Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s net approval rating has reached its highest point in 11 months ahead of an election on May 3, as the fallout from US President Donald Trump’s trade war looms over the vote.
Albanese’s center-left Labor government also maintained its narrow lead over the Liberal-National coalition opposition at the campaign mid-point, by 52 percent to 48 percent on a two-party preferred basis, in the latest Newspoll survey published in The Australian newspaper on Sunday.
Trump has loomed large over the five-week election campaign, with Australian markets seeing similar lurches to those worldwide following the US leader’s reciprocal global tariffs. While Australia was subject to a 10 percent levy, its biggest trading partner, China, was eventually hit with 145 percent.
Photo: Reuters
Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton is now trying to distance himself from Trump despite early praise for the US president.
Albanese and his government have worked hard to tie Dutton to Trump, with Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles on Sunday accusing the opposition of “trying to copy and paste policies from overseas to try and win an election in Australia.”
The prime minister is seeking to become the first in more than two decades to win consecutive elections in Australia.
The leaders held their campaign launches on Sunday in separate states, with both making big spending promises on housing assistance and tax breaks to capture voter attention.
Labor pledged to allow all first-home buyers to purchase properties with deposits as low as 5 percent, in addition to spending A$10 billion (US$6.3 billion) to build new homes and creating a A$1,000 tax refund for work expenses.
Meanwhile, the coalition promised to allow voters entering the housing market to deduct their mortgage interest from their taxes.
Albanese’s personal approval rating rose to its highest point since May last year, with a net result of minus-4 percent, compared with minus-11 percent the previous week and as low as minus-21 percent in February. In comparison, just 37 percent of Australians surveyed approved of Dutton’s performance, with 56 percent dissatisfied, resulting in a net approval rating of minus-19 percent.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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