Anthony Albanese ramps up attacks on Peter Dutton, launches scare campaign

Anthony Albanese linked Peter Dutton to Trump as he prepares for attacks on Labor’s struggle with cost-of-living, energy prices and productivity.

Anthony Albanese has launched a major scare campaign tying Peter Dutton to US President Donald Trump’s welfare cuts and public servant sackings, as he promises to serve a full term if re-elected and refuses to say if Australians will see modelling on how a second-term Labor agenda will impact power prices.

The Prime Minister opened the 2025 federal election in Canberra with a pitch to “build Australia’s future” and ease the cost-of-living crisis with his sweep of $5 a week tax cuts, billions for Medicare bulk-billing and energy bill relief.

Within the first week, Mr Albanese will face the headwinds of Mr Trump’s “Liberation Day” of mass global tariffs and a Reserve Bank board meeting where interest rates will likely be held.

But after visiting Governor-General Sam Mostyn early on Friday to drown out the Opposition Leader’s budget-in-reply speech the previous night, Mr Albanese focused his press conference on his attempt to paint Mr Dutton as a politician who would “cut” and “wreck’ if he wins on May 3.

“Everything in Peter Dutton’s record tells us that he will start by cutting Medicare and he won’t stop there,” Mr Albanese said in Canberra.

“He will cut everything except your taxes. No-one will get any power from the Liberals’ nuclear reactors for two decades but every Australian will get the bill right away because when Peter Dutton cuts, Australians pay.”

Peter Dutton said the Coalition’s goal of firing 36,000 workers had increased by 4000 after Tuesday’s budget. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

He went to slam the Coalition for its pledge to cut 41,000 public servants, saying it was not “the Australian way” and made the connection between Mr Dutton’s policy and Mr Trump’s attempts to slash the Washington bureaucracy.

Well, people will make their own judgments of course but people will have a look at the mass sackings of public servants (in the US),” Mr Albanese said.

Mr Albanese also claimed that public servants who helped during ex-tropical cyclone Alfred would have been “gone” if Mr Dutton was prime minister now.

“We’ve just been through a flood in Queensland where in Hervey Bay, where I was, 15 public servants working out of a caravan to make sure that those Australians got the money they were entitled to and deserved,” he said.

“They’re gone under Peter Dutton. The National Emergency Management Agency did not exist before we came to office. Now, they’ve had a stockpile of sandbags, a stockpile of generators. That didn’t exist before we came to office. That’s the hard work they’ve done. They’re gone under Peter Dutton.

“Veterans, 42,000 of them, were in the queue for entitlements, men and women who have served our nation in uniform, they were denied entitlements. People passed away without getting the entitlements that they deserved. Peter Dutton regards that as waste.”

Mr Albanese would not say if he will talk to Mr Trump during the election campaign, in the lead up to the US President’s launch of mass global tariffs next week.

Mr Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff push next Wednesday (AEDT) will likely affect Australia, and will come in the first week of the Prime Minister’s re-election campaign.

Mr Albanese said on Wednesday he would receive regular briefings over the next week, but defended his inability to secure a call with Mr Trump in the lead up to Liberation Day.

The Prime Minister will likely ramp up his attacks on Mr Dutton in the coming days, as he fends off attack on his government’s struggles to contain the cost-of-living crisis, keep energy prices down and make any way on the nation’s productivity slump.

Mr Albanese has refused to say if he will model how his second term agenda will affect power prices over the next three years, after Labor bungled its calculations at the last election.

The Labor leader and now-Energy Minister Chris Bowen in 2022 released modelling showing their policies would reduce electricity bills by $275 by the end of a first ALP term.

When asked if he had any modelling for the next three years, and when he would release it, Mr Albanese only said Labor was “making sure we work on the energy transition”.

“We’re doing that and we have continued to see a system that has the support of the private sector, importantly, we have that investment occurring because we have put in place not just a plan to lower emissions and to increase energy supply but a path to get there through the safeguard mechanism and the capacity investment scheme,” he said.

He compared this to the Coalition’s nuclear plan – which he noted Peter Dutton had “mentioned just once” in his budget reply speech – and said the Opposition Leader “has no idea how to pay for” it.

The Prime Minister is starting the campaign with a slim majority of 77 seats and faces the real possibility of a hung parliament once voters cast their ballots by May 3.

Mr Albanese said he would serve a full term if he is re-elected, despite speculation he may leave in the next term.

And when asked if he would rule out deals with the Greens and independents, Mr Albanese only said that he intends to lead a majority government.