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Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has created chaos within Labor ranks by repeatedly claiming that he can wring a deal out of US President Donald Trump (main picture) to drop tariffs on Australian exports to the American market.

Sunday saw the tariff issue continuing to bubble up among the issues confronting both Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the campaign trail.

The Bug understands from Labor strategists that Albanese was about to respond to Dutton’s statements by announcing a plan to offer the Liberal leader the opportunity to work as a special Australian envoy and fly him to Washington DC to negotiate the scrapping of the new 10% tariff.

“The plan would have seen Albo allocate a RAAF VIP jet to fly Dutton directly to Washington as soon as possible, put him up at Kevin’s place, and have him sit down with Trump to do a deal,” a Labor campaign source said.

“The idea was to call Dutton’s bluff. The idea that anyone in the world is capable of changing the mind of a bloated corrupt fake-tanned narcissist who always thinks he’s right as well as Right is laughable.

“The other benefit was that the deal relied on Dutton agreeing to undertake the envoy role full-time and stay in the US for the next four weeks.

“Unfortunately, all those plans went out the window when Dutton backflipped on his promised public service cuts and his plan to eliminate working from home for Canberra bureaucrats.

“We now realise we need to keep him right here in Australia,” the source said.

***

On the polling front, we take a look at the current poll averages, seeing several new results have landed overnight.

Redbridge (that we’ve now added to the pollsters we’re watching) and Newspoll overnight have come out with spookily similar results: a 52-48 two-party lead to Labor, based on primary figures of Labor 33 per cent, LNP 36 per cent and The Greens 12 per cent.

We’re still looking for the primary figures, if available, for Trumpet of Patriots but we remain fairly confident that they will once again prove that a fool and his a hundred-million-plus dollars are soon parted.

Here are the two-party preferred averages of the five opinion polls we’re now keeping an eye on – Newspoll, Resolve, Roy Morgan, YouGov and Redbridge.

Labor: 51.6 (was 51.25; Coalition 48.4 (was 48.75)

As mentioned before, Guardian’s Essential Poll thinks it’s professional or clever or responsible not to publish a two-party preferred figure. The Bug calls bullshit on that. Nevertheless, its latest primary figures suggest however a slight Labor lead.

Before moving on from raw statistics, here are the overnight movements of the betting markets we’re also monitoring.

Here are the odds we snared at around 9.35pm last night, compared with roughly 24 hours earlier.

Sportsbet: Labor $1.40 (was $1.40); Coalition $3.00 (was $3)
Ladbrokes: Labor $1.40 (was $1.40); Coalition $2.75 (was $2.75)
TAB: Labor $1.40 (was $1.38); Coalition $3.00 (was $3.10)
bet365: Labor $1.40 (was $1.40) Coalition $3.00 (was $3).

Summary: the odds wobbled around a bit during Sunday with not much movement one way or the other. Perhaps a settling down/take stock situation after Saturday’s movement to Labor?

***

So, did much happen on DAY TEN, Sunday April 5?

In a relatively quiet day, Niki Savva on ABC Insiders was scathing about internal party security for the Liberals. She was 100 per cent certain that someone in the Libs leaked Dutton’s planned Saturday announcement that only a really tough man like him could take the Port of Darwin from the Chinese! This leak apparently allowed Labor to gazump Dutton with their own port buy-back pledge the day before.

If Savva is correct, doesn’t disunity in politics portend death at the ballot box? Good time, we think, to remind you BUGgers out there of the non-journalist who won our Risible Far-Right-Rubbish award a few days back.

We are all looking forward to Sharri Markson’s excoriation on Sky LNPNews of the Libs over having a traitor in their midst.

***

So, who did we pick for our daily award?

There was plenty to pick from but we’ll bestow Sunday’s honour on Sky LNPNews host Rita Panini who might have just blown out of the water Anthony Albanese’s chances of remaining PM.

So who was the learned analyst who has recognised the dreadful fall in people’s living standards under three years of hard Labor? Oh, look! It was Panahi herself.

This, from the Sky LNPNews online post:

Rita Panahi has said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is overseeing the “biggest fall” in Australian living standards in a generation.

“You’re not imagining it, your spending power has diminished dramatically with Australia recording results that are worse than any other OECD country,” Ms Panahi said.

Rita, if we ever need our clogged dunny cleared of shit, we’ll give you a call. Clearly, you know you’re shit. In the meantime, who gives a flying fuck what you have to say on anything? And if you do nothing else moving forward, as Julie Gillard was wont to say, don’t ever call yourself a journalist. It’s insulting to journalism and journalists.

The grim reality is that if Scott Morrison had won the 2022 election and had the Albanese government’s economic record over the past three years, you – and sadly just about everyone else in the mainstream mediocre – would be raising the rafters with your raucous praise.

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