Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dismissed concerns that election spending promises could jeopardise the country's prized AAA sovereign credit rating.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is speaking to reporters in the safe Labor-held seat of Whitlam with four days to go until the federal election.

The sentencing will cap a scandal involving a labor boss whose life followed an improbable path from the scene of a homicide to the top of a union.

The first African American woman to serve as the United States Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman died at the age of 77 on ...