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Coalition defence boost to include new fighter jet squadron – Hastie
Earlier on during his interview with RN Breakfast, shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie laid out the Coalition’s new defence commitment.
To recap – the Coalition says it will spend $21bn to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP over the next five years, and then increase it to 3% of GDP over the next decade.
How will the money be spent? Hastie says it will go to an additional F-35 fighter squadron, which the Coalition announced last month, and to increase recruitment and retention in the defence force.
We need to build our general purpose frigates, and we’re going to boost sustainment, which has been run down under Labor as well.
The Coalition hasn’t said how this will be paid for, and promised costings will be released before the election (so within the next 10 days). Hastie says:
There will always be trade-offs when you’re making decisions of state…
But what price do we put on defence? And I think, with the growth of authoritarian powers, with the war in Ukraine, with the changes in the Indo-Pacific region, with the Trump administration moving deeper into an America First perspective and position, we need to be able to defend ourselves.
Key events
Darren Chester had called for ‘conversation’ around Peter Dutton’s nuclear policy, but several constituents say their attempts to raise concerns have been ignored.
The Victorian Nationals MP in a region earmarked for a nuclear reactor by Peter Dutton has failed to meet with key constituents and community groups despite calling for “conversation” on the issue.
The Loy Yang coal-fired power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, in Darren Chester’s Gippsland electorate, is one of seven locations shortlisted for nuclear reactors under the energy policy the Coalition will take to the 3 May election.
You can read the full story by Benita Kolovos and Lisa Cox here:
Labor has announced $78m this morning to fast track the qualifications of 6000 tradies, continuing its focus on the housing crisis.
The government says the money will help experienced but “unqualified” workers get qualifications through additional training, and help them get recognition if they’ve done prior work.
Labor says it’s based on a similar and successful program in NSW, which has seen more than 1200 students get their trade qualification in an average time of 7 months, and they’ve cited research from Master Builders Australia that shows an extra 2.4 homes would be built each year for every new qualified tradie.
No doubt the PM will have more to say on this when he addresses the press this morning (perhaps even out the front of a housing construction site).
If you need a light recap of where things are at with just a week and a half left until polling day, I’ve got you covered.
You can have a little look back at what’s happened and what’s to come, here:
Anthony Albanese is in Sydney this morning following last nights leaders’ debate.
He made a quick stop in his own electorate of Grayndler at a women’s community health centre.
Meanwhile, Peter Dutton will be off to a slightly later start this morning, over in Perth.
Seems fitting to make the defence announcement in the west, which would base the Virginia class submarines.
Coalition defence boost to include new fighter jet squadron – Hastie
Earlier on during his interview with RN Breakfast, shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie laid out the Coalition’s new defence commitment.
To recap – the Coalition says it will spend $21bn to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP over the next five years, and then increase it to 3% of GDP over the next decade.
How will the money be spent? Hastie says it will go to an additional F-35 fighter squadron, which the Coalition announced last month, and to increase recruitment and retention in the defence force.
We need to build our general purpose frigates, and we’re going to boost sustainment, which has been run down under Labor as well.
The Coalition hasn’t said how this will be paid for, and promised costings will be released before the election (so within the next 10 days). Hastie says:
There will always be trade-offs when you’re making decisions of state…
But what price do we put on defence? And I think, with the growth of authoritarian powers, with the war in Ukraine, with the changes in the Indo-Pacific region, with the Trump administration moving deeper into an America First perspective and position, we need to be able to defend ourselves.
Coalition defence policy a ‘pathetic whimper’ – Marles
Richard Marles is continuing his scathing response to the Coalition’s defence pledge, appearing on all the morning shows and using mostly the same lines.
The deputy PM and defence minister accuses the opposition of having promised defence spending during their terms in government without budgeting it.
They were the ones when they were in government who gave us $42bn worth of defence announcements without putting a cent behind them. Literally a quarter of what defence was expected to procure, the Liberals had no money for, and when they did spend money, there were 28 different projects running a combined 97 years…
This [promise] is a pathetic whimper.
Coalition backs having women in ADF combat roles – Hastie
Shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie says he and the Coalition support women serving in combat roles in the defence force.
Hastie tells ABC RN Breakfast that he spoke to Australia’s secretary of the defence and the ADF chief and conveyed the Coalition supports that position.
Questions on the issue were raised when it was revealed the now disendorsed candidate Benjamin Britton had said women shouldn’t serve in combat roles.
Hastie had made similar remarks back in 2018.
