Australia election 2025 live: Bowen says Dutton suggestion hosting Cop31 would cost billions is ‘madness’; Bullock says RBA will ‘wait and see’ on possible May rate cut
Bowen rejects Dutton’s claim hosting Cop31 would cost ‘tens of billions’ of taxpayer funds
Adam Morton
The climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, has sharply rejected a claim by Peter Dutton that hosting the Cop31 climate conference in Australia next year would cost taxpayers “tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars”.
The Coalition leader said on Sunday that bidding to co-host the UN summit with Pacific nations would not “bring down power prices” and suggested, in addition to the cost of running the summit, it would lead to Australia under Labor “giving tens or hundreds of billions of dollars out to third party countries”. He said:
It’s madness. That’s not something we’re supporting.
Bowen told a media conference today that Dutton was “wrong and he’s lying” and that the figures the Coalition leader cited were “just made up”.
The guy who says the Pacific Islands don’t care about time when the water is lapping against their door now wants to remove the best opportunity for the Pacific to get the world’s attention on climate change.
Bowen said hosting the conference would be “a great opportunity to sell Australia’s renewable energy resources as a renewable energy superpower.
It’s the world’s largest trade fair. Report after report has shown that it’s got huge economic payoffs for the country that hosts it. We see this as in our national interest.
A decision on who hosts the conference is expected in the second half of the year.
Key events
Henry Belot
Taylor says superannuation sector’s social license is at risk after damning report
Angus Taylor has warned the superannuation industry’s social license is at risk after a damning report by the financial regulator found it was having “devastating impacts” on members experiencing “deep grief, vulnerability, frustration and genuine suffering”.
A report by Asic earlier this week found an unnamed superannuation fund took more than 500 days to approve a death benefit payment to an Indigenous woman grieving the loss of her husband and ignored her concerns about financial hardship and a confusing claims process.
A death benefit is the amount of superannuation a person has remaining in their account after they die. This can be transferred to a family member to ensure bills and expenses can be covered. This payment may also include life insurance payments.
Asic’s chair, Joe Longo, said the report “identified a range of issues including excessive delays, poor customer service and ineffective claims handling procedures”. He called on the industry to “take ownership of the problems and flex their muscle to fix the failings”.
Taylor says a Coalition government would demand the sector improve its treatment of members.
Our message is clear: super trustees must support their members, respect those members’ agency over their money, and ensure the funds run in a way that avoids conflicts of interest, with a focus on financial returns not activism. We will not tolerate anything less.
If superannuation is to keep its social license, it must have a relentless focus on the interests of members. APRA and ASIC have been warning for months about the need for funds to step up on their Retirement Income Covenant obligations.
Dutton again accused of ‘borrowing from the Doge playbook’
Labor MP Josh Burns was also on the program, and said Peter Dutton was sounding like “our friends in America when he’s playing these culture wars with the Department of Education.”
What would help our schools … is actually funding them properly … I used to be a teacher’s aide and I have been in the classroom myself. When you have 21 kids you’ve got 21 different lessons. The job of a teacher is extremely difficult, they do amazing work.
Instead of having Peter Dutton’s culture wars and borrowing from the Doge playbook, we need to resource our teachers at our schools so they can help teach wonderful little students all the things they need to excel.
Liberal MP says teachers shouldn’t bring ‘radical politics into the classroom’
Keith Wolahan, the Liberal MP for Menzies, has accused Labor of running a scare campaign and accusing the Coalition of making cuts to education. He told ABC Afternoon Briefing:
There is nothing controversial about requiring a back-to-basics education.
But is tying funding from the government to what schools teach actually appropriate? Wolahan responded that “what is appropriate is lifting the standards of education in this country”:
Asked if he thinks children are being “indoctrinated” in schools, the Liberal MP said this was “loaded language”, but:
We want to keep politics out of the classroom, whatever side of politics it is. We want kids to be taught the basics they are not … If a teacher or a staff member is bringing radical politics into the classroom, you can bring it in in a subtle way where you can engage in ideas. But if you are telling your students there is only one particular view or only one is acceptable, that’s not fair on the students and it’s not fair on the parents paying taxes for that to be put into schools.
Is Labor portraying Dutton as Trump-lite?
Katy Gallagher continued her argument, saying there needs to be “policies made in the interest of Australia, not imported from overseas that sound good to conservative governments”.
Asked if the Labor party is attempting to portray Peter Dutton as Donald Trump-lite, Gallagher said the party was “merely drawing a comparison to what we’ve seen in the last few months, but also what has been on offer here”:
We have Peter Dutton who is wanting to put everybody’s taxes up, ban work from home, moving into Kirribilli and measuring up the curtains before he has actually won an election, and then today, coming out and saying he wants to cut Medicare. And there is a real offer for people at this election and I don’t think you wouldn’t expect us to be drawing that to people’s attention.
