The prime minister is hoping for good luck and prosperity as the cost of living continues to weigh on voters.

Vibrant lion dancers and a vigorous drumbeat welcomed Anthony Albanese to the heart of Chinatown as part of the unveiling of a refurbished Sydney food market.

“The dancing, the culture, the language of all around the world – this will be a centre of it,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

“This is about job creation, it’s about boosting our economy.”

The traditional Chinese performance is often used at business openings to bring fortune while warding off evil spirits.

And in a tight election contest dominated by living costs and concerns about the economic impact of US tariffs, Mr Albanese needs all the luck he can get.

The Australian stock market fell 1.98 per cent in early trade on Wednesday before paring losses by noon, with global markets on eggshells as the US and China continue trading tariff blows.

Mr Albanese said his government had continued to engage with the US administration for an exemption from new tariffs and his treasurer has called a snap meeting on the issue with banking, business and consumer watchdogs.

Fresh off his narrow debate victory on Tuesday, the prime minister and NSW Labor premier Chris Minns continued jabbing at the opposition leader, seizing on a recent policy U-turn over public servants working from home.

“How can we trust this bloke if his policies have got the life-span of warm yoghurt?” Mr Minns said.

“There’s a use-by date on everything he says.”

Mr Albanese also waved around a copy of the coalition’s notoriously austere 2014 budget to claim a government under Mr Dutton would echo its cuts, before asserting the previous Liberal government did not follow through on a promised “gas-led recovery”.

“These people think that the Australian public are like goldfish and that they don’t remember,” the prime minister said.

With just weeks until the May 3 poll, the election contest remains tight.

One in five audience members at the debate were undecided, reflecting a broader voter sentiment that is expected to deliver a hung parliament.

The possibility has led crossbenchers to try throw their weight around, such as Greens leader Adam Bandt who has called for a change on property tax breaks.

But Mr Albanese said Labor’s objective is to build on its seats and govern in its own right.

“Adam Bandt is trying to make himself relevant, and I don’t blame him for that,” the prime minister said.

Stocks in Asia extended a slide on Wall Street on Wednesday as US President Donald Trump looked set to press ahead with whopping 104 per cent tariffs on Chinese goods, pummelling oil prices to four-year lows as global recession fears gripped financial markets.

The US dollar fell against safe-haven currencies but the offshore yuan hit a record low of 7.4287 per dollar overnight. Fed fund futures jumped in early Asian trade to imply around 115 basis points of interest rate cuts this year, compared to 92 basis points early on Tuesday.

Overnight, Washington confirmed 104 per cent duties on imports from China would take effect after midnight on Wednesday.

The shifting headlines on tariffs and the spectre of a prolonged trade war between the world’s two biggest economies sparked sharp volatility in financial markets.

The S&P 500 was swept up in one of the biggest reversals in at least the last 50 years, with the benchmark index losing 4.2 percentage points from a positive start to a negative finish. The index has lost $US5.8 trillion ($A9.7 trillion) in stock market value, the deepest four-day loss since it was created in the 1950s.

Early in Asia, S&P 500 futures fell 1.5 per cent while Nasdaq futures dropped 1.7 per cent. The pain likewise spread to Europe, with EUROSTOXX 50 futures down 4.5 per cent, while FTSE futures lost 2.5 per cent.

China’s blue chips slipped 1.2 per cent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index tumbled 3.1 per cent. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.7 per cent.

Late on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said China was manipulating currency to protect against tariffs, but he thought China would make a deal at some point.

“US and China are stuck in an unprecedented, and expensive, game of chicken, and it seems that both sides are unwilling to back down,” said Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura.

“Given the extraordinarily fluid situation, it is impossible to reasonably estimate the impact of the ongoing US-China trade war on China’s economy.”

The onshore Chinese yuan was already down at 2023 lows and much attention was on the mid-point fixing from the People’s Bank of China on Wednesday, which was set at 7.2066 per dollar, the weakest level since September 2023.

Analysts at JPMorgan believed the rapid escalation with US tariffs on China were disruptive enough to push the global economy into recession.

“Given the import bill from China, the China tariff alone amounts to a whopping $US400 billion ($A671 billion) tax hike on US households and businesses,” they said in a note to clients. “The currency is likely to be a release valve for China policymakers.”

