Federal election 2025: Angus Taylor forced to defend Coalition's dumped working from home policy — as it happened

Thank you for joining us, we will end our coverage here.

We will be back tomorrow for what's happening on the campaign trail, including the first leaders debate for the 2025 campaign.

 In the meantime, you can check out the rest of today's online coverage at our Australia Votes page and you can try out the ABC's Vote Compass tool,to see how you align with the political parties.

Thank you again for joining and we will catch you tomorrow!

Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor was interviewed earlier today over the Coalition's decision to back flip on its decision about its work from home policy.

Taylor has admitted the policy was wrong.

It is time for 7.30!

You can watch the programme at the top of the blog.

Hey Amanda,

Thanks for dropping us a comment. It's still Coalition policy to build seven nuclear power stations across the country.

But you're not wrong when you say the focus has been on gas at the moment.

It's because the Coalition needs to use gas to bridge between now and when the first nuclear power station becomes operational in 2035 (if small modular reactors are chosen) and 2037 if larger plants are chosen.

A drive along the New England Highway towards Muswellbrook in the NSW Hunter Valley reveals ample evidence of a region with energy at its core.

The towers of the Bayswater Power Station, often billowing with plumes of water vapour, catch the eye before the former Liddell Power Station comes into view — its structure becoming skeletal as it is slowly demolished.

Giant coal pits line the side of the road, some spanning several kilometres.

Almost all the vehicles travelling along the highway are utes and trucks heading to and from the coal fields.

The workers in those vehicles are the blood running through the veins of the region's economy, and coal is its heart.

But the life support is slowly being switched off.

Read more at the link below 👇.

Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor has refused to concede the Coalition's dumped work from home policy may have already cost them a number of votes at the federal election.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton earlier today walked away from the controversial plan and admitted he "made a mistake" with the unpopular plan.

Backing down on the signature policy has raised questions about how the Coalition will pay for major election promises it said it would fund with savings from cutting the public service.

Instead of removing 41,000 workers, the Coalition says it will now rely on natural attrition — or workers quitting their jobs — to reduce the public service.

On 7.30 Taylor was put under scrutiny by host Sarah Ferguson over the dumped policy but he stopped short of admitting keeping it may have cost the Coalition the election.

Ferguson told Taylor the Coalition's move had a "whiff of desperation about it" before he, like Dutton said the policy was a mistake.

But when pressed if the policy could have cost the Coalition the election he repeatedly tried to change the subject.

 Taylor first attacked Albanese Government spending before being reminded to answer the question at hand and asked if he was concerned voters would "mark down an alternative government that starts dumping key policies at this stage in the campaign"?

It was a charge Taylor denied.

"We haven't dumped a key policy of making sure government is the right size in this country," he said before the 7.30 host reminded him the Coalition had.

"We think that was the wrong way of going about solving that problem," Taylor eventually said of the dumped working from home policy.

"Our focus is on making sure government is the right size in this country, we recognise that flexibility is really important in the workplace, and we want to see a better public service, not a bigger public service."

Taylor then called Labor's commentary against the dumped policy "misleading" but was asked if he felt working mothers, who need workplace flexibility, may have already turned against the Coalition.

"I'm not going to get into the commentary on polls and that sort of thing, but what I will say is, I think we accept that workplaces need flexibility," Taylor said.

Watch the full fiery interview with Angus Taylor tonight on 7.30 on ABC and iview.

Benjamin Britton has been disendorsed as a Liberal candidate for the NSW seat of Whitlam ahead of the May 3 federal election, after expressing views "inconsistent with the party's position," a spokesperson says.

Before his preselection in December last year, Britton said the Australian Defence Force (ADF) "need to remove females from combat corps" in order to "fix" the military.

"Their hips are being destroyed because they can't cope with the carrying of the heavy loads and the heavy impacts that's required for doing combat-related jobs," he said.

"Why would you want to send your beautiful women? Your females, the ones that are the backbone of your society. Your society only exists because of women. Why would you want to sacrifice them in war, on the altar?"

Mr Britton also blamed "diversity and equity quotas, and these woke Marxist ideologies" for weakening Australia's defence.

Read the full story below 👇.

Peter Dutton has abandoned his party's working from home policy, apologising and admitting it was a mistake.

On the Politics Now podcast, Patricia Karvelas described the move as "astonishing".

"This is Olympic level backflip stuff.. It's shabby, very shabby.

"What on earth made them announce a policy in the first place that could be so toxic in the community? I spoke to somebody senior who said, what's going on with their research?

"You don't announce policies unless you've tested them, you know how they may play out. What on earth is going on?"

Jacob Greber replied:"If this does turn out to be a bad election for the Coalition, I think there'll be a lot of scrutiny about how he and his office have prepared policy."

You can listen to the full episode here:

Federal elections can be a frenetic time.

If you're looking for a way to cut through the noise, the ABC has you covered.

You can use our Vote Compass tool to see how your views line up with parties and politicians in your electorate.

It takes about 10 minutes to complete.

Click the link below to get started.

Now onto the challenges of the Australian dollar which has dropped below 60 US cents for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Richard Marles has been asked how the government is able to handle this.

"The budget bottom line is that it is better under us than it would've been under the Liberals.

