Trump’s tariffs are the order of the morning, and shadow infrastructure minister Bridget McKenzie is up on ABC News Breakfast, arguing that there needs to be a government who can strengthen the economy to weather the global economic storms.
The party has been using the line that households have been in a per-capita recession. for more than a year, meaning the economy is weaker than it was under the previous government.
What you need to ensure is that your nation has a buffer, if you like, to actually deal with weathering these type of storms from overseas. We need to make sure that our economy is strong, what we have seen is that it is weaker over the last three years.
The Coalition has announced a future fund policy – two funds to help pay down debt and set up regional infrastructure.
Host Bridget Brennan asks McKenzie how that funding would be distributed fairly to regional areas. McKenzie, under the previous Morrison government, had previously used a Community Sport Infrastructure Grant Program to fund projects in key and marginal seats. She quit cabinet and resigned as deputy Nationals leader at the time. McKenzie says this funding shouldn’t just go to Nationals seats.
It shouldn’t go to seats that are just held by Liberal and National Party members, it should be about the 9 million of us that don’t live in capital cities. Actually having a fair share of investment from the resources that our nation supplies to global markets.
It’s a legislated fund with an independent analysis of the impact of any government’s decision-making on the state of the regions, that will be tabled in Parliament, and this information will inform ministers on where they need to invest that money.
Daisy Dumas
ACTU report says wages would have been lower under Coalition
Australian workers would be $8,700 worse off had Peter Dutton achieved his goal of blocking major government reforms that boosted wages, new research shows.
The Getting Wages Moving: And the $8,700 risk of Peter Dutton report by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, released today, shows that wages have grown by 3.7% since Labor came to power in 2022, while in the decade prior, under the Coalition government, they grew 2.1%. Under the Rudd and Gillard governments, wage growth averaged 3.6%.
According to the ACTU report, wages have grown across all industries since 2022 owing to five key policy changes including intervention in annual wage reviews and Secure Jobs, Better Pay reforms – all of which the report claims are not supported by the Coalition.
The union’s secretary, Sally McManus, said that the report “confirms just how much lower wages would have been had Peter Dutton’s policies been in place”.
In a statement, she said:
While workers are doing it tough, he would have made things a lot worse by keeping wage rises low and allowed big business to continue using their wage-cutting loopholes.
At a time of global uncertainty, it’s even more important for workers to have the confidence that the gains they’ve been making over the last three years continue. We do not need Peter Dutton importing more of that uncertainty here.
Krishani Dhanji
Good morning,
Krishani Dhanji here with you, as Donald Trump continues to dominate the Australian election campaign.
From last night’s treasurers’ debate, where the tariffs dominated, to Trump putting a pause on some of those tariffs early this morning, we can’t seem to get enough of the issue.
And the Australian Council of Trade Unions has released research on wages, and how much lower they might be under a Coalition government (they’re saying wages would be about $8,700 lower).
We’ll follow all that this morning.