Other stock markets in Asia were also deep in the red. Japan’s Nikkei tumbled 3.5 per cent, after rallying 6.0 per cent on Wednesday on hopes that Tokyo may get some trade deal with the US Taiwanese stocks also fell 1.7 per cent even though the government activated a $US15 billion ($A25 billion) stabilisation fund.

In the Treasuries market, longer-dated bond yields jumped in part due to investors selling the safe-haven asset to cover losses elsewhere. Short-end bonds, however, rallied as investors priced in more easing from the Federal Reserve.

The benchmark 10-year yield rose another 5 basis points to 4.335 per cent, bringing the total rise over the past three days to a whopping 34 bps.

Two-year yields fell 6 bps to 3.665 per cent.

In currency markets, safe-haven currencies like the yen and Swiss franc found some more love, with the dollar skidding 0.6 per cent to 145.36 yen and down 0.5 per cent to 0.8430 Swiss franc .

The kiwi rose 0.3 per cent to $US0.5550 ($A0.9307) after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut interest rates by 25 bps to 3.5 per cent, although it cautioned about downside risks to the local economy from global trade barriers.

Oil prices dived over 4.0 per cent on Wednesday on concerns about demand from China. Brent futures plunged 3.9 per cent to $US60.36 ($A101.22) a barrel, while US crude futures also tumbled 4.4 per cent to $US56.96 ($A95.52) per barrel.

Gold struggled to regain its upward momentum and was last down 0.2 per cent at $US2,039 ($A3,419) per ounce, about the lowest in a month.

The native timber industry has been dealt a blow by the High Court as it kept the door open for environmental groups to prosecute law-breaking loggers.

Wednesday’s decision, centring on a battle to protect habitat for three types of gliders, was immediately described as a “huge win” for native forests and the community at large.

The nation’s highest court upheld a NSW court’s decision allowing private people or entities to bring cases to enforce state forestry laws.

“This marks the end of the rule that only the Environment Protection Authority can prosecute the Forestry Corporation for their illegal logging,” environmental law expert and Greens MP Sue Higginson told AAP.

“No longer will internal government deals protect the Forestry Corporation from being prosecuted for their illegal actions.

“This is a huge win for South East Forest Rescue, the community at large, and especially for our precious native forests.”

SEFR says it has damning evidence of illegal activities in NSW state forests and the High Court challenge by Forestry Corporation was an attempt to avoid answering it.

Its case sought to minimise the effects of forestry operations on three forest-dependent marsupials living in southeast Australia: the southern greater glider, yellow-bellied glider and squirrel glider.

The southern greater glider, which is about the size of a house cat, is listed as endangered while the other two are considered endangered in some areas and vulnerable elsewhere.

Forestry Corporation, which manages NSW’s native timber and plantation industry, had argued third parties had no standing to bring civil enforcement proceedings.

But the High Court found cases could be brought by people whose private interests were affected or who has a special interest, such as long-standing concern about logging and its effect on certain species.

The case will now return to the Land and Environment Court later this year. 

SEFR is seeking court orders to restrain Forestry Corporation from logging in NSW north and south coast state forests unless proper surveys for greater gliders, yellow-bellied gliders, and squirrel gliders are completed, and appropriate protections around their den trees are put in place.

The High Court judgment is another blow to the native logging industry in Australia.

The industry has been haemorrhaged money in NSW amid environmental court battles and faces large swathes of forest being protected from logging in a proposed Great Koala National Park.

Victoria ended native forest logging in 2024, as did Western Australia, the home of sought-after karri, jarrah and wandoo woods.

The WA government said the closure reflected the changing climate and community attitudes about an “unsustainable” part of the industry.

Tasmania plans, however, to capitalise on mainland jitters, pledging to let loggers into up to 40,000 hectares of native forest previously set aside as a “wood bank”.

The coalition has misled the public on its energy plan, the prime minister claims, after it released long-awaited modelling on how much households can save on power bills.

The modelling for the plan to reserve gas for the domestic market forecast a modest seven per cent drop in gas and three per cent in electricity bills for households.

Industrial customers are being promised a 15 per cent reduction in gas bills and a forecast eight per cent decrease in wholesale electricity prices.

However, households would have to wait up to a year before seeing any flow-on to energy bills.

Anthony Albanese dismissed the modelling while campaigning in Sydney, arguing the government had already worked to bring down the price of gas.

