That’s a wrap. Thanks for following The Australian Financial Review’s live coverage this Wednesday, April 23, 2025. Join us for more tomorrow.

Here are some of the stories we covered today:

• Increasingly confident PM ventures into enemy territory | Anthony Albanese likes a bit of “psyops” – messing with Peter Dutton’s mind – and an increasingly confident prime minister ventured into a safe Liberal rural seat in WA to make a point of going where his opponent fears to tread.
• ‘Trump is hard to predict’: Hastie says Australia’s defence crucial amid global insecurity | The Coalition’s defence spokesman Andrew Hastie insists the opposition’s defence spending policy to be 3 per cent of GDP was not in response to requests from US President Donald Trump.
• ‘Not what people are experiencing’: Taylor denies Labor’s economic claims | Jim Chalmers says Australia needs to have a more resilient economy to withstand slowing global growth, which the treasurer insists can be achieved through elevating income and cost-of-living relief.
• Labor will not bring dental under Medicare | Health Minister Mark Butler confirmed that his government would not bring dental services into Medicare, as the Greens take that as its major policy going into the election.
• Dutton to raise income taxes to pay for defence boost | The opposition leader was joined by the Coalition’s defence spokesman Andrew Hastie and West Australian senator Michaelia Cash, as the trio spruiked their new defence funding policy.