Federal election 2025: PM calls for tariff 'perspective', Dutton accuses Albanese of 'politicising' wage rise fight — as it happened

Thank you for joining us on yet another jam-packed day of the 2025 federal election campaign blog.

We will be back tomorrow but in the meantime, you can check out the rest of today's  online coverage at our Australia Votes page and you can try out the ABC's Vote Compass tool,  to see how you align with the political parties.

Thank you again for joining!

Shadow minister for foreign affairs David Coleman wasted little time in hitting back at Murray Watt's comments about the Coalition, labelling the employment and workplace relations minister's statements "comical".

Coleman, appearing live on 7.30, took exception to  Watt's comments.

"A bit comical there from Senator Watt," he told Sarah Ferguson.

"If you look at our trading relationship with China ... we added more than $100 billion to that export relationship. And the increases under Labor have been significantly smaller than that."

He then called Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government "weak" when it comes to dealing with China.

"We should always be measured and calm, but we should never be weak," Coleman said.

"And this government embraces weakness as an explicit strategy.

"We've got a prime minister who on this issue, who is absolutely all over the shop.

"He needed a Virgin Airlines pilot to tell him that live firing exercises were being conducted off Australian waters.

"He doesn't have a problem with the circumnavigation of Australia.

"And this week, in relation to the research vessel, he said that the ADF were shadowing it, and then the next day it was the Australian Border Force were shadowing it."

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt has accused Opposition Leader Peter Dutton of simply importing US policies, during an appearance on 7.30.

Watt says while Labor is looking to lift productivity, Dutton was  looking to Trumpian politics.

"Be assured that lifting our productivity rate, just like lifting wages, lifting employment, just like we've done this term, are core priorities for us going forward," Watt told 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson.

"What we want to do is do it in a fair way and an economically responsible way. We're not about cutting, we're not about cutting the health department.

"We're not about cutting Medicare. We're not about importing every other policy from the US that Peter Dutton wakes up to every morning.

"We're about Australian solutions, which include a fair go, especially when it comes to wages."

He was then asked to respond to shadow foreign affairs spokesman, who says the government's effort has lacked energy.

"Well, I mean, seriously, these are the people who trashed our trading relationship with our biggest trading partner when they were last in office.

"As the agriculture minister, I met countless farmers and farm organisations who had suffered immense financial damage, as a result of the way the coalition carried on with our trading relationship with China.

"We're not about to take lessons from people who proved completely incompetent when they were in government and all this macho stuff that we're going on with Peter Dutton and his colleagues at the moment, it doesn't lead to anything. I actually think it's a bit sad and pathetic, really."

Watch the full interview on 7.30 on ABC and iview.

7.30 is up now!

You can watch the programme at the top of the blog.

Greens leader Adam Bandt was arguably the luckiest leader on the campaign trail today, because he got to meet Mandy the koala at the Cleland Wildlife Park in South Australia.

Mandy sleeps for 20 hours a day and is "picky" about the kind of gum leaves she eats. You're a national treasure. Mandy!

Bandt is there to talk about the Greens' pledge to spend one per cent of the budget on nature.

"When we're losing the equivalent of an MCG of bushland every two minutes, and Labor and Liberal are spending more on destroying our environment than protecting it," Bandt said.

"Labor has broken promise after promise to protect the environment, and Peter Dutton doesn't even pretend to care."

He touched on a few other topics, too. Namely childcare - he wants Labor to take responsibility for better regulation - and the impending threat of tariffs from the US.

He said it was a bad idea for Australia to be "joined at the hip" to the US, which he described as a "dangerous demigod."

"We've got a prime minister who is hiding behind the couch while Peter Dutton takes a leaf out of Donald Trump's playbook everyday," he said.

"It is time for us to put our country's interests first, and have an independent foreign policy."

The Liberal Party's X page has put up a cheeky sign next to their Kooyong candidate Amelia Hamer.

The sign reads: "Monique, please DO NOT take this sign!"

