Leaders' debate live updates: Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton meet in final election debate
Welcome to the final leaders' debate Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature Emily Wind
Good evening, and welcome to the final leaders' debate of the federal election campaign, with less than a week to go until polling day. I'm Emily Wind, and I'll be taking you through all of the action tonight.
Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton will go head-to-head in one more televised debate on 7News, kicking off just after 8pm AEST tonight.
The showdown will be broadcast on Seven's free-to-air channel as well as on catch-up service 7plus. Viewers can also stream it on 7NEWS.com.au. We will also be bringing you all the highlights from the debate right here on our live blog.
The debate will be moderated by 7News' political editor, Mark Riley, and hosted at Seven's studios in Sydney.
There will be no winner declared as part of the debate broadcast – instead, a studio audience of 60 undecided voters will give their verdicts post-debate. We'll have more details on how the debate will play out shortly. Share
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The Guardian
10 hours ago
- The Guardian
Labor eyes ambitious tax reform but it must be ready for vicious backlash from vested interests
There was a hint of frustration in Anthony Albanese's voice when he spoke to the Canberra press gallery for the first time after Labor's thumping election victory on 3 May. In the prime minister's courtyard at Parliament House, he was asked if he planned to use his soaring political capital for major reforms of the tax or superannuation systems. Badly needed, and often talked about in the abstract, this kind of action had waited for a long time for the necessary political ambition. Albanese said he wouldn't get ahead of himself in the opening weeks of his second term in power. He insisted Labor had already been bold, delivering on its promises in the first three years. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Fast forward to Wednesday, while the PM was pressing the diplomatic flesh at the G7 summit in Canada, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, showed the first signs of that reform ambition. In a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra, Chalmers signalled Labor was willing to consider changes to the tax system at the looming productivity summit in August, recognition that fixing longstanding problems was needed to right the budget's structural deficit. The speech was an implicit recognition that Labor's tax changes in the first term barely touched the edges of deeper structural problems in Australia's tax system. Chalmers, a student of economic reformer Paul Keating, said any progress on productivity or budget sustainability would be impossible without proper consideration of tax reform, a challenge he conceded would be 'hard and contested' with benefits that were not always immediate. Even someone with a passing interest in federal politics should know the scale of the problem is vast: some $1tn in government debt and soaring spending, held up by a system overly reliant on income tax from an ageing population – a problem that will only get worse due to the ageing population. For years Chalmers has been eager to point out the five main pressures on the budget are not going to get any easier without proper attention. Spending on health, aged care, the national disability insurance scheme, defence and interest from government debt will keep treasurers and finance ministers up at night for years to come. The government's revenue base is being eroded from declining fuel and tobacco excises, and in the long term will take a hit from lower tax receipts from fossil fuel extraction. The early stages of Labor's plans seem to include lower income taxes, but no changes to the 25-year-old GST. Chalmers is upfront, saying tax overall needs to rise. Whether it is indeed possible to meaningfully lower income taxes without broadening or raising the GST is unclear. Economists argue taxing consumption through mechanisms such as the GST is efficient, while taxing incomes isn't. Parliamentary Budget Office figures show the GST causes about 8 cents in economic loss for each dollar gained, compared with 24 cents for income tax or 40 cents for corporate tax. Two major pieces of work should be the starting point, acknowledging that any change which makes it into law will inevitably create some winners and some losers. Chalmers was working for then treasurer Wayne Swan when Ken Henry handed his landmark tax review to the Rudd government in late 2009. Both men marked up copies of the document over the course of the summer, leaving them to 'disgorge' sand from the beach by the time they made it back to Canberra. Many of the review's 138 recommendations never saw the light of day. Today, the former Treasury secretary says, the system is in even worse shape. Henry has called for wholesale reform, including increasing the GST to pay for company and personal income tax cuts, as well as comprehensive road user charging, replacing stamp duties, increasing taxes on super profits from the mining sector, an economy-wide price on carbon and changes to fringe benefits and superannuation taxes. Henry's review is best remembered for recommending the mining tax, an idea which prompted a furious campaign of resistance against the government. Chalmers has acknowledged the politics of the review were mishandled, that it was kept secret too long before ultimately crashing into Labor's leadership wars. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion The second substantive report with proposals ready to go is the white paper released by teal independent Allegra Spender in the last term of parliament. In a different political reality, Spender would be part of the Liberal party's economic team, and her significant work comes with buy-in from Henry and other leading tax voices including Robert Breunig from the Australian National University's Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, and Robert Carling from the Centre for Independent Studies. Chalmers assigned a staffer to monitor the white paper process, at a time when Spender was one of the few MPs actually prepared to talk about meaningful tax reform. The Wentworth MP wants the coming reform push to look at business investment and corporate taxes, the under-performing petroleum resource rent tax, road user charging, indexation of income brackets, unhelpful state taxes and the GST. Spender has more guts than either of the major parties in one specific area as well. She has called for a review of Western Australia's insanely generous GST deal, which respected economist Saul Eslake calls the worst public policy decision of the 21st century. WA's state Labor government handed down a budget with a $2.5bn surplus this week, but taxpayers from every other state are paying $54bn to the state due to perceived unfairness in the grants commission process. This special treatment agreed by then treasurer Scott Morrison and locked in by Anthony Albanese to maintain Labor's political stocks in the West will see the nation's richest state receive an extra $21.1bn from federal taxpayers over the next four years alone. Family trusts, the legal tax structures used by millions of Australians to lower their tax liabilities, also look likely to come under increased scrutiny as part of the latest reform push. Chalmers and Albanese will convene their productivity summit in the cabinet room on 19 August. If they want their record to be considered alongside the Hawke-Keating and Howard-Costello governments, the political conditions could hardly be better. Labor must prepare itself for the predictable backlash from vested interests unwilling to countenance changes to cushy arrangements and handy loopholes. Only a serious government prepared to expend political capital will be able to make the system fairer and fit for a 21st century country facing major demographic and economic challenges. If Labor really has the ambition Anthony Albanese insists it does, meaningful tax reform might become the make-or-break test of the government's second term.
