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.
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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.