What we learned; Wednesday 2 April
Many thanks for joining us on the blog for another whirlwind day on the campaign trail. Here were the key takeaways from day six:
Both Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton began day six of the campaign in Victoria.
Shifting his election campaign focus from health to wages, the prime minister said he would urge the fair work umpire to deliver an “economically sustainable” real wage increase for low-paid workers.
Dutton pledged $6.2m to a Headspace centre in Melton.
The opposition leader continued his argument that Australians shouldn’t be “beating ourselves up about our history”, amid rhetoric from the Coalition children are being “indoctrinated” in schools.
Dutton also said he wouldn’t rule out cuts to the ABC, saying where there is waste or ineffective spending, “we don’t support that”.
Albanese did not rule out taking the US to the World Trade Organization if it decides to slap further tariffs on Australia, with a decision due around 7am tomorrow morning. The Coalition backed this action.
The shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, gave his budget reply at the National Press Club, where he praised Elon Musk.
Taylor said costings for the Coalition’s plan to cut 41,000 jobs from the federal public service will be released before the election.
The Albanese campaign visited Tasmania for a few hours in the afternoon, pledging $8m for a new healthcare hub, then travelled back to Melbourne.
The Liberal party has printed official campaign posters saying, “Monique, please DO NOT take this sign!” to go alongside candidate Amelia Hamer posters, after Monique Ryan’s husband was filmed removing one of her signs last month.
And David Pocock said Peter Dutton should stop “punching down” on Canberra by attacking the public service.
Krishani Dhanji will be back with you bright and early tomorrow morning, for day seven of the campaign. In the meantime, take care.
Updated
Queensland parliament to expand police search powers to all public places
Controversial Queensland laws permitting police to stop and search people at random are set to be expanded.
Under an amendment bill introduced into parliament today, “Jack’s Law” would potentially apply in all public places in the state.
Under the 2023 laws, police do not need reasonable suspicion that a person committed an offence to detain them for the purpose of using a metal detecting “wand” to search them for a knife.
The state police minister, Dan Purdie, said under his legislation a senior police officer would have to have “intelligence” that people might have knives in a particular area. It would also only apply in an area with a concentration of licensed premises or many pedestrians.
The fact that over 100,000 people have been wanded, over 1,000 weapons have been taken off the street, and only two complaints have been made about police during that time shows ... that we can trust our police with these powers. We can trust our police to do the right thing by them and use them to drive down crime and break the culture we know now of young people carrying knives.
The bill would also make Jack’s law permanent, repealing a sunset clause. Human rights advocates have criticised the laws for enabling racial profiling by police and having no proven effect on reducing crime.
The premier, David Cisafulli, said:
It’s important that we do expand this to public places across the board, because in the end, there is no excuse for someone to be going out with a machete.
Updated
