Anthony Albanese visits once-marginal seat of Corangamite in Victoria

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Labor is ticking off its fifth state in a matter of days with the Albanese campaign landing in Melbourne. The Prime Minister has visited the once-marginal seat of Corangamite in southern Victoria announcing 5.45 million dollars in funding for the Drysdale football netball club.

Transcript

00:00Anthony Albanese has touched down in Melbourne, arriving in Victoria for the first time in

00:07this election campaign.

00:08There are plenty on both sides of this contest that see Victoria as really the critical contest,

00:14the critical state, simply because there are simply so many seats up for grabs on all sides.

00:20There are seats that Labor is looking to hold off from the Coalition, there are seats that

00:23the Liberal Party is looking to hold off from Labor, there are seats the Greens are going

00:27after and seats the Independents are going after and looking to hold onto as well.

00:32Upon arriving in Melbourne, Anthony Albanese headed straight for the fairly safe Labor

00:37seat of Corangamite, announcing about $5 million in funding for a local football and netball

00:42club there, before heading for the fairly safe Labor seat of Lawlor as well, visiting

00:47an urgent care clinic.

00:48So two fairly safe Labor seats visited by the Prime Minister fairly shortly after his

00:54arrival in Victoria.

00:55It'll be interesting to see where he heads next in this campaign.

00:58The other big story this afternoon has of course been the Reserve Bank's decision to

01:02leave interest rates on hold.

01:03Not a significant surprise coming from the Reserve Bank, and one welcomed by the Treasurer

01:08Jim Chalmers, who noted what he says is welcome progress in the economy on a number of fronts.

01:14Containing inflation, keeping unemployment low, he says, and also pushing wages up too.

01:19What was perhaps more interesting from the Treasurer was a new and fairly strong political

01:24attack on the opposition leader Peter Dutton during his press conference, quite directly

01:28comparing Mr Dutton to the actions of the Trump administration at least, saying there

01:33are elements of what Mr Dutton is trying to do that could be directly compared to what's

01:38going on in the US.

01:39The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, he has made similar suggestions in the past, but

01:43never been quite as direct as the Treasurer is being now.

01:47Today he threatened cuts to school funding, which was right from the Doge playbook.

01:53And we also know that he wants to Americanise Medicare as well, because when he was the

01:58Health Minister, he tried to gut and cut Medicare.

02:03He said that the best predictor of future performance is past performance.

02:07When Peter Dutton was voted the worst ever Health Minister in our history, he tried to

02:12Americanise Medicare, and now we hear that he has in mind cuts to education as well.

02:20This is Dogey Dutton taking his cues, his instructions and his policies straight from

02:27the US in a way that will make Australians worse off.

02:32The United States is becoming something of a presence in this campaign, with the looming

02:37arrival of news of tariffs from the US expected in the next 24 to 48 hours.

02:43The Prime Minister was questioned on the possibility of new tariffs from the US today, and also

02:49what he thought of threats made to certain specific sectors, including agriculture, things

02:54like beef imports, which are currently banned from the US, also areas like poultry, and

03:00threats to Australia's exports in areas like pharmaceuticals as well.

03:04The Prime Minister was very clear, in particular on the issue of biosecurity, saying deals

03:09simply won't be done with the US in that area to try and avoid tariffs, describing it as

03:15cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Category

Transcript

Recommended