Australia news LIVE: Taylor delivers budget reply, pledges ‘biggest migration cut in Australian history’, $22.5b in tax cuts; Government calls proposals ‘uncontested nonsense’

Good morning and welcome to our national news live blog for Friday, May 15. My name is Emily Kaine, and I’ll be helming our coverage this morning. Here’s what you need to know.

• Opposition Leader Angus Taylor delivered his budget reply speech to parliament last night. He said he was ready to fight for the nation as he proposed the “biggest cuts to immigration in Australian history”.
• The Liberal leader offered a series of policy measures that he would implement should the Coalition be re-elected, including: tying migration to housing; indexing the lowest two tax brackets to inflation; boosting defence spending; and cutting social welfare benefits from non-citizens. The government has already panned the proposals as “uncosted nonsense”.
• In the first day of high-stakes talks between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Xi said the two countries stood to benefit from co-operation and should be “partners and not rivals”, before delivering a warning to Trump about Taiwan, which he described as the “most important issue” shaping the future of China-US ties.
• And a contest to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s leadership appears to be looming after a senior cabinet minister quit the government to clear the way for a challenge against the leader after months of internal dissent and a catastrophic loss for the party in elections last week.

Russia carried out its largest aerial attack over a two-day period since the start of its war in Ukraine, pounding the capital Kyiv and other cities with hundreds of drones, Ukrainian officials said.

Russia had launched 1567 drones since the start of Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. At least 22 civilians have been killed over the two days, officials said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that the war, which has killed hundreds of thousands and ravaged swathes of Ukraine over more than four years, was “coming to an end”.

But Zelensky did not sound positive. “These are definitely not the actions of those who believe the war is coming to an end,” he said.

Staying with Taylor’s appearance on Sky this morning, the opposition leader doubled down on his plan for Australian migrants to be barred from accessing welfare programs until they are Australian citizens.

“I think a lot of your viewers will not, will not realise that people can get access to those programs soon after they arrive.

“Australian citizenship has to mean something … And if people contribute to this nation, we want to contribute back to support them,” he said.

During his budget reply speech, Taylor said he would cut social security benefits for permanent residents who are not yet citizens.

Labor MPs have warned there are already long wait lists for permanent residents to become citizens, and denying benefits risks pushing people into poverty.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has rejected the suggestion his budget reply speech last night was an “all-in moment to save the party” after a devastating election loss and the surging popularity of One Nation.

“No, this is an all-in moment to save the country,” he told Sky News.

He was then asked whether the failure of this plan would signal the end of the Liberals.

“Well, I’m worried it’s the end of the Australia we know and believe in … I mean, I grew up in a country where you knew if you worked hard, you could get ahead. You knew if you started to put money away to buy a home, you could buy a home,” Taylor responded.

Leader of the Nationals Matt Canavan says the Coalition’s promise to index tax at the lowest two tax brackets will “stop Australians being silently taxed through inflation”.

“The issue has always been there, but it’s come to a bit of a point in the last few years where inflation has surged under this Labor government. And what that means is every year you’re paying more tax, sometimes you don’t even realise it,” he told ABC TV.

Despite the fact Opposition Leader Angus Taylor refused to provide the costings for this tax plan last night on 7.30, Canavan said this morning that the Coalition had costed the plan at an estimated $22 billion.

“It is a cost. But it is fair … just that your wage is keeping up with inflation,” Canavan said.

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie says the Coalition’s proposal to index the lowest two tax brackets to inflation would be funded by cutting the government’s $18 billion investment in net zero.

“When you’re going to be getting out of net zero, and there is $18 billion in programs there automatically, when you are cutting 17 different payments to the migrants that are arriving on our shores, you are also going to have billions of dollars available to spend on our new initiative,” she told Sky News.

The Coalition did not present any costings alongside Angus Taylor’s budget reply speech last night.

McKenzie said Australians could expect those costings to be released closer to the next election.

Health Minister Mark Butler has accused Angus Taylor of borrowing dog-whistling tactics from One Nation’s Pauline Hanson after the opposition leader’s sweeping, bold statements about immigration in his address to parliament last night.

“There was a lot of big talk, a lot of overblown rhetoric, and precious little detail for people, you know, after he huffed and puffed on that dog whistle he borrowed from Pauline Hanson,” Butler told Sky News this morning.

He said Taylor had presented a tax package without costings and lacking in detail.

“You can’t put a tax package out there without telling the Australian people how you’re going to fund it. You can’t sort of say you’re going to overhaul migration without putting a number on it and specifying what area is going to be cut and being upfront with people. I think that was the problem last night,” Butler said.

The opposition leader has defended the claims he made about immigration during his budget reply last night, but has again refused to provide the target number of migrants the Coalition would aim to see enter Australia if elected.

Asked on the Today show to put a figure on the opposition’s immigration target, he said: “What we’ve seen under Labor is that they’ve set migration targets without regard for housing construction. This has been insanity. It’s been madness.

“So what we’ve seen is way fewer houses than they planned, and way more people than our country can absorb through our housing supply.”

Taylor insisted the Coalition were not blaming migrants for the housing crisis.

“It’s not [migrants causing the problem], it’s the government causing the problem.”

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor is doing the rounds on breakfast TV the morning after he delivered his budget reply in Parliament.

He has been asked on Nine’s Today how the Coalition would fund the $22.5 billion needed to deliver on the promise to index the lowest two tax brackets to inflation.

“We absolutely can pay for it, and the reason is because Labor has built up a series of wasteful programs that it’s funding by hiking taxes without Australians even knowing about it,” he said.

“The savings across all of that, those wasteful programs are savings that can more than pay for ensuring that Australians don’t see the tax hikes that Labor is proposing.”

Health Minister Mark Butler confirmed the group of passengers would arrive in Australia at about midday.

“They’re due to land at about lunchtime,” Butler told ABC’s News Breakfast this morning.

He said the six passengers would all be tested for hantavirus upon arrival.

“They were all tested just before going on to the plane, and they all tested negative to the hantavirus and are in good shape, not showing any symptoms. They’ll be tested immediately.”

Six passengers who were on board the virus-struck cruise ship the MV Hondius will touch down in Perth today, where they will spend three weeks in a COVID-era quarantine facility.

The Bullsbrook Centre for National Resilience was completed in 2022, but has not been used since. It will house the four Australians and two permanent resident – a Briton and a New Zealander – on the repatriation flight.

Critical care staff have been deployed from Darwin to the centre ready to receive the passengers.

All the passengers have tested negative to hantavirus, Health Minister Mark Butler said yesterday.