As it happened: Jacinta Price vows to ‘make Australia great again’; PM slams Dutton’s ‘dangerous nonsense’ on defence

Here is the full press conference held by the opposition leader and Senator Price. Watch below:

Thanks for following our coverage of today’s election campaign. Here’s a quick recap of what happened today:

• Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price stole the show at a Liberal Party event in WA, pledging to “make Australia great again”. She said the Australian school curriculum needed a reset from “indoctrination” and “ideological-driven nonsense”.
• Dutton deflected when asked whether Price’s comment was a nod to Trump, refusing to answer the question three times.
• Labor minister Jason Clare said Price’s comments were a sign the “wheels are falling off” Dutton’s campaign.
• Albanese pledged $60 million for new Perth ferries alongside WA Premier Roger Cook.
• Albanese said nature positive laws were off the table, but that people wanted a national environment protection agency.
• The PM said Dutton’s comments linking Trump’s tariffs with Australia’s defence policy was “dangerous nonsense.”
• Sharing a coffee with boxing champion Danny Green in Perth, Dutton pledged $1.5 million to stop the coward punch.
• Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek announced $10.2 million in funding for a free pool on Sydney’s Cockatoo Island and deflected a question whether she would be opposition leader if Labor lost the election.

That’s it for today, but join us early again tomorrow for what’s set to be an exciting day, with Labor and the Coalition holding their campaign launches across the country from each other. Have a good evening.

We’re following Albanese and Dutton as they campaign across Australia. Today, both leaders found time for barbecuing sausages. See the pictures below.

Albanese and fiancee Jodie Haydon at a barbecue with WA Labor supporters at Winthrop Park in Winthrop.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Dutton chats to a voter at a barbecue outside the Mount Pleasant Bowling Club.Credit: James Brickwood

Clare went on to hit out at Jacinta Price for saying that Albanese had “effectively destroyed Australia” with his policies.

“Australia is the best country in the world, and if Jacinta Price doesn’t recognise that, that’s really disappointing,” he said. “What she said today tells us that they just want to import US policies and US slogans to Australia.”

Referring to Trump’s red MAGA caps, Clare added: “The only thing she didn’t have today was the hat.”

Labor campaign spokesman Jason Clare has leapt upon Coalition frontbencher Jacinta Price’s use of the Trump-inspired slogan “make Australia great again”, using it to tie Dutton to the US president.

“The wheels are coming off Peter Dutton’s campaign and so is the mask,” Clare, the education minister, said in Perth. “It’s now pretty clear that Peter Dutton’s campaign to be prime minister is just a cut and paste from the United States.

“First he cuts and pastes their policies, now he’s cutting and pasting their slogans. And with all of the chaos that’s happening overseas at the moment, I think most Australians are saying they don’t want this sort of stuff here. But it’s coming, it’s coming under Peter Dutton.”

Education Minister Jason Clare has addressed the media. Watch below.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says she wants to make Australia great again.Credit: James Brickwood

Price says the Coalition’s efficiency plan is not an ode to Donald Trump.Credit: James Brickwood

The senator signs a copy of her book for a young girl at the Mount Pleasant Bowling Club. She told the crowd education should replace indoctrination in the curriculum.Credit: James Brickwood

Dutton wouldn’t be drawn on Price’s comment about making Australia great again.Credit: James Brickwood

Circling back to election pledges made earlier today.

In Brisbane, Labor promised $5 million for the redevelopment a clubhouse for the Eastern Suburbs Football Club in the electorate of Griffith, where the party’s candidate Renee Coffey is hoping to wrest the seat from incumbent Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather.

Employment Minister Murray Watt said the funding would help build much more flood resilient facilities.

“Not every club in Queensland is faced with the kind of flood damage that East is, and that’s why we’ve selected East for this grant,” he said. “This wasn’t an easy grant to get. We were knocked back initially, and then we were looking good, and then we’re knocked back, and then we were looking good, and today’s the day it’s all happened.”

Asked about whether there should be an investigation into cultural heritage laws, Price said there absolutely should, accusing Plibersek of listening to a radical fringe group.

“We’ve seen devastating impact of Tanya Plibersek’s decision on the Blayney gold mine, the fact that she held up that project and stopped it effectively, even when the Orange Aboriginal Land Council stood there and said, ‘No, we’re happy for this to go ahead because we want the jobs. We want the opportunity’.”

Price said Labor was not supporting Indigenous Australians. “Tanya Plibersek has not heard that, she’s listened to a radical fringe group because that’s who they listen to,” she said. “Labor – they listen to radical fringe groups. That’s whose vote they’re chasing.”

Price said the government needed to strike the right balance between ensuring access to the natural environment for all Australians and protecting sacred places.