Anthony Albanese is delivering his press club address. It is very normal areas at the moment, so we will come back when the question and answer part and bring you anything which is new.

The Coalition’s election pledge to cut between 36,000 and 41,000 jobs from the Australian Public Service raises a lot of questions, like who would do the work that keeps the Australian government going? The answer, most likely, is a swarm of private consultants. In 2021–22, the last year the Coalition was in power, the Australian Government’s contracts with the five biggest consulting firms totalled $2 billion – an amount that could have funded 14,700 additional public servants for a year. Australia Institute research shows that capping or cutting the public service is counter productive – departments and agencies more efficiently use public money when they are able to spend it employing public servants as needed.

But this isn’t just about money. The Australia Institute has highlighted that an overreliance on private consultants undermines the public service and weakens Australian democracy. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) were banned from bidding for government contracts because they shared confidential government information with clients looking to game Australia’s tax avoidance laws. And don’t forget that PwC also had its fingers in the Robodebt pie. In testimony before the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, PwC disclosed that it did not document why it stopped working on a 70-page report, which was critical of the scheme, even though it was paid nearly $1 million to work on it. 

Would the illegal and cruel scheme have ended sooner but for the complicit silence of consultants and senior public servants?

Folks, a second Chinese spy allegation has hit the campaign, as reported by Amy earlier.

Yesterday it was Teal MP Monique Ryan, today it’s Labor’s Clare O’Neil who was accused by her opponent to have allied with some organisation with links to the Chinese Communist Party to help out her campaign. Never mind that both Ryan and O’Neil have said that they have not, ultimately, declining the assistance.

Interestingly, the spooky organisation in question in both instances is the Hubei Association (you can find a Chinese language profile of their president here). From what I can tell, it’s an Australia-wide community association for those from the Hubei province, whose capital city is Wuhan… the very place where COVID-19 started. How deep does that rabbit hole go?! Somebody please get our best pundits on the case!

In all seriousness, it’s facile to suggest that the Chinese Australian members of the Hubei Association are spies. All of these sizable diaspora organisations are in touch with various semi-official and official organs in China, including the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Works department. The department has such a wide purview that it’s unlikely to have espionage as a core function – China has an intelligence agency in its own right.

So, are we supposed to believe that these would-be Chinese Australian volunteers (whose involvement in that form was declined by the candidates anyway), somehow exist in a multi-level hive-mind, connected all the way to the Chinese leadership compound in Beijing?

If that’s the case, the whoever in charge of China’s espionage operation in Australia should fire the president of the Hubei Association for his indiscretion, since his ‘operatives’ volunterily revealed to ​social media that he asked/demanded (‘要求’) that people support Monique Ryan.

Or perhaps an over-enthused community leader just acted out of line to promoted his own political preference?

At 2.4%, inflation continues to be firmly within the RBA target band. This represents the third quarter in a row that inflation has been below 3%.

The trimmed mean, which is the measure used as an indicator of where inflation is headed, is also falling rapidly and is now below 3%.

The RBA has no excuse not to cut interest rates. Add to this the fact that monetary policy (changing interest rates) takes a long time to impact on the economy, and these figures show the RBA should have been cutting interest rates months ago.

Some of the previous big drivers of inflation are no longer rising at an elevated rate. For example, the cost of building new houses has increased only 1.4% over the last year.

In other areas there has been improvement, but price increases are still too high. One of the biggest pain points has been rents. While the annual increase has come down significantly from it’s high of 7.8%, it is still too high at 5.5%.

Before the release of the latest figures the markets were predicting a 100% chance of a rate cut at the next RBA meeting and a small chance of a double cut. There is nothing in these figures that should change that.

Jim Chalmers is doing a press conference on the inflation figures, and he notes that there is no one in the room because everyone is either on the campaign, or at the press club for Albanese’s speech.

Let me be relatively brief given the PM is up shortly at the National Press Club. We’re really pleased to see headline inflation in the bottom half the reserve banks target range again. At 2.4 %. And especially encouraged to see trimmed mean underlying inflation within the reserve banks target and as well. At 2.9%. This means underlying inflation is now at its lowest level in three years. This is a powerful demonstration of the progress that Australians have made together in the economy. This is proof of the responsible economic management which has been a defining feature of this Albanese Labor covenant. Underlying inflation has fallen again and as I said, this means both headline and underlying inflation is within the reserve banks target band for the first time since 2021.

Under Labor inflation is low. Real wages are growing, unemployment is low. We’ve got the debt down, growth is rebounding solidly in our economy and interest rates have started to come down as well. So this is a powerful demonstration. Of the progress Australians have made together under Labor on inflation and on the economy more broadly as well. Inflation was much higher and rising very sharply when we came to office.

