Key events
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.
