Fiona Macdonald

Director, The Australia Institute’s Center For Future Work

In a historic decision, yesterday the Fair Work Commission recommended increases in minimum wage rates to address gender-based undervaluation of work.

Dental assistants, pathology collectors, disability, crisis accommodation and other community services workers, children’s services workers and dental therapists and assistants in Aboriginal Health Services are among those who would benefit from the recommended increases.

The Coalition must commit to backing any final increases awarded by the industrial tribunal. Minimum wage increases for these workers are a critical step towards stopping the perpetuation of unequal pay and address workforce shortages in essential health, community and children’s services.

Centre for Future Work research has highlighted the problems of undervaluation of work female-dominated sectors.

Matt Grudnoff

Senior Economist

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell has spoken overnight. The Federal Reserve is the US central bank. Powell has come out and said that they’re worried that the Trump tariffs will push up inflation and slow economic growth (which in turn pushes up unemployment).

This combination of events, high inflation and high unemployment, is very tricky for central banks. When inflation is high, a central bank will increase interest rates to slow the economy and reduce inflation. When unemployment is high, they cut interest rates to stimulate economic growth and lower unemployment.

But what do they do when both inflation and unemployment are high?

The Federal Reserve chair said overnight that they were going to make no change to interest rates and wait and see what happens as more economic data comes in.

The Fed is hoping that Trump will pull back from his policy on tariffs, otherwise they will have to make some difficult decisions.

The media conference ends with the Prime Minister wishing Australians a happy easter, hoping they get some time off with their families.

He could probably afford to take a few days off himself.

QUESTION: Is Peter Dutton a climate change denier?

ANTHONY ALBANESE:

Peter Dutton’s comments speak for itself last night. He was asked and David Speers re-asked a couple of times, gave him the opportunity to say that the science on climate change was real. You know, all of the hottest years on record have been this century. We’re seeing more extreme weather events in greater intensity, and he said, “I’m not a scientist and there’s different views.” You know, does he believe in gravity? I mean, what else is there that is a scientific fact that he needs assurance of or a science degree to understand? You know what – there was a bit of discussion last night about young people and I say this to young people who are concerned about housing, about social media and social inclusion, they’re concerned about the economy and their place in it, they’re concerned about intergenerational equity which is why we’re putting in place the 20% cut in student debt. But you know what they’re all concerned about? Climate change. Because this is something that will have by definition a greater impact on the kids who are here today than it will on myself or Jim or Kara or the journalists who are here. This guy says, “Oh, well, I didn’t really know, there’s different views about climate change.” Climate change is real. We need to have a real response.

Question: At the start of this campaign you were written off. Why did people underestimate you so much, given you have flipped the polls in a couple of weeks, you’re in the lead and your Opposition Leader is being caught seemingly woefully unprepared?

Anthony Albanese:

I have said before a number of times – I have been underestimated from time to time … I am captain of an extraordinary team. We’re putting forward our record which we’re proud of, but also our proposals that we have taken forward, that we started to announce many, many months ago. We were waiting for the Coalition to announce some policies. All they have now is a $600 billion nuclear plan, free lunches for bosses, and cuts to pay for it all. That’s really all they have. And now this – as the Treasurer described it – laughable plan, aspiration, to do something about tax that they’re increasing during this campaign. But the truth is that it’s hard to win a second term. You know, we’re trying to climb a mountain. We’re a few steps up that mountain, it’s a long way to get to the peak.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has released a strongly-worded statement on Peter Dutton’s fence-sitting on climate change:

Mr Dutton, denying climate change puts people and nature in harm’s way

Peter Dutton’s responses on climate change in last night’s leaders’ debate, along with a string
of climate damaging policies, reveal the Coalition is out of touch on a major issue affecting
voters’ lives, the Australian Conservation Foundation said.

“It’s a serious concern that one of the candidates vying to be Australia’s prime minister is
unwilling to stand up and say climate change is real, is happening and is affecting Australia,”
said ACF CEO Kelly O’Shanassy.
“For Mr Dutton to fall back on the old climate deniers’ line – I’m not a scientist – in last night’s
leaders’ debate was deeply disturbing at a time when Australia desperately needs to get
serious about tackling the climate crisis.

“If Mr Dutton harbours any doubts about climate change’s impact on Australia, he only needs
to look at his home state of Queensland where the Great Barrier Reef has suffered its sixth
mass coral bleaching event in a decade, the west of the state has been hit by its worst flooding
in 50 years and Queenslanders are still mopping up after Cyclone Alfred.

“The Coalition is offering voters nothing on climate change.

