Australia election 2025 live: Bandt to push for deal on ‘big changes’ to capital gains tax if Greens win balance of power
Key events
Greens open to negotiation with Labor in event of hung parliament, Bandt says
Josh Taylor
There’s more from the Greens after their leader, Adam Bandt, said last night he is open to changes to policies around housing and other key negotiation issues with Labor in the event of a hung parliament.
Bandt – who is campaigning in Brisbane this week in an attempt to hold the three Greens seats in the state – told ABC’s 7.30 last night that the housing policies announced in the election by the two major parties are “a house fire” but the Greens wouldn’t stand in the way of Labor’s policies in parliament.
He said big changes were needed around capital gains, and the Greens have put on the table “a sensible way of defusing that John Howard time bomb” if negotiations on guaranteeing supply in parliament with a minority Labor government are held after 3 May.
He said the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, had not told him privately he would support changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing after ruling it out publicly. But Bandt pointed to Labor saying there would be no changes to the stage-3 tax cuts before making changes to the policy.
He said the Greens would enter negotiations with an open mind and flagged potential changes to policy positions:
I think that’s how it would have to work, because we have the situation in a moment … where less than 1 in 3 people are voting for the government, a bit more than 1 in 3 are voting for the opposition and about 1 in 3 people in the country are voting for someone else.
We have one of the most diverse parliaments we’ve had for some time and I think that’s going to grow at this election. And with more voices at the table, it means ideas like this can get put on the table and I think the flip side of that is that if we’re in a parliament where no-one’s got a majority, there’s an obligation on us to cooperate and work together to get outcomes for people …
He said leaving Aukus or holding an inquiry into the partnership would not be part of negotiations, as he said that was an argument the Greens can win on its merits in the next parliament. He said a native logging ban was also achievable.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with some of the top overnight stories and then Krishani Dhanji will be along to take the wheel.
Energy is back at the top of the election agenda this morning with our story that a Coalition MP told a gathering of climate deniers that there was a “big political opportunity” to be made from power outages. “If I had my way I’d be building coal-fired power stations, full stop, that’s what I’d be doing,” Colin Boyce told the group. But that political opening could backfire as a group of international experts say the Coalition’s nuclear plans could leave the grid more vulnerable to blackouts, not less.
The big set-piece campaign event of the day is the second round of Anthony Albanese v Peter Dutton as the leaders of the two main parties face off at 8pm tonight at the ABC’s Parramatta studios. It is the second of four election leaders’ debates – Labor’s man was judged to have won the first one last week – but campaign veterans doubt whether the televised event will have any impact on voters. More coming up.
Perhaps not wishing to be overshadowed, the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, was on 7.30 last night to spruik his party’s chances. He told the program that, in the event of a hung parliament, he would be willing to negotiate with Anthony Albanese on key policy areas such as housing and tax reform. With the share of votes won by the major parties declining, he said more cooperation was needed to achieve reforms. More coming up.
