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Future small business owners are being promised good economic conditions to start up, as the prime minister continues to play up the government's fiscal credentials.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says 400,000 new small businesses can be created over the next five years if his Liberal-National government is returned at the May 21 election.

The coalition is offering lower taxes, less red tape and energy efficiency to encourage more small businesses to set up shop, building on its efforts to support a similar number in the past five years.

"What we're working on is ensuring the cost pressures on their business can be mitigated, can be relieved, and that's how we've ensured we've had 400,000 small businesses created over the last five years," Mr Morrison told the Seven Network on Thursday.

Asked how many small businesses had closed in the past five years, Finance Minister Simon Birmingham did not have the exact number but said the government's data took into account those that had closed in that time.

"I don't have, off the top of my head, the ins and outs (of closures) on a year-by-year basis,"," Senator Birmingham told ABC radio.

"This is about making sure the policy settings (are) in place because they're the things that matter."

Meanwhile, Labor leader Anthony Albanese will make his election pitch to industry leaders in a speech at an Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry gathering in Sydney, stressing the need for economic reform.

"A country cannot keep drawing from an old well, because the well eventually dries out," he will say.

"Australia needs a new playbook to seize the future."

Among the measures proposed by Mr Albanese is universal childcare, which he says will support workforce participation.

Earlier this week, the Reserve Bank of Australia raised interest rates for the first time in almost 12 years, taking the cash rate from 0.1 per cent to 0.35 per cent.

The rate hike has put cost of living pressures at the centre of the election campaign, with both leaders claiming they would be better at managing the financial squeeze being felt by Australian households.

© AAP 2022

Aquaman actor Amber Heard has choked back tears as she told a Virginia jury her ex-husband Johnny Depp physically abused her multiple times, starting when he slapped her after she laughed at the writing on one of his tattoos.

Heard took the witness stand for the first time in a widely followed US defamation case brought by Depp, saying the actors had a "magical" relationship until it turned violent.

Depp's first physical outburst, Heard said, came after she asked what was written on one of his faded tattoos.

She said he replied "wino", and she laughed thinking it was a joke.

"He slapped me across the face," Heard said. "I didn't know what was going on. I just stared at him."

Heard said he slapped her twice more and said "you think it's funny, bitch?".

Depp, 58, testified earlier in the trial he never hit Heard and she was the one who was the abuser in their relationship.

The Pirates of the Caribbean star is suing Heard, 36, for $US50 million, saying she defamed him when she claimed she was a victim of domestic abuse.

Heard has counter-sued for $US100 million, saying Depp smeared her by calling her a liar.

Heard said she stayed with Depp after the tattoo incident because he apologised and promised not to behave that way again.

"I didn't want to leave him. I didn't want this to be the reality," she said.

But, Heard said, Depp became violent at other times, usually when he was drinking or using drugs.

He would hurl insults or accuse her of cheating, she said, and "it would escalate to the point where he would push me or shove me down".

"This happened several times," she said.

At the start of her testimony, Heard said it had been hard to relive their relationship in the courtroom.

"This has been the most painful and difficult thing I've ever gone through," she said.

The case hinges on a December 2018 opinion piece she authored in The Washington Post.

The article never mentioned Depp by name, but his lawyer told jurors it was clear Heard was referencing him.

The couple's divorce was finalised in 2017 after less than two years of marriage.

Depp, once among the biggest stars in Hollywood, said he never struck Heard or any woman and that Heard's allegations cost him "everything".

A new Pirates of the Caribbean movie was put on hold, and Depp was replaced in the Fantastic Beasts film franchise, a Harry Potter spinoff.

Heard's attorneys have argued she told the truth and her opinion was protected free speech under the US Constitution's First Amendment.

A state court judge in Virginia's Fairfax County, outside the nation's capital, is overseeing the trial, which is expected to last until late May.

Less than two years ago, Depp lost a libel case against The Sun, a British tabloid that labelled him a "wife beater".

A London High Court judge ruled he had repeatedly assaulted Heard.

Depp's lawyers have said they filed the US case in Fairfax County because The Washington Post is printed there.

The newspaper is not a defendant.

© RAW 2022

Investigators have found new evidence potentially incriminating the key suspect in the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann 15 years ago, says Hans Christian Wolters, the German prosecutor who has been investigating the case since 2020.

In an interview with Portuguese TV channel CMTV on Tuesday, Wolters said detectives believed they had found "some facts, some new evidence" adding: "We are sure that he (Brueckner) is the murderer of Madeleine McCann."

Convicted child abuser and drug trader Christian Brueckner, who is behind bars in Germany for raping a woman in the same area of the Algarve region of Portugal from where Madeleine went missing in 2007 when she was three years old, was formally identified as an official suspect last month.

That was the first time a Portuguese prosecutor had identified a suspect in the case since Kate and Gerry McCann, Madeleine's parents, were named suspects in 2007.

They were later cleared.

Brueckner, 45, has denied involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine from her bedroom during a family holiday.

There has been speculation that evidence linked to Madeleine was found in the camper van Brueckner had used at the time of her disappearance.

The CMTV journalist asked Wolters if he denied those claims and he responded: "I don't want to deny it."

The camper van has been in the possession of German police since June 2020, when authorities started to seek information on Brueckner.

Wolters, who was not immediately available for comment, said he could not provide details of the ongoing German investigation because the suspect was yet to be informed.

He has previously told Reuters that the naming of Brueckner as a suspect in the case by the Portuguese prosecutor was designed to interrupt Portugal's 15-year statute of limitations.

"Regardless of outcome, Madeleine will always be our daughter and a truly horrific crime has been committed," Madeleine's parents said in a statement on Tuesday, which marked 15 years since her disappearance.

The McCanns have campaigned tirelessly to draw attention to their daughter's disappearance, and British public figures from business tycoons to authors and football stars have made appeals for information.

© RAW 2022