“The gas policy the coalition has is gaslighting the Australian public. Gas prices were $30 when we came to office. They’re now $13 to $14,” he said on Wednesday.

“These people think that the Australian people are like goldfish, that they don’t remember.”

Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said it would take time for the gas reservation plan to flow through to energy bill reductions.

“We are certainly looking, by the end of this calendar year, that you would start seeing wholesale gas prices coming down,” he told ABC Radio on Wednesday.

“As that … filters through with contracts, then by the end of the first 12-month period, industry, households should be seeing the impact.”

The reduction in energy bills would also be dependent on new legislation setting up the domestic gas reserve passing parliament, if the coalition wins government on May 3.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has repeatedly attacked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese over Labor’s 2022 energy modelling, which forecast a $275 reduction in energy bills.

However, Mr Dutton has faced questions on the campaign trail to deliver his own modelling.

“Our policy will be a game changer because we can then see the cost and therefore price of electricity, construction, food prices and many other goods start to come down,” he said.

“Gas is critical to our nation’s energy future.”

But Labor campaign spokesman Jason Clare said the gas plan was little more than a distraction.

“This is snake oil … I wouldn’t call it modelling. I call it 125 words of assumptions,” he told ABC Radio.

“This is a distraction, to distract people’s attention from what would be the most expensive policy that any party has ever taken to the Australian people: these nuclear reactors.”

Executive director of the Australia Institute Richard Denniss welcomed the plan to impose levies on gas companies who prioritised exports rather than setting aside the energy for domestic use.

“Peter Dutton is rightfully arguing Australia has an abundance of gas and that all we need to do is to tax gas exports to ensure our gas flows first to Australian businesses and households,” he said.

“This is a big shift.”

But Australian Energy Producers chief executive Samantha McCulloch said the modelling still left unanswered questions.

“The policy would introduce price controls in the east coast gas market and would be yet another heavy-handed intervention that will drive away investment and risk exacerbating the supply pressures in the longer term,” she said.

“Rather than increasing gas supply, the Coalition’s policy risks reducing domestic gas production.”

The gas plan modelling was released on Tuesday night during the first leaders’ debate of the election.

A group of 100 undecided voters gave the win to Mr Albanese.

But one in five couldn’t decide which leader they preferred following the debate.

Energy bills, healthcare and broader cost of living pressures were among the most pressing issues for the voters.

Despite the debate win, Mr Albanese said he was not getting ahead of himself.

“May 3 is a long way away, we are not halfway through this election campaign,” he said.

Visit AAP FactCheck’s website to read our assessment of claims made in the election campaign and debate.

The Australian share market has sharply sold off after the opening bell, as hopes of last-minute trade deals fade ahead of a key tariff deadline.

The S&P/ASX200 fell 149 points, or 1.98 per cent, to 7361, as the broader All Ordinaries lost 153.1 points, or 1.99 per cent, to 7554.1, equating to almost $50 billion wiped from the top 500.

The move followed another volatile Wall Street session, which resolved to the downside, after the White House confirmed country-specific tariffs – including a 104 per cent, counter-retaliatory tariff on China – will take effect from 2.01pm AEST on Wednesday.

“This led the S&P500 to close below 5,000 for the first time in nearly a year, losing a cool $US5.8 trillion ($A9.8 trillion) in market cap since Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff announcement last Thursday,” IG Markets analyst Tony Sycamore said.

The benchmark index had surged as much as four per cent during the session but was 1.6 per cent in the red by the close.

The early slide on the Australian wiped out most of Tuesday’s 2.3 per cent relief bounce, leaving the key S&P/ASX200 down nearly 15 per cent against mid-February’s 8615 all-time high.

All 11 sectors were in the red, with materials stocks leading losses, down more than three per cent as BHP and Rio Tinto tanked more than 4.7 per cent each, as investors weighed the impacts of escalating tariffs on China’s future demand for iron ore.

The US-China worries also sent oil prices plummeting, with Brent crude futures down more than five per cent since 5pm Tuesday to $US61.04 – a four-year low.

The slump weighed on the local energy sector, which was down 3.5 per cent.

Financial stocks were also bleeding, down 1.5 per cent and all big four banks down at least one per cent each.

Despite the river of red, investors needed to remember that stock markets tended to fall around 20 per cent every four years, and ten per cent each year, Schroders head of strategic research Duncan Lamont said.