This morning he said:
The Coalition has a strong position, and that is that all combat roles should be open to men and women. I signalled that to the secretary of defence, Mr Greg Moriarty, and the chief of defence force last week in my caretaker brief, as part of the caretaker conventions. They have a very clear picture of where the Coalition stands.
Pushed on whether this means women should meet the same physical standard as men, Hastie says:
It’s one standard for all the combat roles in the ADF [that] are open for men and women, and the Coalition will insist on one standard for all, which is fair and equitable.
O’Neil and Hume in Sunrise spat
Labor frontbencher Clare O’Neil and Liberal frontbencher Jane Hume have clashed this morning on their regular Wednesday Sunrise panel.
Things got a little tense over the Coalition’s work from home policy (which they’ve now dropped) and the Coalition’s accusation that Labor has been “mud slinging”.
Hume and opposition leader Peter Dutton have both been saying in recent days that Labor’s been throwing mud and that’s been causing a drop in support for the Coalition.
You can have a read of just how messy things got (and this is only a portion of the transcript):
Hume: You’re seriously suggesting you haven’t thrown any mud?
O’Neil: Sorry, do you mind if I speak, Jane?
Hume: Sling away!
O’Neil: This work from home issue, it was a terrible thing to do.
Hume: And it’s not our policy. It’s not our policy. It’s not our policy…
O’Neil: You are being so incredibly rude, Jane.
Hume: You’re talking about something that is irrelevant.
O’Neil: This is a democracy and I’m a politician trying to have my say. I listened to you politely.
Hume says Labor ‘mud slinging’ affecting women’s support for Coalition
Shadow finance minister Jane Hume says the Coalition have a “pep in their step” following last night’s leaders’ debate. (You’ll have no trouble guessing who she reckons won.)
Hume tells the Today show she had a “much more buoyant” feeling than she’d expected down at the pre-poll booths in Tassie yesterday. Bass, held by Liberal MP Bridget Archer, and Braddon, held by outgoing Liberal MP Gavin Pearce, are two must-hold seats for the Coalition.
But when it comes to the question of why women aren’t supporting the Coalition, Hume says it’s a casualty of the “mud slinging” by Labor.
I have no doubt that some of the mud that the prime minister and the Labor party has slung at Peter Dutton over this last campaign has begun to stick. That’s truly unfortunate, because only a Coalition government will deliver the empowerment to Australian women.
Hume was a co-author of a post-mortem into the Coalition’s 2022 loss, where a declining female vote was a significant factor. One of the recommendations was getting more women into local branches, and preselecting more women in winnable seats. You can see how the Coalition have done on that front here:
Ley says cost of Coalition promises will be ‘fully transparent’ before election
The question of how the Coalition will pay for their defence commitment, and other election promises, still needs to be answered.
Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley is on Sky News and is probed on when those figures will come out (particularly with voters already headed to the polls).
Ley says:
Our costings will be released in the lead-up to election day, fully transparent, demonstrating a better bottom line. Everything will be there.
Marles insists he retains ‘deep’ trust in US despite Signal chat scandal
ABC News Breakfast host James Glenday asks Marles about the latest reports of US defence secretary Pete Hegseth sharing sensitive military information with his wife, brother and personal lawyer on an unclassified messaging system.
Does Marles worry about the information he shares with Hegseth? Marles says:
I don’t and obviously I’m not going to comment on the reports in the United States. But we have a very close relationship with the United States when it comes to defence. It is deep, it is organic and it is trusted.
Marles says he has “complete confidence” in the way the two countries engage and exchange information.
Marles says can’t trust Liberals on ‘anything they say’ about defence
Deputy PM and defence minister Richard Marles is doing the rounds today, responding to the Coalition’s promise to boost defence spending to 2.5% of GDP over the next five years.
Marles tells ABC News Breakfast the opposition hasn’t outlined what that extra $21bn would be spent on in the defence force, or where the money would come from.
I just don’t think you can trust the Liberals when it comes to anything they say in respect of defence.
There are some reports that the 2.5% is a target, there’s no explanation of how they’re paying for this, where the money’s coming from, or really is there an explanation of where the money is being spent on?
Marles says Labor has invested the “biggest peacetime increase in defence spending since the second world war” and the government will continue to assess what level of spending “there needs to be”.
Under the current government’s trajectory, defence spending would rise from 2.02% of GDP this year to 2.3% by 2034.
Good morning,
Krishani Dhanji here with you, thanks to Martin Farrer for getting us started this morning.
