Australia election 2025 live: Angus Taylor praises Elon Musk’s Starlink and says ‘you’ll see the costings in good time’ on public service cuts
Liberals reveal posters saying ‘Monique, please DO NOT take this sign!’ after Ryan’s apology
Henry Belot
The Liberal campaign has wasted no time in capitalising on Monique Ryan’s apology after her husband was filmed removing a campaign sign for her Liberal challenger last month.
The incident prompted the Australian Electoral Commission to issue a warning to all political candidates about “the importance of civility while campaigning”.
Ryan’s husband, Peter Jordan, admitted he made a “mistake” in taking the sign for the Liberals’ Kooyong candidate, Amelia Hamer, from outside the home of a Coalition supporter.
The Liberal party has now printed official campaign posters saying, “Monique, please DO NOT take this sign!” to be installed alongside posters for Amelia Hamer.
Of course, Ryan did not remove the sign herself. It was her husband who did. But the sign demonstrates how some Liberal insiders believe the incident could be politically damaging to her brand. Ryan has campaigned on integrity issues.
In a media statement after the video was published by media organisations, Jordan said:
I unreservedly apologise for removing the sign. It was a mistake.
I believed the sign was illegally placed but I should have reported my concerns to council.
Key events
PM jets out of Tassie after just a few hours
Dan Jervis-Bardy
After roughy 2.5hrs in Tasmania, the press plane following Anthony Albanese is ready to take flight again.
The brief stop in the Apple Isle leaves the NT as the only state or territory that Albanese hasn’t visited during the first week of the campaign.
Emily Wind
Good afternoon! Emily Wind here, ready to take you through the rest of today’s news.
Krishani Dhanji
Thanks for following along on the blog today, it’s been a big day so far!
I’ll leave you with the wonderful Emily Wind to take you through the rest of the afternoon, and you’ll catch me here first thing tomorrow morning.
Caitlin Cassidy
Greens target Dutton over his education agenda
The Greens have a new nickname for the opposition leader after he left the door open to slashing the federal education department and making school funding conditional on not guiding an “agenda” of universities: “Dunce-cap Dutton”.
The party’s spokesperson on primary and secondary education, Senator Penny Allman-Payne, said withholding money from public education was “reading from Trump’s Project 2025 playbook”:
Kids in Australia deserve a world-class, free public education – not Peter Dutton standing at the whiteboard telling them what they can and can’t learn.
Dutton on Wednesday committed to match education funding announced by Labor but has floated cutting jobs in the department of education and said the Coalition’s curriculum would “reflect community standards”.
The Australian Education Union’s (AEU) president, Correna Haythorpe, said Dutton’s position on school funding “doesn’t stack up”.
We’ve seen this ideological attack on the curriculum before with Howard’s history wars. This fake claim of indoctrination is just a way to hold money back from public schools.
Matt Keogh says Dutton cuts will extend across newer agencies
The veterans’ affairs minister, Matt Keogh, has been brought out to respond (more) to Dutton’s proposed APS cuts.
The Department of Veterans’ Affairs has had about 1,000 staff added to it over the past three years, which the government says has help reduce long wait lists for past service men and women needing support.
The government has already warned putting those jobs on the chopping block could again blow out wait times for payments.
Keogh claimed workers in other newer agencies like the corruption watchdog and emergency management authority could also be at risk.
When Peter Dutton says that he wants to cut all 41,000 public servants, that’s not just the additional claims processing, processing staff in the Department of Veterans Affairs. It’s the additional staff that are supporting the payment and claims for pensions in Services Australia is the additional staff in the national emergency management authority. It’s the staff that do the work in the National Anti Corruption Commission.
Sarah Basford Canales
Angus Taylor says ‘natural attrition’ would be focus for job cuts but does not rule out redundancies
Following on from our last post …
The alternative treasurer also said the focus on reducing jobs would be on “natural attrition” but would not rule out redundancies.
Taylor said:
The important point about this is the public service has got so big under Labor that the attrition numbers are high now. I mean, you naturally have higher attrition if you’ve got more people, because people leave to go and do other things. And it’s not a bad thing that a certain proportion of public servants each year go off to the private sector and do other things and then hopefully come back with some of the experience they’ve learned from the private sector …
I think by having a capital city [Canberra] that’s detached from some of the commercial centres we have here in Australia, there’s probably less of that than I think would be healthy; it would be good to see more of it. And that’s why the head and deputy head of Investment Australia will be looking to bring in some private sector-expertise into that team from day one.
Angus Taylor, on Coalition’s job cuts savings, says ‘you’ll see the costings in good time’
Sarah Basford Canales
Returning back to Angus Taylor’s speech at the press club earlier, the shadow treasurer said costings for the Coalition’s plan to cut 41,000 jobs from the federal public service will be released before the election.
In his budget reply speech last Thursday, Peter Dutton said the move would save the budget $7bn when those jobs are reversed but did not provide any details about where the jobs would be taken from, and when that would happen.
Taylor said:
The costings will come out before … the election. I’m not going to go through the sausage-making process that is the reality of doing these things, other than say that the team’s been working hard for a long time, and you’ll see the costings in good time, and you’ll be able to assess them and evaluate them.”
That answer is particularly interesting because last night the Victorian senator Bridget McKenzie said outlining where those jobs will be slashed from is “inappropriate at this time” because the opposition didn’t have the ability to “get under the bonnet” and “comb through the detail of departments and [see] what the Labor party has done on their watch”.