Metro
17 hours ago
- Metro
Two RAF planes damaged by pro-Palestine activists
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Two planes at an RAF base in Oxfordshire were damaged activists, who say the aircraft are used to commit genocide in Palestine. Palestine Action said they broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged two RAF Voyager aircraft. They claim the planes depart daily to Akrotiri in Cyprus, and 'from there collect intelligence, refuel fighter jets and transport weapons to commit genocide in Gaza'. The activists said rode up to the planes on electric scooters and used 'repurposed fire extinguishers to spray red paint into the turbine engines of two Airbus Voyagers'. The group, who said the red paint symbolised Palestinian blood, claimed they also used crowbars to cause further damage. In a statement, they said: A Palestine Action spokesperson has stated: 'Despite publicly condemning the Israeli government, Britain continues to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US/Israeli fighter jets. Britain isn't just complicit, it's an active participant in the Gaza genocide and war crimes across the Middle East. 'By decommissioning two military planes, Palestine Action have directly intervened in the genocide and prevented crimes against the Palestinian people.' According to the UK Defence Journal, defence sources said this was 'inaccurate' and that RAF Voyagers based at Brize Norton are primarily used to support Operation Shader, the UK's ongoing mission against Daesh in Iraq and Syria. They said the aircrafts were not used to support Israeli operations. More Trending In October 2023, Palestine Action sprayed the BBC's head quarters in London with red paint over what it said was biased coverage in favour of Israel. Palestine Action said they managed to carry out the damage without being detected. The Ministry of Defence has been contacted for comment. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. A
Daily Mail
19 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Albanese faces backlash for 'tone-deaf' action upon Canberra return
Anthony Albanese has sparked mixed reactions online after returning to Australia without securing a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump - only to post a photo of his dog lounging in Parliament as global tensions escalate. The Prime Minister used his return to Canberra to post an image of his cavoodle Toto sitting on an orange lounge suite in his Parliament House office. This lighthearted post came as the U.S. was focused on the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran , and while Australia faced pressing issues like trade tariffs and AUKUS discussions. 'Today is International Take Your Dog to Work Day,' he said on Instagram with an image of his cute companion. The Instagram post had supporters with one woman saying: 'I love it. Please don't join the war.' But one man slammed Albanese for being focused on trivial issues, during a time of economic and geopolitical upheaval. 'Nobody cares. Do your job,' he said. Another said the post was 'tone-deaf'. The post was made on Instagram after Albanese had returned from the G7 leaders' summit in Canada without securing a sidelines meeting in person with Trump, who cancelled so he could return to the United States early and focus on the Israel-Iran conflict. A meeting had been promised so Australia could lobby Trump to reconsider 50 per cent tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium, after import taxes on the metals were doubled on June 4, along with 10 per cent tariffs on most other Australian exports to the US. The Trump Administration is also reviewing its commitment to the AUKUS submarine deal, which is set to conservatively cost Australia $368billion so it has underwater defence against a more assertive China. Despite the need for leader-to-leader dialogue, Albanese had to settle for meeting with top economic officials in Calgary, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Trump had left the G7 summit early due to the Israel-Iran conflict, cancelling planned meetings with several world leaders including Albanese, who has only ever spoken to the US President on the phone. Trump was also unable to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi but they held a 35-minute phone call at Trump's request, in place of their planned in-person meeting on the summit sidelines. Albanese, however, was the only leader to miss out, with South Korea's new President Lee Jae Myung also failing to have a promised in-person meeting with Trump at the G7. Albanese last month declined to meet US Vice President JD Vance during his visit to Rome for the Pope's inauguration. When asked at the time if he had spoken or reached out to him for a meeting, Albanese replied simply, 'No'. 'He arrived quite late in terms of just prior to the mass taking place, as you will have seen,' he said later. The White House has confirmed that Trump will attend the NATO Summit in the Netherlands next week, though his presence may now be in doubt because of the rapidly changing situation in the Middle East.