“In fact, its policies would be worse than doing nothing. It intends to slow and reduce the
rollout of renewables, weaken the safeguard mechanism, effectively scrap vehicle emissions
standards, increase expensive gas for domestic use and export, keep coal-fired power stations
open longer, go wobbly on the Paris Agreement, offer no 2030 or 2035 emissions reduction
target and no pathway to get Australia to net zero by 2050.

“ACF’s comprehensive assessment of parties’ and candidates’ climate and nature policies had
to give the Coalition a score of 1 out of 100.

“While Labor scored a bare pass (54/100), the Coalition’s 1/100 is the lowest mark for the
Liberal and National parties’ environment policies in two decades of ACF election scorecards.
“The next parliament is the last parliament that can get Australia’s massive contribution to
climate change under control. If you are not up for the task, you don’t deserve the job of
Prime Minister.

“We urge all Australians to look their family members in the eye before heading to the polls
and use their vote to elect a parliament that will protect our climate, wildlife and kids.”

The next question is on unemployment and whether it will be impacted by the Trump Trade War. If it is, would that impact the government’s ability to deliver on its spending commitments?

Look, the impact of tariffs is something that we’re considering, but as you would be aware, like everyone else looking at what’s occurred in the United States. There have been a range of changes made on a day-to-day basis. What we’ll do is work those issues through. In some cases, some of the tariff changes, just choose one, for example, I have spoken to some meat producers here in Queensland, some of them, yes, there might be issues with the United States, but there are pluses on the other side with exports to China because of the relationship between China and the United States and what’s happening on trade there. So we’ll work those issues through. The budget was only handed down in March 25, so a short time ago, the budget was handed down. But we’ll work through those issues. We’re confident and I’m very optimistic about where Australia’s positioned.

First, the Prime Minister rips into Peter Dutton’s weakness on climate change in last night’s ABC debate.

If there’s one thing that stunned me about last night, it was Peter Dutton being asked not a very difficult question about whether he agreed with the science on climate change. Effectively, he said he’s not a scientist and couldn’t say … the science is very clear on climate change. The fact that in 2025 you have someone running for Prime Minister who can’t say that the science is clear that climate change is real and it is happening.

Next up, Jim Chalmers, rips into Mr Dutton’s comments to a Murdoch newspaper supporting the indexation of income tax brackets.

I see Peter Dutton had expressed some views this morning in The Australian newspaper about income taxes. Peter Dutton must think Australians are stupid. I mean, he is the only major political party leader that has taken to an election a policy to legislate higher income taxes on every single Australian taxpayer. I mean, this stuff is laughable. He has a policy to return less bracket creep, not to return more bracket creep. And so to see these views expressed on the front of one of the newspapers today is frankly ridiculous. If Peter Dutton wins this election, your income taxes will be higher, not lower. A vote for Peter Dutton is a vote for lower wages, higher taxes and secret cuts to pay for his nuclear reactors.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in Queensland this morning, in the seat of Bonner, held by the LNP on a margin of 3.4%. Standing beside him, nodding dutifully, is Labor candidate Kara Cook and Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

They’re at a childcare centre, talking about pay rises for childcare workers and yesterday’s Fair Work Commission decision on the gender pay gap.

The Coalition have made it clear that free TAFE is gone if they are elected. This comes after they have ripped money out of TAFE the last time they were in office and shut down trade training centres when they were in office during that 10 wasted years. My focus as well is on the pay of child care workers. We had an outcome yesterday from the Fair Work Commission, an interim decision, that spoke about the need to do more about gender pay equality. One of the things that my government did as part of our IR reforms was to put gender pay equity in as an objective of the Fair Work Act, something that had to be taken into account. I’m really proud that 62,000 workers in this sector have already benefited from the 15% pay increase that we legislated and that, as well, importantly, as part of that child care centres have a cap on the price increases as well. So good for workers, good for families. We know that feminised industries, like child care and aged care, have been undervalued. They were heroes during the pandemic. They deserve more than our thanks, they deserve decent pay and conditions.

Morgan Harrington

Australia’s parliamentarians accepted $245,000 in free tickets to sporting events at the same time they were supposedly considering a ban on ads for online gambling, according to a new report by Reuters.

The Prime Minister alone got $29,000 in tickets.

In 2023, the government released the results of an inquiry (the Murphy review) which recommended a ban on ads for online gambling.

TV stations and football codes directly profit from these ads, though they drive most sports fans up the wall.

Australia Institute polling confirms that three in four Australians would support this kind of a ban, but no legislation has been introduced and, until today, Australia’s gambling problem has not been an election issue.

Australians are the largest gamblers in the world, and they begin gambling well before the legal age of 18.

Australia Institute analysis shows that almost one in three 12-17-year-old Australians gambled in the past year, which means they are more likely to have gambled than to have actually played any of the most popular sports.

Without a ban on the advertising that has come to tarnish our major sporting leagues, Australians will continue to be the biggest losers in the world.