Of course, those costings might not actually reveal which jobs would be lost but they would ideally contain more clues.
However, McKenzie suggested those questions could only be answered only if the Coalition is successful in being elected.
Coalition confirms it will end penalties under new vehicle emissions standards
The Coalition has confirmed it will end penalties under the new vehicle emissions standards scheme, but won’t drop the new standards altogether.
The NVES enforces an emissions maximum for each car manufacturer, with a penalty for every gram of emissions over the target.
The Coalition says it will “repeal the car and ute tax” – ie that it will end that penalty.
It claims abolishing the tax will result in an average saving of $2,375 per vehicle by 2029.
A 2024 study from the University of Technology Sydney found Australian passenger vehicles are emitting 50% more carbon dioxide than the average in major markets, including the US, EU, China and Japan.
What’s the gender split on candidates for the House of Representatives?
Just to provide a bit more context to an earlier post on the split of male and female candidates in the Coalition – here are the numbers on how many of each are running for the House of Representatives.
This includes incumbents and candidates running for election.
Coalition:
Labor:
This doesn’t include whether those seats are winnable or not – but to the question to Angus Taylor earlier on whether the party reflects Australia, the numbers do show only a third of their House of Representatives candidates are women.
Albanese: there will be cuts to health, education, ABC under Coalition
The other big story of the week is the Coalition’s plan to cut 41,000 public servants (and the possibility of cutting funding to the ABC, which Dutton spoke on this morning).
Tony Abbott before 2013 there said there would be no cuts to education and the ABC. At least this bloke has told people in a roundabout way there will be cuts to health, education [and] the ABC if the Coalition are elected.
Dutton has promised none of the APS jobs cut will be to frontline staff, and has said that the funding for health in this current budget is funding that the Coalition will match. But the Coalition has refused to detail where exactly those APS cuts will come from.
Albanese: Trade with the US is only 5% of exports
We’re off to questions, and the first is on Trump and whether the government would consider taking the US to the World Trade Organisation (like the government did with China over their tariffs on wine and barley).
Albanese says he won’t preempt the decision that the US will make, but says “we are prepared for all possibilities going forward”.
The United States represent under 5% of our exports, goods exports, around the world. But, importantly, as well, we will continue to diversify our trade relationships. We do that, we have done that over the last few years.
But Albanese says one of the concerns Labor does have is how the tariffs could diminish global growth and economic activity.
Cait Kelly
Renters organisation calls for urgent action to strengthen renter’s rights
The National Association of Renters’ Organisations (Naro) is calling for urgent, decisive action to give renters a fair go across all states and territories.
Eighteen months since the national cabinet announced the better deal for renters with the goal of strengthening renters’ rights across the country, there is still significant work required, the Naro said.
While all jurisdictions have successfully banned solicited rent bidding and extended protections for tenants experiencing domestic violence, progress on the remaining seven principles is far from uniform.
Penny Carr, the convenor of the Naro and the CEO of Tenants Queensland, said:
Every Australian renter deserves the right to live in a safe and affordable home, free from the fear of arbitrary eviction. It is unacceptable that the extent of this protection varies significantly depending on the jurisdiction. Australian renters deserve better.
While progress has been made, key issues remain unaddressed for Queensland renters, who are lagging behind those in the other major states and some smaller jurisdictions. Queensland renters remain vulnerable to unreasonable rent increases and most face the constant threat of eviction without cause.
PM holds press conference in Tasmania
The PM is doing a second press conference of the day, this time in Burnie, Tasmania.
So far he’s plugging the healthcare hub he’s pledging money to, as well as the Labor candidate, Anne Urquhart, who has jumped over from the Senate to try her hand in the seat (it’ll be a tough one, the Liberals held it with an 8% margin at the last election, but the seat has been switched back and forth between the two major parties over the last 50 years).
It is no accident we are here today on the day we have also announced our submission to lift the wages of low income earners, to make that submission to lift wages, as well as a tax cut because we want people to earn more and keep more of what they earn, but we also understand it is about quality of life and healthcare matters.
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Albanese matches Coalition pledge on $8m Tasmanian healthcare hub
Anthony Albanese is in Burnie in north-west Tasmania to pledge $8m for a new healthcare hub – a commitment the Coalition also made on Wednesday afternoon.
The hub will include a range of health services, including a general practice, pharmacy, women’s health, imaging, pathology, and legal services.
Albanese is touring the existing centre with his Braddon candidate, Anne Urquhart, and senior ministers Penny Wong and Mark Butler, who have been fixtures in the first week of the campaign.
We can expect a press conference – held in front of the now-familiar green and gold “Strengthening Medicare” banner – shortly.
Cait Kelly
Tasmanian social services council calls for ‘brave’ cost-of-living measures
The Tasmanian Council of Social Service (TasCOSS) has called on candidates in this year’s election to raise the rate of income support, create more affordable housing, and close the digital divide.
TasCOSS’s CEO, Adrienne Picone, said all Tasmanians should be able to live a good life but the reality for most is affording basics, buying or renting a secure and healthy home and fully participating in the digital economy are now further out of reach:
The cost of living is the number one issue in the country and this election should focus on addressing these pressures in the long-term
Family budgets are as tight as they’ve ever been. Crippling financial pressure is causing immense anxiety and mere survival has become the norm.
We need a government willing to be brave, to put forward a clear policy agenda which demonstrates a commitment to meaningful structural reform. Glib promises and wafer-thin slogans won’t cut it.