If you're wondering why the Liberal Party have put this sign up, it's because last month Kooyong MP Monique Ryan's husband was filmed removing a sign belonging to Hamer.

Dr Ryan and her husband have apologised.

Arts Minister Tony Burke stopped in for an extended conversation with Daniel Browning on Arts in 30, earlier today.

When asked about big tech companies like Meta taking the work of Australian authors to train their generative AI models without the authors' approval, Bourke said: "my view is that it's theft. And in a similar way to […] the initial action of Amazon from memory was to just assert its rights over everything that had been published and then negotiate after that for access".

"I deal a lot with the return of stolen items. The nature of this intellectual property is that once AI has used it, there's no concept of return. It's done."

You can listen to the full episode here:

As round two of US tariffs loom, Peter Dutton says he will fight with Donald Trump — or any other world leader to protect the national interest.

And while Anthony Albanese has also muscled up, he says Peter Dutton's "aggro" approach lacks diplomacy.

So, why are both sides strengthening their language on Donald Trump — and could pushing back on the US president pay a political dividend?

Patricia Karvelas and David Speers break it all down on Politics Now.

 "Not only is he [Peter Dutton] repositioning [on Donald Trump] because he definitely is, but he's actually trying to use even stronger, more muscular language. I'll "fight" him. The prime minister doesn't talk like that. And then the prime minister does this sneaky little trick, says "he's [Peter Dutton] undiplomatic, that guy". So he's being tough, but not in a silly way. It is fascinating," Karvelas says.

David Speers responds saying: "It is. Because remember, this was meant to be the week where the Albanese campaign might've gone off the rails, you know, because we knew this was coming. The tariff decision would really hurt the Labor campaign."

You can listen to the full episode here:

Shout out Yohan, a four-year-old who met the Prime Minister of Australia in the outer suburbs of Melbourne this morning and RACED to tell him about his upcoming June birthday.

So relatable, Yohan. I hope you get loads of presents.

One of the other kids growled at the PM as he prepared to read them a book and another after a few pages.

Albanese held it together pretty well with the rambunctious group, and at one point they all roared together like dinosaurs.

At the end, Albanese turned to one of the children.

"Nice to meet you," he said to the kid, who simply stared him down.

This may have been a tougher crowd than the press pack.

Karvelas has asked Chalmers about his thoughts on Dutton claiming how the Coalition won't be making cuts to frontline services when it comes to funding.

The treasurer says the Coalition is lying about touching frontline services.

"You can't cut 41,000 jobs without touching frontline services."

He then went on to talk about how Angus Taylor didn't mention the cuts, during his Press Club address early this afternoon.

"He had an opportunity to come clean on these cuts, these secret cuts that he will need to be for $600 billion worth of nuclear reactors," Chalmers told Karvelas.

"He was either unable or unwilling to do that."

Chalmers has been asked if there will be compensation for industry assistance and how we can capitalise on the Clean Energy Corporation.

The treasurer says there were number of investments made in the Budget to make Australia's economy more resilient.

"Our Future Made in Australia strategy is very important."

He said he is not going to pre-empt future decisions beyond that.

"We are well placed and well-prepared as Australians in the face of these escalating trade tensions that is because we have already been putting effort into making our economy more resilient and our markets more diverse," Chalmers said.

Patricia Karvelas asks Jim Chalmers how the government will respond if Australia is implicated in another round of US tariffs.

The treasurer says the government's job is to make sure Australia's economy is resilient enough to withstand global uncertainties.

Karvelas asks why the government is still in the dark about how Australia might be affected, but Chalmers says while negotiations have been ongoing, "at the end of the day, it is a decision for President Trump".

Chalmers reiterated the prime minister's stance that tariffs are "not how friends treat each other", but wouldn't be drawn into revealing whether Australia will respond to a new round of tariffs.

Up now on Afternoon Briefing is Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who is currently in western Queensland.

As I reported earlier, the treasurer visited Quilpie today, where he announced the federal government is providing Primary Producer Grants of up to $75,000 for flood-affected farmers. 

