fight to get the education system “back to basics”.
Smith was announced as the replacement candidate on the weekend after Guardian Australia revealed Britton has shared a string of controversial views on fringe podcasts last year.
These views included that women should be banned from frontline roles in the military and that the education system was “indoctrinating” young Australians about Marxist ideologies.
Smith, a former Wollondilly MP and member of the Liberal party’s religious conservative faction, said in his 2019 maiden speech in NSW parliament that “political correctness in this country has gone too far”. He said at the time:
I believe childhood is a period of innocence. I want to see schools teach core skills, not agendas. I want my children to learn about history, geography, mathematics, Western civilisation, science and the arts; not Safe Schools, gender fluidity and other forms of Marxist brainwashing.
In response to questions from Guardian Australia about whether he still held these views, Smith responded he advocated for “better education standards for our kids”. He said:
Australia’s school students are falling further behind their international peers, while the Labor government is encouraging activism rather than making common sense improvements to the school curriculum.
A Liberal government will help get our education system back to basics by focusing on explicit instruction and other evidence-based teaching methods which prioritise reading, writing, maths and science.
You can read more here:
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Greens say Trump tariff chaos should force another look at property tax concessions
Here’s some more detail on the Greens’ proposal:
The Greens tried to force Labor to revisit the tax concessions during bitter negotiations on housing legislation before conceding Anthony Albanese wouldn’t touch them.
Treasury officials did examine options last year to redesign the tax breaks before the government decided against resurrecting some version of the policies former Labor leader Bill Shorten took to the 2016 and 2019 elections.
Albanese and the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, have repeatedly ruled out changes in recent months, arguing that boosting supply – rather than winding back concessions for property investors – was the solution to the housing crisis.
Adam Bandt will put the issue back on the agenda today in a speech before the National Press Club, claiming the global stock market turmoil caused by Trump’s tariffs has made reform even more necessary and urgent. The Greens leader is expected to tellsay:
Renters and first home buyers may get smashed even further in the next few months as wealthy investors spooked by Trump leave stocks and shares and pile into property, pushing house prices into the stratosphere.
Investors with big money behind them could jump into the housing market because of these incentives and lower interest rates, while first homebuyers with their life savings would be priced out of the already overheated market.
Under the Greens’ proposal, negative gearing and the 50% capital gains discount would be grandfathered and restricted to one property to protect “mum and dad investors”.
Good morning
Catie McLeod
Hello. I’ll be with you on the blog this morning, where we will continue our coverage of the federal election campaign.
Adam Bandt is set to revive the political fight over negative gearing and capital gains tax as the Greens leader uses Donald Trump’s “global tariff mayhem” to mount a fresh case to wind back the concessions. Bandt will use a speech to the National Press Club to announce the minor party will insist on changes to the tax breaks in a hung parliament.
I’ll bring you more on this shortly.
Neither Anthony Albanese or Peter Dutton made a major misstep in the Sky News forum in western Sydney as the two leaders held their first debate last night. Albanese was voted the winner in a poll of 100 undecided voters; the PM won 44 votes, Dutton won 35 and 21 remained undecided.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, and the opposition’s treasury spokesperson, Angus Taylor, will have their own televised debate tonight.