And now it is lower, much lower, and underlying inflation has fallen once again in these numbers that we are seeing today. Monthly inflation is also below the midpoint of the Reserve Bank’s target band and in that case for the fourth consecutive month.

So if you think about the economy we inherited and the economy that we finished the term with, headline inflation was 6.1 % and rising now 2.4. Trimmed mean inflation was 4.9 %. It is now 2.9%. That shows progress we have made together.

ABS has an update on what Australia’s population looks like:

The ABS has released the annual update to Australia’s population by country of birth, with data
for 2024 now available.
Here are 9 facts about Australia’s overseas-born population.

1. In 2024, 31.5 per cent of Australia’s estimated resident population were born overseas, up
   from 30.7 per cent in 2023 (an increase of 396,000 people).
2. The overseas-born population in Australia has grown for the third year in a row, following a
   decrease in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated international border closures.
3. In 2024, almost every country in the world was represented in Australia’s overseas-born
   population.
4. The top five most common countries of birth for those not born in Australia were England,
   India, China, New Zealand and the Philippines
5. The largest increases in Australia’s overseas-born population over the 10 years to 2024, were
   people born in India, China, the Philippines and Nepal.
6. Italy has dropped out of Australia’s top 10 countries of birth for the first time since 1901.
7. The median age for Australia’s overseas-born population decreased from 46 years of age in
   2004 to 43 in 2024. The median age for the Australian-born population increased from 32
   years of age in 2004 to 35 in 2024.
8. In 2024, those born in Latvia had the highest median age in Australia’s population, at 80 years
   of age. Those born in Qatar had the lowest (14 years of age). (The beautiful Balts!)
9. Australia’s population ranked eighth in the world for the number of overseas-born (with 8.6
   million in 2024 based on data published by the ABS and the United Nations
   (https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/content/international-migrant-stock) ). The USA
   had the largest population of international migrants (52.4 million people born outside the
   USA

Key statistics

• The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.9% this quarter.
• Over the twelve months to the March 2025 quarter, the CPI rose 2.4%. – this is steady from December
• The most significant price rises this quarter were Housing (+1.7%), Education (+5.2%) and Food and non-alcoholic beverages (+1.2%).
• Partially offsetting the rise were Recreation and culture (-1.6%) and Furnishings, household equipment and services (-0.9%).

Importantly for anyone wondering if the RBA could find any reason not to cut rates is that the trimmed mean (which is the underlying measure) fell from 3.3% to 2.9%.

Peter Dutton has been banging on about the underlying inflation because it was been above 3% unlike the CPI, but now… well even that line is gone.

OK, I can not do anymore on this. It’s non-answers to every question and we all only have one life to live.

Q: Mr Dutton, Pauline Hanson says you’ll be a great Prime Minister as long as you keep adopting One Nation policies. Given the preference deal that’s been done if the Coalition does form Government, will she have a seat at your Cabinet table?

Dutton:

Of course not. We said right at the start that if you want to change government and want to get the country back on track, vet for your Liberal or National Party candidate. I wouldn’t be mucking around with Independents and third parties at this election. I really wouldn’t. We don’t want to see a European situation where university got a handful of Greens and left-leaning teal candidates holding the Government to ran some. That won’t be good for us. There could be a global recession. There could be conflict across the world somewhere. We need a strong government and a competent government. We need a Prime Minister capable of making the decisions in our country’s best interests and the best way to do that is to change government, to get rid of this bat government and to support the Liberal and National candidate at this election. If you do that, there’s immediate relief of 25 cents a litre off fuel, $1200 back by way of tax rebate. That’s money you’ve worked for. You’re going to cut the ute tax which adds about $14,000 to a Ford Ranger. We’re going to make home ownership a reality for young Australians and we’ll keep our communities and countries safe as well.

Q: Does the Coalition share values with One Nation?

Dutton does not answer.

Q: On mental health in your view, how can we reverse the scourge of mental ill health in young men? Do you think masculinity of social media influencers should come under closer scrutiny for some of the messages they’re spreading to young men?

Dutton:

I think it’s a really good question and I think there’s many parts to it. There is certainly an influence online. There’s certainly an influence through gaming and the violence and the sexualised nature of some of that content, algorithms in big media companies have a lot to answer for in relation to this as well and I’ve been, you know, I’ve spent a big part of my career fighting back against Facebook and others for the content that they allow kids to consume online, both young boys and young girls, the sharing of images and the lack of responsibility from those companies.

I think everybody has a responsibility here. Parents certainly do. We need to educate our children to deal with online. There’s a lot that happens online that none of us would accept our kids being exposed to in the real world at school or the local park or in houses or when they went to sist family or next door neighbours so why would we allow this zoo to operate online? We have to make sure there’s property guidelines and people should have responsibility, particularly those with influence and it’s a huge issue.