Gallagher says government standing for national interest amid Turnbull’s Trump comments
Katy Gallagher was also asked comments from former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to the effect that current Australian politicians need to “get off [their] knees and stand up for Australia”.
Gallagher said comments from Anthony Albanese over the last few days and “since the Trump administration came to power” show the government “will make decisions in our national interest”:
We are working and communicating with the Trump administration as they go through implementing their agenda. But implementing their agenda doesn’t mean that we’re not going to stand up for our national interests.
She then took aim at the opposition and accused them of “a bit of copying, a bit of cutting [and] pasting from overseas and applying it here”:
[Dutton] is openly saying he’s going to slash 41,000 jobs from public service. This is a cut-and-paste from overseas and not in our national interest.
Gallagher says global trade tensions causing uncertainty in global markets and in Australia
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, spoke with ABC Afternoon Briefing just earlier about the RBA’s decision to hold rates at 4.1%.
Gallagher said “no-one was really expecting interest rates to move today” but it showed progress was being made on inflation.
Asked about the significance of “global uncertainty”, as Michele Bullock outlined earlier, the minister said this was “front and centre as we put the budget together”:
That has been a feature of our thinking and getting the budget into better shape and all of the decisions we have taken … I can understand Governor Bullock’s comments. I think everybody’s acknowledging that some of the trade tensions we are seeing play out around the world are causing uncertainty in global markets and of course that will have an impact here.
Bowen rejects Dutton’s claim hosting Cop31 would cost ‘tens of billions’ of taxpayer funds
Adam Morton
The climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, has sharply rejected a claim by Peter Dutton that hosting the Cop31 climate conference in Australia next year would cost taxpayers “tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars”.
The Coalition leader said on Sunday that bidding to co-host the UN summit with Pacific nations would not “bring down power prices” and suggested, in addition to the cost of running the summit, it would lead to Australia under Labor “giving tens or hundreds of billions of dollars out to third party countries”. He said:
It’s madness. That’s not something we’re supporting.
Bowen told a media conference today that Dutton was “wrong and he’s lying” and that the figures the Coalition leader cited were “just made up”.
The guy who says the Pacific Islands don’t care about time when the water is lapping against their door now wants to remove the best opportunity for the Pacific to get the world’s attention on climate change.
Bowen said hosting the conference would be “a great opportunity to sell Australia’s renewable energy resources as a renewable energy superpower.
It’s the world’s largest trade fair. Report after report has shown that it’s got huge economic payoffs for the country that hosts it. We see this as in our national interest.
A decision on who hosts the conference is expected in the second half of the year.
Bragg says Dutton’s views on net zero, abortion and trans people ‘very different from Trump’
Andrew Bragg said that the Labor party’s “attempts” to present Peter Dutton “as a small Trump” has been “a complete failure”.
And as you see on those issues like net zero and abortion, on trans … he’s got a position which [is] very different from Mr Trump’s.
He was asked to clarify where this difference is on trans issues, and said:
I don’t think he’s chosen to pursue that or go along with any of the positions that Mr Trump has sought to pursue in his agenda in the United States. And same goes for abortion and same goes for net zero. So as you know, Peter is his own man and I don’t think he’ll be taking dictation from Mr Trump on anything.
Bragg said some schools ‘never touch on good points about Australia’ and focus on negative aspects of history
Moving topics, Andrew Bragg was also asked about comments from Peter Dutton on Sky News yesterday about tying education funding to what schools teach, after being asked about “woke” education.
Bragg said schools need to teach children the “fantastic truth of our time which is that they are very lucky to be Australian.”
There is good and bad in our country’s history, but we’ve got to start with the basic fact that this is an amazing country to have been born into and be in an educated in.
And I do worry that there are parts of the education system that which never, ever touch on his good points about Australia. They are very quick to point out what hasn’t been good in our past, and every country has the fair share of good and bad, but this is a great country and we should be very proud to teach our children how great it actually is compared to almost everywhere else.
Bragg says buffer ‘hurting’ first-time buyers more than investors
Back on the servicibility buffer – Andrew Bragg said the 3% buffer was “hurting first-time buyers more than it hurts investors”.
Asked about this, and whether the issue of them competing should itself be addressed, the shadow assistant minister said no:
No, because investors are providing supply to the market, there is nothing wrong with investing in housing.
But if they’re competing with first home buyers, is that an issue? Bragg continued his argument and said:
They are also providing supply to the market. Wo we got to be careful here – Labor and the Greens’ solution might be to increase taxes. Our solution is defined a clever way to use financial regulation to preference first-time buyers.