The countdown continues with just 10 days to go of the campaign – although for many of you it might feel even shorter if you’re preparing to vote early.
And the campaign is back in force, after a momentary pause during the day yesterday, following the death of Pope Francis. All barbs were out last night during the leaders’ debate, which you can read about here.
This morning’s big announcement is the Coalition’s promise to spend $21bn extra on defence, and we’re already seeing plenty of reaction to it. We’ll bring all that to you as it comes in.
And here are the five key takeaways from the debate, one of which being “do we really need another one on Sunday?”
Coalition poll pledges top $50bn
Dan Jervis-Bardy
The Coalition’s election commitments now total more than $50bn – not including the new defence announcement, according to Labor analysis which it is using to pressure Peter Dutton to reveal his own numbers as the 3 May poll fast approaches.
With just 10 days left in the election campaign, neither Labor or the Coalition have released their election costings, which would detail the impact of their commitments – including any proposed cuts – to the budget bottom line.
Labor will on Wednesday release its own analysis of the Coalition’s election promises, which puts the cost of proposed spending at more than $50bn.
The figure tallies up the cost of almost 25 policies, including;
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$10bn one-off income tax cut for low-to-middle income earners
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$6bn to halve the fuel excise for 12 months
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$5bn housing infrastructure program
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$1.5bn for Melbourne airport rail
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$1bn for gas infrastructure fund
The overall figure does not include the Coalition’s commitment to increase defence spending, or its promise to match Labor’s $8.5bn boost to Medicare, which is already accounted for in the budget.
The figure also doesn’t factor in costs for Dutton’s proposed nuclear reactors, which aren’t slated to be built until the mid-2030s onwards.
The opposition leader is planning to bank savings from a slimmed-down federal public service and make unspecified cuts in other areas.
In a statement, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said Dutton must “come clean on his secret cuts and even harsher cuts”.
Every extra dollar of spending by the Liberals means an extra dollar cut from health and education.
Their dodgy and deceptive figures already show a budget black hole worth billions and they’ve got tens of billions of unaccounted spending on top of that.
Dutton to pledge big defence spending boost
Australia will sink billions of dollars more into defence under a future Coalition government, as Peter Dutton looks to bolster the country’s armed forces, Australian Associated Press reports.
Fresh off the third leaders’ debate, the opposition leader pledged to spend $21bn over the next five years on defence, which would take its share of Australia’s gross domestic product to 2.5%.
The level of defence spending as a percentage of Australia’s economy would then rise further to 3% within the decade.
While the Coalition said it would use the money to reinstate a fourth joint strike fighter squadron, it did not say where else the funding would go.
Dutton said the extra spending on defence was needed in uncertain times globally.
“The prime minister and the deputy prime minister regularly tell Australians that we live in the most precarious period since the end of the second world war. Yet over the last three years Labor has done nothing about it,” he said.
The Coalition will strengthen the Australian defence force and support our servicemen and women to keep us safe today and into generations ahead morale.
The announcement comes after Dutton and Anthony Albanese clashed at the third leaders’ debate in Sydney, with the opposition leader narrowly declared the winner.
As both leaders slung accusations of lying to each other during the hour-long debate, Albanese emphasised a need for stability following uncertainty from US president Donald Trump.
Albanese will begin today campaigning in Sydney, while Dutton will be in Perth.
If you missed the leaders’ debate, here is our full story by Henry Belot.
Welcome
Martin Farrer
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with some of our top overnight stories before I hand the news baton to Krishani Dhanji.
Peter Dutton has blamed poor polling during the election campaign on Labor attack ads rather than his own performance, including two mistakes and ditching a policy to force some public servants to work from their offices. The third debate was a mostly lacklustre affair that livened up when the leaders were asked to name the other’s biggest lie. Nine’s three-person panel awarded the contest to Dutton by a vote of 2-1.
The opposition leader launches a big defence policy today, with a promise to lift defence spending to 2.5% of the economy. More on this soon.
Amid more turmoil on the world’s financial markets thanks to Donald Trump’s economic policies, there are concerns that the Australian Treasury has underestimated the threat posed by the US trade war after the International Monetary Fund slashed its outlook for Australia’s economic growth in 2025. It forecast annual output will be $13bn lower this year than predicted in January and that real GDP growth will drop to 1.6%, from 2.1%. More coming up.
And in more money matters, we’re reporting this morning that Australians would have to wait 70 years for affordable housing if property values follow the “sustainable growth” path advocated by the two major parties. A leading economist calls the claims a “con”.