"Given that we have had two budget surpluses in the last three years, all of this means we are in a position to deal with what is clearly going to be a challenging environment going forward," he says.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has been asked about the Port of Darwin on Afternoon Briefing, after it was announced the Coalition and the Albanese government are planning on buying it back from Chinese-owned company Landbridge.

"We will work through processes if we are fortunate enough to be re-elected and we would like to see a commercial option reached first but clearly we do have powers."

"One way or another we will ensure that as soon as we can practicably do it, the Port of Darwin will be back in Australian hands."

He says the federal government will work with the North Territory government as well as Landbridge.

Sukkar has been asked about limiting new international student enrolments to 240,000 per year — a figure that is 30,000 less than Labor proposed last year.

The shadow housing minister says the decision was made to help get more young Australians on to the property ladder.

We want to make sure that young Australians have the opportunity for home ownership, we want to ensure that Australians can get a rental when they need one.

We have seen rents under this government are up by 18 per cent. We have seen fewer homes being built, fewer homes being completed, fewer homes approved and of course, fewer first home buyers.

Part of the reason for that is the Labor government has brought in more than one million people over two years and you cannot bring in more than one million people in a short period of time of two years without any idea of where those people are going to live.

Obviously international students are a component of those overseas arrivals, that have been putting pressure on our housing market.

There is only one party going to this election and that is the Liberal Party and the National Party, coming to this election talking about home ownership for young Australians.

We're not willing to wave the white flag on home ownership for young Australians, Sukkar says.

Murray Watt has now been asked about whether there will be a recession after a topsy-turvy day on the stock market.

We have done everything we can to manage the economy in an economically responsible way, and that makes us as well-prepared as we possibly can be.

The reality is, we are in some uncertain times when it comes to the global economy.

I think Australians will look at the government record in the efforts we have made to repay the debt, improve the surpluses, get inflation down and unemployment low.

I think there is a good chance that people will say that is what they want rather than the kind of reckless and risky processes and decision-making we continue to see from Peter Dutton.

This decision about work from home, to now walk away from something they have been pledging for weeks, I think it just shows the Liberals and Peter Dutton are reckless, they are risky and they are exactly the wrong kind of people to be running the economy at these uncertain times, Watt says.

Murray Watt says no-one will believe Peter Dutton when he says he now supports public servants working from home.

"Over the past few weeks since the Coalition announced this policy that they would ban working from home for federal public servants, we have members of the Coalition out there describing working from home as a holiday, as unproductive, and we saw Peter Dutton say that women should just job share rather than work from home," Watt says.

He says how is anyone supposed to believe the Coalition is now telling the truth when they say they support work from home.

"I think Australians think, the risk of Peter Dutton and the Coalition coming their wages and conditions is just as high as it was today as it was yesterday.

"But I think the more important thing for Peter Dutton is that he is losing all credibility in terms of anything he says and anything he stands for," Watt says.

Our political panel for today's Afternoon Briefing is Shadow Housing Minister Michael Sukkar and Employment Minister Murray Watt, with the first topic being on the Coalition flipping on its decision to "end" its working-from-home policy.

Sukkar says the decision was made because the Coalition has listened to many stakeholders and people in the community.

"We are willing to admit when we get right and when we don't.

"Flexible work arrangements are important as well for retaining the best people and attracting the best people indeed," Sukkar says.

"It will be an important component of any work for strategy, and let's not forget either that it was the former Coalition government that really ushered in, admittedly at the time of COVID but ushered in, these flexible working arrangements, so in many respects I think it is natural for us to continue with our policy," Sukkar says.

Diana Mousina has now been asked about whether Australia is at risk of recession because of Donald Trump's tariffs decision last week.

"A lot of US economists are now expecting a big chance of a recession in the next 12 months and I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that historically, Australia has been quite tied to what happens to US growth."

She says since about the 1990's, we had quite different cycles to the US.

"When the US has had a downturn, we have not necessarily had one. The GFC [global financial crisis] was a global crisis that did have a slowdown in Australian growth but we didn't actually have a recession.

"Just because the US has a recession doesn't mean that we have to have one as well and I don't think the risk of a recession here is as high as 60 per cent. I probably give it a 20 per cent risk in the next 12-18 months.

"We are not in a crisis domestically," she says.

AMP's deputy chief economist, Diana Mousina, is up first on Afternoon Briefing and she has been asked how bad could the hit to consumer confidence be, in relation to trade hostilities and associated volatility in financial markets.

Mousina says business and consumer confidence will be hit in the short term.

"However, I'm not so sure it's then going to be the flow-through into actual spending and investment decisions.

"Consumer confidence in Australia has been shocking the past few years, it's been running around recessionary-like levels and parts of consumer spending have actually held up pretty well."

It is time for Afternoon Briefing!

You can watch the show at the top of the blog.

Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Murray Watt says Opposition Leader Peter Dutton's U-turn on working-from-home policies can't be trusted.

"Peter Dutton is in the process of giving himself the worst facelift in Australian history, trying to change who he is, he's trying to change what he says," Watt said during an appearance on ABC News Breakfast earlier today.

There's plenty to digest in the day-to-day of the federal election campaign.

But we want to hear from you.

What issues matter most to you this election?

What questions do you want to hear the politicians answer?

What do you need to know, or have explained more clearly?

Let us know using the link below, and we'll use your responses to inform our coverage in the days and weeks going forward.