Australia news LIVE: Labor scrutinised over broken power bill promise; Russia supports US ceasefire proposal ‘in principle’

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says it “doesn’t make sense” for Australia to send peacekeepers to Ukraine.

Amid reports Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will join a UK-led phone call with world leaders to discuss sending peacekeepers to Ukraine, Dutton has dismissed the idea, suggesting Albanese was “shooting from the hip” when he first announced he would consider putting boots on the ground last week.

“France and Germany and Italy haven’t committed any troops to Ukraine and we’ve got a prime minister who needs to find out from a Virgin pilot that there is a Chinese naval fleet of our coast circumnavigating our country,” Dutton told a press conference on the NSW Central Coast.

“If the prime minister is wanting to commit thousands of our troops to go and serve in Europe, it just doesn’t make any sense. I think the prime minister’s out of his depth when it comes to national security.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton held a press conference in Erina on NSW’s Central Coast.

Erina is in the electorate of Robertson, which former Liberal MP Lucy Wicks hopes to reclaim at the election after Labor secured the seat with a 6.5 per cent swing in 2022.

Watch him speak here:

The prime minister’s handling of ex-tropical cyclone Alfred has drawn him level with Peter Dutton in terms of voter satisfaction for the first time in a year, according to a new poll.

The latest YouGov survey shows Labor has consolidated its lead over the opposition, ahead 51 to 49 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

The polling revealed voter satisfaction with Anthony Albanese has increased, rising from minus 12 in February to minus six.

The opposition leader’s standing among the electorate has slipped, falling from minus two at the end of February to minus six in the latest poll. It’s the first time since March 2024 that the two party leaders had the same satisfaction levels among voters.

The polling coincided with Alfred bearing down on the east coast, which led to Albanese delaying calling the federal election because of the extreme weather.

YouGov director of public data Paul Smith said the government’s response to the natural disaster, and Albanese’s commitment to standing with Ukraine had been factors in his rise in support.

Albanese has maintained his six-point lead over Dutton as preferred prime minister, leading 45 per cent to 39 per cent.

AAP

Health authorities have warned those cleaning up in the aftermath of flooding to take extra precautions against mosquito bites after a second death from Japanese encephalitis.

A man in his 70s contracted the mosquito-borne virus while holidaying in the Murrumbidgee region and died in a Sydney hospital on March 6.

The death is the second from JE in NSW this year, after another man, also in his 70s, contracted the infection while camping in the Murrumbidgee. He died three weeks ago.

NSW has so far recorded five cases of JE this year, the latest being a man in his 20s from northern NSW who probably acquired the infection while travelling through the state’s north-west. He has been discharged from hospital and is recovering at home.

Dr Jeremy McAnulty from NSW Health said the cases showed the seriousness of mosquito-borne infections, “especially as people start the clean-up from recent floods in an environment where mosquitoes thrive”.

“Standing water, like that left after mass rainfall and floods, makes for ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes,” McAnulty said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will join a phone call with the leaders of the UK-led “coalition of the willing” on Saturday night to discuss the possibility of sending Australian peacekeepers to Ukraine, according to an ABC News report.

Early last week, the prime minister opened the door to potentially putting boots on the ground in Ukraine, suggesting, unprompted, that he would consider an Australian peacekeeping mission if requested. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton rejected the idea.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has assumed a leadership position in the coalition, arranged the call, the ABC reports, and it will also include the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Canada.

The call follows a summit in Paris on Tuesday that discussed the creation of an international peacekeeping force. Military officials from more than 30 countries, including Australia, took part in the talks.

Read more here about Albanese’s pledge to consider an Australian peacekeeping mission.

As the energy debate returns to the fore, independent federal MP Zali Steggall has accused the Coalition of playing a part in rising power bills by not fast-tracking renewable energy during its decade in government.

Speaking to Sky News, Steggall argued former energy minister Angus Taylor “bears a great responsibility for failing to fast track more renewable energy into the pipeline”.

Steggall said Taylor, now the shadow treasurer, hadn’t done what was necessary “to make up for the coal-fired power stations that are becoming more and more unreliable and that are shutting down because they’re at the end of life”.

“The reality is, we don’t have a fast enough rollout of large-scale renewable to ensure that supply, and we end up relying on the most expensive form of energy like gas,” she said.

Steggall said the Coalition had “no credibility” in the energy debate because it planned to “rely on the most unreliable form, which is coal-fired power stations, for the next 10 to 15 years”.

Also on Sky News was Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, who responded: “You heard it here first, a teal-Labor minority government will be rolling out those offshore wind farms up and down the east coast of Australia if Zali and her girlfriends get their seat at the table in a minority government.”

Read more about the expected power bill hike here.

Sydney commuters on multiple city-bound rail lines are experiencing delays of about 20 minutes during the morning peak on Friday after signal failures at Ashfield in the city’s inner west.

The delays to train services affected the T1 western and north shore, T2 Leppington and inner west, T3 Liverpool and T9 northern lines.

A Sydney Trains spokesperson said staff were working to identify the cause of the signal failure, which resulted in delays of about 20 minutes to passenger services.

Urgent signal repairs are under way at Ashfield.

The signal failure is likely to have flow-on effects on inter-city trains on the Central Coast and Newcastle line, as well as the Blue Mountains line.

A parliamentary inquiry will investigate the safety and quality of health services at Northern Beaches Hospital in Sydney following the death of two-year-old Joe Massa.

The child was left in an emergency department chair for 2½ hours despite showing clear signs of a life-threatening condition. An internal investigation into Joe’s death found serious individual and systemic failures in the hospital’s management of his rapidly deteriorating condition.

Parents Danny and Elouise Massa requested the parliamentary inquiry in a meeting with NSW Premier Chris Minns and senior government officials last month.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the committee would investigate issues highlighted by the investigation and look at the hospital’s performance more broadly.

“We made a commitment to Elouise and Danny to undertake the necessary reviews to understand how they and their son have been let down, as well as to learn what changes need to be made to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again,” Park said.

A coronial investigation into Joe’s death is currently under way.

The Massa family said Minns also had agreed to look at legislative changes that would make it more difficult for any future government to enter into the kind of public partnership agreement that exists at Northern Beaches Hospital.

The inquiry will examine the hospital’s performance under private operator Healthscope since it opened in 2018, and whether the findings of a similar inquiry in 2019 have been implemented.