Australia news LIVE: Coalition match Medicare pledge, as poll shows Labor facing defeat; Ukraine marks three years since Russia’s invasion

As the Coalition pledges to match the government’s $8.5 billion Medicare plan, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has accused Opposition Leader Peter Dutton of not having serious policies, only “thought bubbles”.

Albanese challenged the assembled media to question Dutton on a series of policies he’s supported, including zonal taxation rates, a second referendum on Indigenous recognition, and his opposition to additional citizenship ceremonies being held to clear the backlog, and to ask if they are still his policies.

“These are all just thoughts, spontaneously thrown out there,” Albanese said.

“I think during an election campaign when it’s held, this is what he will be held to account on and not just being able to come up with these thought bubbles.”

Like his Labor colleagues who appeared in the media this morning, Albanese focused on Dutton’s record as health minister, saying the $50 billion in hospital funding cuts and the attempted GP co-payment, both introduced in 2014 under Dutton, were proof that he couldn’t be trusted on health.

“Peter Dutton was front and centre, and it was so bad that the [Australian Medical Association] voted him the worst health minister in their history, and indeed [former prime minister] Tony Abbott sacked him as health minister, moved him on and appointed Sussan Ley.”

Opposition health spokesperson Anne Ruston says there is “no doubt” the Coalition is concerned Labor would launch another “Mediscare” campaign, as she seeks to look to the future while Labor reminds voters of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s stint as health minister.

“The federal government has been very clear that they can use lies, distractions, distortions in this campaign in relation to health,” Ruston told ABC’s RN Breakfast.

“I think we are going to have to expect, unfortunately, a scare campaign. Yesterday, at the launch, the prime minister and Mr Butler spent more time talking about Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party than they did about themselves,” Ruston said, referring to the launch of Labor’s $8.5 billion “Strengthening Medicare” policy in Launceston.

Ruston was asked to respond to Labor MPs’ reminders about Dutton’s stint as health minister, which included extending a temporary indexation freeze for five years and attempting to introduce a $7 GP co-payment.

“I think what we need to look at is what’s before us right now. I think Peter Dutton was very clear yesterday, and he’s been very clear right the way through his time as the leader of the opposition that we absolutely believe in general practice,” Ruston said.

“Labor can talk about history all they like, but what we want to talk about is what’s before us at the moment. Because the reality is that under every metric that you can possibly apply to health, it has gone backwards under this government.”

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler has conceded there is work to be done to limit vaping across the community but said vaping rates are down considerably.

The only legal vapes are pharmacy products that have limited nicotine and are designed for people who want help to quit smoking.

But illegal vapes remain widely available.

Butler told Melbourne radio station 3AW that the illegal vaping industry was driving him – and parents – to distraction.

But he said research indicated that vaping rates among young people aged up to 30 were actually down 30 per cent last year. And among people older than 30, he said vaping rates had halved.

“But there are too many shops doing this. And I’ve said, I’m deadly serious about the penalties we’ve put in place,” he said. “And I want to see these laws enforced.”

He also said he would detail shortly how much health insurers will be allowed to increase premiums.

“We’ll be in a position to make that announcement pretty shortly,” he said. “I’m pretty much ready to do this and it will be before the election.”

A key leader of pharmacy giant Chemist Warehouse has suggested the federal government is too scared of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia to bring in cheaper medication.

Chemist Warehouse chief operating officer Mario Tascone said the company introduced free scripts in New Zealand eight years ago, but that it was prevented from doing the same in Australia.

“They’re heavily government-subsidised, the prescriptions [in New Zealand]. They have a co-payment, whether you’re a general patient or a pensioner, of only $5. And that co-payment is allowed to be discounted,” Tascone said on 3AW.

“So when we came into the market, we decided to … cover that $5 co-payment. So we made scripts for free.”

Tascone said the Australian government won’t allow chemists to make scripts free. Here, chemists cannot discount co-payments for fully government-subsidised medication.

“Up until last year, we were able to discount the co-payment by $1. But first of January, the government passed a new rule that we can’t discount,” he said.

“They’ve reduced the amount we can discount for pensioners to 80¢. So pensioners can get 80¢ off their $7.70 co-payment at $6.90 – that’s for fully government-subsidised scripts.”

Questioned if he thought the Australian government feared a backlash from pharmacy owners via the Pharmacy Guild, Tascone said that if he was a “betting man”, he’d say that was the main reason.

He added that neither side of politics wants to get into a battle with the guild.

“And we saw that, you know, last year when the government introduced 60-day dispensing, and the guild was all over the news, and we had all these posters up campaigning against [the] government.”

Questioned whether the Australian government would follow New Zealand’s model, federal Health Minister Mark Butler said the government had “done a lot” to bring down healthcare costs. He told 3AW, this included the biggest cut to the price of medicine in the history of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, and allowing doctors to bring in 60-day scripts.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has told his cabinet they have “more work to do” on policy after federal Labor announced a $8.5 billion boost for Medicare.

Delivering opening remarks before a Melbourne meeting of cabinet, Albanese began with positivity on the importance of Labor’s latest promise to boost Medicare, before attacking the Coalition for “introducing a GP tax”.

Here’s some of what the PM told the cabinet meeting:

As Mark [Butler] said yesterday in Launceston, this is one of the great divides in Australian politics between Labor that understands that Medicare is the heart of our health system and the Coalition who don’t believe that things should be free.

So today, we’ve got more work to do, more policy work. We continue to govern and govern well and I think when we get to the crunch point, the contrast is so clear. Under Labor, inflation down, wages up, interest rates falling, jobs continue to be created, $1.1 million debt lower, taxes lower as well, a tax cut for every single taxpayer.

This time last year [the Coalition] were saying we should have an election immediately in order to stop people getting a tax cut. These are all just thought bubbles, and you can’t govern with thought bubbles. You have to govern with serious policy and that’s what we’re delivering.”

In case you missed it, the Climate Change Authority has released an independent analysis assessing the impact of a nuclear pathway on Australia’s emissions.

Pursuing the deployment of nuclear in Australia’s grid could add at least 2 billion tonnes to national emissions, the analysis found.

That’s equivalent to 200 years of Australia’s emissions from aviation.

A nuclear pathway could see Australia miss the legislated 43 per cent emissions reduction target for 2030 by over five percentage points, and still not achieve it by 2035, the analysis found.

Read the full story by David Crowe here.

WiseTech’s independent board members have quit the $41 billion software giant after failing to agree with disgraced company founder Richard White about his continuing role in the company.

In a statement to the ASX, the company said the four had determined it was in the best interests of the company to stand aside.

“This followed intractable differences in the board and differing views around the ongoing role of the founder and founding CEO, Richard White,” the statement said.

Read the full story here.

A man has been freed from the wreckage of his car after a collision with a truck on the Spit Bridge, causing widespread traffic delays in Sydney’s north.

Emergency services were called to the crash just after 7.30am on Monday and worked to free the driver of the car, a man in his 40s, before he was taken to Royal North Shore Hospital. The extent of his injuries is unclear, NSW Ambulance said.

Manly Road is closed to southbound traffic at Sydney Road, and diversions are in place, NSW Police said.

Motorists are urged to avoid the area and allow extra travel time.