Australian politics and news recap: Richard Marles hoses down Russian base rumours, saying it’s ‘not true’

We’re closing down our live coverage for the evening after a huge day no the campaign trail.

Catch up on all the events and our expert analysis from today in The Nightly’s evening edition.

Stay tuned to thenightly.com.au overnight for all the latest national and world news, and we’ll be back with our daily live coverage first thing on Wednesday morning.

This just in: Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says reports of a Russian base earmarked for Indonesia are “not true”.

“I have spoken to my counterpart, Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, the Minister for Defence, and he has said to me in the clearest possible terms, reports of the prospect of Russian aircraft operating from Indonesia are simply not true,” Mr Marles said in a statement.

Well that is a pretty remarkable turn of events.

Peter Dutton has acknowledged the role WA mining plays in funding east coast infrastructure and spending, saying “we’ll quickly approve the north-west shelf extension, that’s 3,000 jobs”.

“We want to see more mining in WA because as the Cook-Labor government points out, that’s great for the State economy, but it’s also good for the national conomy,” he said.

“We’re not building roads and paying for teachers and nurses, et cetera, on the east coast, without the revenue coming from WA.

So, I want to make sure we can see WA boom and we can see the jobs created, the taxes and royalties paid, and that’s how we can afford to run our country.”

After the Opposition Leader laid into the PM’s administration for potentially being left unawares by a Russian request to build war assets in Indonesia, he’s laid out his plan for housing and energy.

“Firstly, I want the lights to stay on in their (young Australians) house. We live in a country where it’s good if the power is reliable, and it’s affordable,” Peter Dutton said.

“And our energy policy is 44 per cent cheaper than Labor’s policy. It will mean the lights can stay on, really important if you want to, you know, have a fridge and run your household, and raise kids, et cetera.

“Energy, electricity, gas is really important. And under Labor, that’s not guaranteed.

“So we said we want a $5 billion plan to build new houses and that brings about 500,000 new home lots onto the market. We’ll work with councils and what we can do is have a look at the blockages in their system.”

He touched on how migration might impact on housing.

“We also said we’re going to cut migration. A big part of the demand problem is that Labor has increased immigration over the course of the last two years, by more than 70 per cent in any 2-year period in our country’s history,” Peter Dutton said.

“So, when you bring a million people in, and they all want a house as well, and you stop the supply side, which is exactly what the CFMEU has done, then you create this housing crisis which is exactly where Labor has got us.”

Peter Dutton has called out the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister for being “taken-by-surprise” in a Russian bid to set up a military base less than 1500km north of Darwin.

The revelation Moscow has applied to have several of their airforces long-range planes based in the Papua province was made public on Tuesday via a defence publishing website.

Mr Dutton told ABC Afternoon Briefing the PM shouldn’t be on the backfoot if he claims to have such a strong relationship with Australia’s closest Asian neighbour.

“I think the question here is whether or not the government had any forewarning,” he said.

“This would be a catastrophic error in the government’s systems if DFAT, under Penny Wong, didn’t know anything about it… If the Prime Minister hadn’t spoken with the president.

“By the government’s own standard, if the government knew nothing about this, then I would be very surprised and I presume the Prime Minister will answer those questions.”

The Russian application relates to Indonesia’s Manuhua Air Force Base.

This just in from NewsWire: The Greens have backflipped on holding a dance party fundraiser on Anzac Day in Perth.

The event page and an Instagram post about the fundraiser were pulled after The West Australian reported on the scheduled party, and less than 24 hours later the event has officially been canned.

To be held on April 25 at a Perth tattoo parlour and licenced venue, the event was slated to fundraise for the Greens candidate in the seat of Perth.

“The Federal election is right around the corner. Join us for a night when the dancefloor becomes the platform for radicalchange,” the event description stated.

“This election, let’s make history by electing Sophie Greer to the Federal seat of Perth and re-electing Jordon Steele-John to the Senate.

“Your moves matter – on the floor and at the polls. Want change? Tonight, let’s dance for it.”

The event was selling single tickets for $30 with the option to donate as well.

In today’s episode of NewsWorthy, Ben O’Shea reveals why Albanese is loving himself sick & why Dutton’s strategy is a dud.

Plus, where Labor and the Liberal Party stand at the halfway mark of the campaign.

Listen to the full podcast here.

The Nightly’s Jackson Hewett has highlighted the key learnings to be taken from the first meeting of the new Monetary Policy Board at the Reserve Bank.

Put simply, the committee found economic conditions to be favourable.

However, it’s too early to speak on Donald Trump’s tariff announcements.

Here’s a breakdown of the five key learnings.

Anthony Albanese, when asked on Tuesday if he had given his son Nathan a leg up to enter the housing market, said “families don’t have a place in these issues.”

“I don’t comment on other people’s families and I don’t go into my own personal details,” the Prime minister said, standing in the small backyard of a federally funded social housing project in Melbourne.

His comments follow Peter Dutton having his son join him on the campaign for the past two days to discuss the difficulty for young people to enter the housing market.

Dutton also posted a photo on social media with his son Harry.

“Great to have Harry on the road. Couldn’t do this without you mate, let’s get it done and get our country back on track,” the Opposition Leader said.

Labor frontbencher Clare O’Neil has slammed Nationals leader David Littleproud for comparing a female politician to a dog.

She said it was “deeply offensive” behaviour and accused the Coalition of having a poor record on the treatment of women in politics.

Mr Littleproud had compared the current Labor MP for Bendigo Lisa Chesters’ political pull to that of a “chihuahua”.

“I saw that David Littleproud has come out with some really deeply offensive comments in the last little while about the member for Bendigo Lisa Chesters,” Ms O’Neil said on Tuesday while speaking alongside the PM in Melbourne.

“The fact that we are in an environment where a leading male politician in our country thinks that it’s appropriate to compare a female MP to a dog, I just think that tells us everything about where the Liberals and the Nationals are trapped.

“I thought that we would move beyond this as a country.

“This is a person vying to be Deputy Prime Minister of our nation, and he speaks about a female member of parliament as though she is a dog.

“Lisa Chesters is not just a great member of parliament and a great advocate - she is a friend of ours. We deeply respect her.

“And I ask David Littleproud to come forward and apologise for his comments.”

Mr Littleproud made the comment while campaigning in Bendigo for the second time in the past fortnight.

The Labor MP has since cautioned Mr Littleproud to rethink his language towards women in politics.