“For most investors, the best course of action will be to stay calm, stick to your plan and – rather than be scared by volatility – be alive to the opportunities that it may present,” Mr Lamont.

“The simple reality is that the stock market has tremendous power to help grow wealth in the long-run but short-term volatility and risk of falls are the price of the entry ticket.”

The federal government has again rejected a Greens push to put property tax break reforms back on the agenda, if Labor ends up in minority government after the election.

In an address to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Greens leader Adam Bandt will reiterate calls to scrap negative gearing and discounts to capital gains taxes for housing investors.

While the Greens have put up the policies in previous elections, Mr Bandt said that this time, they would be a bargaining chip for Labor if it wants his support to form government after May 3.

But when asked if Labor would consider this, election campaign spokesman Jason Clare ruled it out.

“No, flat-out no,” he told Sky News on Wednesday.

“What we want to do is build more homes.”

Labor has previously explored similar ideas. Former leader Bill Shorten went to the 2019 election promising to curb negative gearing before losing. In September, the party asked Treasury to model the impact of changes to those tax concessions.

Labor, in lock-step with the coalition, later turned away from property tax reforms but its hand could be forced after the election – unless it wins a majority.

Polls are pointing to a tight contest between the major parties, leaving the door open to neither the coalition nor Labor gaining the necessary 76 seats to form a majority government.

The Greens have already said that they would not support the coalition into government.

Negative gearing allows investors to claim deductions on losses and the capital gains tax discount halves the amount of tax paid by Australians who sell assets that have been owned for 12 months or more.

“If we don’t stop the bastards, house prices will get further and further out of reach, rents will continue to keep rising,” Mr Bandt will say in his speech.

“Imagine being a renter, armed with your life savings, rocking up to an auction knowing that wealthy property investor next to you gets a big fat cheque from Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton.”

Under the Greens plan, the handouts would be subject to a grandfather clause to one investment property to protect ‘mum and dad’ investors, but the capital gains tax discount for all other assets would be scrapped.

“If you want to buy more than two investment properties, that’s your prerogative, but you shouldn’t expect a giant government cheque to help you buy your third, fourth or fifteenth house, while millions have none,” Mr Bandt will say in the address.

The party, which has four lower house MPs, is also pushing for a freeze on rents and adding dental treatment for adults to Medicare.

The minor party is hoping to wrest the lower house Adelaide seat of Sturt from the Liberals, alongside some of Labor’s inner-city Melbourne seats, while sandbagging three urban Brisbane electorates.

After Elon Musk called one of US President Donald Trump’s top economic aides a “moron,” the White House has declared that “boys will be boys”.

Musk and long-time Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro have been squabbling publicly over Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on most of its trading partners.

The move has triggered a market sell-off and prompted analysts to wonder if the United States is headed into a recession.

“Look, these are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.

“Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue.”

Navarro on Monday on CNBC had dismissed a push by billionaire and Tesla CEO Musk for “zero tariffs” between North America and Europe, calling him a “car assembler” reliant on imported parts, and said he wanted the parts to be manufactured locally in the US.

“Navarro is truly a moron. What he says here is demonstrably false,” Musk said in a post on X in a response to a video clip of Navarro’s interview.

“Tesla has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.”

Navarro is widely seen as the architect of Trump’s wide-ranging tariff plans.

The policy is intended to revive US manufacturing and shore up national security but has hammered markets and thrown global supply chains into uncertainty.

Asked about the dust-up between the advisers, Leavitt said the public nature of the spat was evidence of the Trump administration’s transparency and Trump’s willingness to listen to diverse opinions.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has defended a decision by President Donald Trump’s administration to apply a 10 per cent tariff on Australia despite a free trade agreement, citing the country’s ban on imports of US beef and pork.

“We should be running up the score in Australia,” Greer told a Senate Finance Committee hearing in reply to a question from Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia.

“Despite the agreement, they ban our beef, they ban our pork.”

Australia has restricted entry of US beef due to mad cow disease concerns for more than two decades, stopping almost all shipments.

Greer also told senators that negotiations with countries seeking to lower the reciprocal tariffs announced by Trump last week would proceed country by country.

Greer, responsible for implementing tariffs, is the first official to face Congress since last week’s global tariff announcement.

He said Trump told him he is not planning for tariff exemptions in the near term.

Greer said he has engaged with about 50 countries so far and the “good news” is that most have not indicated they will increase retaliatory tariffs on the US.