Albanese has been asked if he would fight Donald Trump after Peter Dutton told Sky earlier today that he would fight him or any other world leader in a heartbeat, to advance Australia's interests.

Albanese didn't give a straightforward yes or no answer and instead said: "We will stand up for Australia's interests, I don't take these issues personally," he told Radio Brisbane.

Moving onto the campaign trail now, former MP Craig Emerson says Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is perhaps inadvertently "looking a little bit like Donald Trump with his Department of Government Efficiency".

"That probably is worrying people, that he will make lots of cuts here in Australia, so if I were Peter Dutton I would be trying to distance myself from a Donald Trump rather than emulate," Emerson tells Patricia Karvelas on Afternoon Briefing.

Emerson says appearing too close to the US president could be a detriment to the Coalition's campaign.

"If he is emulating policies of Trump, that is what people will take notice of, rather than a couple of tough words here and there."

Anthony Albanese  has told Radio Brisbane that Australians won't feel the pinch of Trump's tariffs on US imports that he is expected to announce tomorrow.

"It doesn't increase prices here it increases prices in the US, so this is an act of self-harm."

Patricia Karvelas is now speaking with former Labor MP Craig Emerson, who last year authored the independent review of the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct.

Emerson says he's "not really surprised" the consumer watchdog did not find sustained evidence of price gouging at supermarkets, but "sneaky" tactics such as "shrinkflation" were identified.

"[That's] where something might cost $2.50 for 100 ounces and then is reduced to 80 ounces and it still costs $2.50 while the price has gone up effectively," he says.

Onto the next station, Albanese has called in to ABC Radio Brisbane this time.

This time he is talking about the importance of increasing wages for low income workers.

"When a low paid worker does get an increase in their wage, guess what they spend it and they usually spend it within the community," Albanese says.

You can listen here:

Patricia Karvelas turns her sights to recent suggestions by the Coalition that children are being "indoctrinated" in schools.

She asks in what way Bridget McKenzie would suggest this is occurring.

The senator says parents she has spoken to are increasingly concerned about violence at schools.

"When you go to university campuses, you have got an acquiescence of antisemitism with Jewish students and Jewish academics' research projects associated with Israel are under attack and people are not safe." 

Karvelas steers the discussion back to schools.

"What you say as a teacher within the classroom, the types of information give your students, the types of information and opinions you choose not to share with your students is important," McKenzie replies.

"Increasingly what we have been seeing in the classroom is that certain ideas and perspectives are privileged over other ideas or contradictory ideas."

McKenzie is asked to give examples.

"I can go to a personal example of my own family, where students were actually not encouraged to bring certain political commentary into the classroom for discussion in English class because it was deemed as anti-climate change or anti-environment," the senator responds.

"I would have thought we want to have our students leave high school with all the basic knowledge and skill sets they need to live a rich and rewarding life in this country, to be good citizens, great neighbours, fabulous parents and community members, but also to be critical thinkers and I think that is even more important with the rise of social media.

"So if you are only privileging certain types of information, certain perspectives, then you are narrowing the critical thinking skills and development of our young people and that is what is happening in our classrooms."

First up on Afternoon Briefing today is Senator Bridget McKenzie. 

Patricia Karvelas opens by asking her whether she will blame US President Donald Trump or Prime Minister Anthony Albanese if a new round of tariffs are handed down tomorrow.

"You wouldn't want Anthony Albanese in a bar fight, would you?" McKenzie fires back.

"He would be the guy hiding out in the toilets at the back before it is all over."

Karvelas asks whether McKenzie is suggesting Peter Dutton would be better in a bar fight against Trump.

"I will let your viewers decide," she replies.

But Karvelas pushes the questioning again, noting that several nations have been hit by tariffs.

"Of course this is an issue for the United States and if they choose to put tariffs on everybody that is exporting to the US, that is going to damage global trade. We know that," McKenzie says.

Asked whether she would agree with Australia taking the US to the World Trade Organisation, McKenzie said "we should use every method we have available".