Bragg outlines Coalition move to see serviceability buffer changed
Andrew Bragg, the shadow assistant minister for home ownership, is speaking with ABC Afternoon Briefing about the Coalition’s move to see the serviceability buffer changed.
(That’s the margin banks add to the home loan interest rate when they test if an applicant can afford future repayments.)
Bragg said the Coalition would ask Apra – the bank, insurance and superannuation regulator – to look into a lower buffer for first-time buyers:
If that was 2%, instead of being 3%, then a lot more people would be able to access a home loan compared to today’s position, where they can’t. But also people would be able to borrow more and in addition to that, the changes on mortgage insurance would guarantee cheaper overall …
On a half a million dollar loan, that would give a person another $40,000. And in relation to the lenders mortgage insurance point, if that was priced in a more reasonable way, an Australian on a half million dollar loan would save around $1,000 a year.
Asked what the Coalition would do if Apra looks at this and deems it a bad idea, Bragg said he had “never encountered as a situation where the parliament has been completely ignored by the regulator”.
Another threat made against Lakemba Mosque in Sydney’s south-west
Mostafa Rachwani
Another threat has been made against Lakemba Mosque in Sydney’s south-west, with a comment on TikTok warning they want to “blow it up.”
The comment was made under a video from the ABC, covering the Eid prayers at the Mosque, which were held yesterday to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
More comments followed, with some users asking what the “plan” was, and if they could meet up to “discuss them.”
The Lebanese Muslim Association (LMA), which runs the mosque, has called the comments “abhorrent” and reflected the “unabated rise in Islamophobia.”
The secretary of the organisation, Gemal Khier, criticised the Labor government saying he has not seen enough “political will to address” the rising rates of Islamophobia:
The comment is part of the unabated rise in Islamophobia we continue to see, all the while politicians duck and weave, burying their heads in the sand about the problem. And it is frustrating because we don’t see the political will to address this, and that emboldens Islamophobes and racists. It leaves us feeling abandoned.
It comes only weeks after Muslim organisations, including the National Imams Council and the LMA, last week called on federal Labor to address a rise in Islamophobia after similar comments were made on the social media pages of the organisations.
One comment called for a “Christchurch again” – an apparent reference to the New Zealand city where an Australian man killed 51 worshippers in 2019 at a mosque and Islamic centre.
Josh Butler
Dutton campaign in Melbourne announces funding for Maddie Riewoldt’s Vision
Peter Dutton is in the city of Melbourne this afternoon, meeting AFL legend Nick Riewoldt to make an announcement of funding for the Maddie Riewoldt’s Vision foundation – a organisation for patients with bone marrow failure syndrome.
Maddie was Nick’s sister, who died at age 26 following complications from her illness. Dutton has pledged a Liberal government would give $3m to the foundation.
In a statement with the shadow health minister, Anne Ruston, Dutton said:
In Australia, someone is diagnosed with bone marrow failure syndrome every three days. Distressingly, most patients are children and young adults, and 50% will not survive. Thousands more will live with complex and ongoing medical issues and risks to their health, including a significantly higher risk of developing cancer.
The commitment would help grow the centre, expand its outreach and education offerings. Nick Riewoldt said in a statement:
We are incredibly grateful to the Coalition for making a funding commitment of $3m over three years to ensure that no family faces a bone marrow failure syndrome diagnosis alone, and that we can continue to fund vital research in search of better treatments and a cure.
Albanese visits Corangamite and Lalor in first campaign stops in Victoria
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Flying into Victoria for the first time in the election campaign, Anthony Albanese stopped in the seat of Corangamite outside Geelong to pledge $5.45m in upgrades for the Drysdale football netball club.
The Labor MP Libby Coker holds the seat on a notional margin of 7.84%, but the Liberals believe it is winnable.
Standing outside on the netball court, surrounded by children of all ages in the team’s brown and yellow uniforms, Coker said it was “fantastic investment in this club and this community”.
The money will be used to upgrade the courts to make them compliant for the finals of local tournaments and to add two new club rooms and new spectator seating and lighting. Coker said:
For so long this club has not been able to play the finals and we want you to play the finals for the credibility of this club. It brings the town together and attracts people here and gives you pride in your club.
Albanese said he was a “bit jelly” of such a beautiful place to live.
One of the things we are seeing around Australia is more women’s team sports in areas like football.
Albanese is now on his way to the Labor-held seat of Lalor (12.9% margin) in Melbourne’s outer west, where he will visit a Medicare urgent care clinic with MP Jo Ryan.
Bullock says ‘fundamental problem’ impacting housing is demand and supply
When it comes to housing, Michele Bullock said the “fundamental problem” is demand and supply.
House prices were rising when interest rates are going up. You cannot just correlate one with the other. I guess I don’t have any particular things to say to people who are finding it difficult in the housing market other than to emphasise that there needs to be a supply response.