People close to paying off student debts will be able to get bigger mortgages – and will need them after Australia’s median dwelling value increased $230,000 in recent years

Banks are altering how the debts are treated in mortgage applications following advice from regulators requested by Treasurer Jim Chalmers in February.

The nation’s largest lender will from Wednesday disregard a HECS-HELP debt when assessing a borrower’s ability to make repayments, if the debt is due to be paid off within 12 months.

“This will allow eligible customers to achieve their home ownership goals sooner,” Commonwealth Bank home buying manager Michael Baumann said in a statement.

That could add $36,000 to the borrowing power of a couple earning $140,000, mortgage broker George Samios estimated.

A couple earning $240,000 could add on another $187,000, he said.

The change comes as new data on Wednesday shows home values have climbed across the nation by almost 40 per cent in the past five years.

While trailing the roughly 80 per cent surges at the turn of the millennium and in the late 1980s, it far outstrips those past booms in real dollar terms, real estate analysis firm CoreLogic said.

Values have increased by roughly $230,000 in the past five years.

Residential real estate nationwide is estimated to be worth $11.3 trillion with increases attributed to existing homes appreciating in value and the addition of new builds.

A HECS debt can reduce a first homebuyers’ borrowing capacity quite substantially, adding to hurdles created by high-interest rates and loan serviceability buffers, CoreLogic economist Kaytlin Ezzy said.

“It is definitely a sticking point for a lot of people trying to get into the market,” she told AAP.

Finance Brokers Association of Australia managing director Peter White welcomed the changes, saying those close to paying off their debt will find it easier to secure a loan and be able to borrow more.

“While we understand that HECS is a debt and should be included in any loan assessment, the time left to repay the debt should be taken into consideration,” he said.

Both major political parties are pushing policies to increase housing supply in the federal election, as well as promising to make it easier for first homebuyers to enter the market.

But Labor’s goal to build 1.2 million new homes by 2029 appears unlikely to come off, with approvals and commencements lagging the rate required.

The coalition has meanwhile promised a $5 billion fund for enabling infrastructure.

That could go some way to increasing development but the overall impact was difficult to forecast, Ms Ezzy said.

Labor’s expanded shared-equity scheme or the coalition’s promise to allow first homebuyers to use superannuation for deposits will also increase demand.

“A lot of those policies obviously, while well-targeted, are going to have some inflationary impact on housing values,” Ms Ezzy said. 

Perennial issues – the cost of living, energy bills and healthcare – have dominated the federal election campaign, that is until Donald Trump lobbed an economic hand grenade into the contest.

The US president’s tariff bomb has sparked a global market rout and brought the question of who is the best economic manager to the fore as Treasurer Jim Chalmers and coalition counterpart Angus Taylor prepare to square off in the first treasurers’ debate on Wednesday.

The coalition has traditionally banked on its reputation as superior economic managers but recent polling suggests voters are no longer convinced.

A survey by pollster Redbridge found 31 per cent of respondents thought Labor’s economic vision was better for the nation, compared with 29 per cent who thought the coalition had a superior plan.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton attacked Labor for weakening Australia’s economic position, undermining the nation’s ability to respond in a crisis.

“The government hasn’t prepared our economy,” he told reporters on Tuesday. 

“Labor has made decisions in subsequent budgets now which make it harder for the economy to function with international headwinds.”

But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government had improved the budget bottom line by $207 billion over its first term, turning a deficit in the last year of the previous coalition government into two surpluses.

However, the budget has since returned to a structural deficit.

Labor are confident that Dr Chalmers’ communications skills will help him overpower Mr Taylor in any debate.

But on paper, Mr Taylor – a Rhodes Scholar and winner of the prestigious University of Sydney economics medal – has the superior economic credentials

Mr Taylor slammed the treasurer’s economic know-how as he criticised him for not asking Treasury to model what the effects would be if countries imposed retaliatory tariffs, resulting in an escalating trade war.

“The history of trade barriers going up like this … is they are often reciprocated,” Mr Taylor said.

“It is clear the treasurer has not asked for that (modelling), and I think that’s extraordinary. I mean, it shows you how out of his depth he is, how out of touch he is, and how little he understands about economics and economic history.”

The pair have at least found common ground on one thing: ruling out imposing retaliatory tariffs on the US, which they say would simply add to the pain felt by Australian consumers.