Exaggerations from Albanese, Dutton lost in Trump’s tariff blitz

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Between Donald Trump’s blitz of “self-destructive” tariffs, Anthony Albanese’s slip off a stage and the Australian Electoral Commission investigating and swiftly clearing influencer Abbie Chatfield of wrongdoing, it’s difficult to know where to look since the prime minister visited the governor-general to call the election one week ago.

It’s been seven days of promises and mud-slinging from Albanese and Peter Dutton since then. Here’s the week that was on the campaign trail, fact-checked.

It’s been a week of a federal election heavily dominated by world politics. Here’s what Adam Bandt, Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese have been saying, and if it’s true.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen/James Brickwood

Grocery prices have indeed risen, but not by 30 per cent as Peter Dutton repeatedly claimed

Dutton said on days one and three of the campaign that Australia has become worse off under Labor, noting in the Coalition campaign’s opening speech on March 28 that “Australians are now paying on average 18 per cent more for rent, 30 per cent more for groceries and over 30 per cent more for power and gas.”

Dutton reiterated twice on 2GB on Sunday that household grocery bills have swelled by 30 per cent under Albanese’s leadership. But that figure does not align with the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ data, which shows non-alcoholic beverages and food have climbed by almost half of Dutton’s quoted amount, up 14 per cent over Labor’s term.

Labor’s supermarket price gouging taskforce is a leaf out of the Greens’ book, as Adam Bandt says

Greens leader Adam Bandt accused federal Labor of copying his party’s policy, and he’s broadly right.

“Another day and another Greens policy that the prime minister has adopted,” Bandt said on Sunday at a press conference in inner Melbourne’s St Kilda West. “Their first step is to say no, and then they adopt them, and we take that as a really good sign.”

Bandt, alongside Greens Senator Nick McKim, first announced a supermarket price gouging policy, which includes a Prices Commission that would make referrals to the ACCC, early last month. Albanese announced Labor’s very similar plan over the weekend.

Power bills have also risen, but not by $1300 as Peter Dutton says

Speaking from Western Sydney’s Eastern Creek on day three of the campaign, Dutton pledged to clean up Labor’s  “wreckage”, saying “people’s power bills have gone up by $1300″.

Albanese did repeatedly promise in 2022 to slash power bills by $275 a year by 2025, which has not happened. Data from the Australian Energy Regulator shows the average annual power bill from the 2022-23 financial year to 2024-25 instead increased from $1698 to $2053.

That is, however, an increase of $355, not $1300. Factoring in the estimated average annual power bill for 2025-26 being $2186, that’s still well under $1300 with the increase being $488 since 2022-23. Those national figures do not include areas or types of businesses that may see different results.

Part of Dutton’s “positive plan” includes seven nuclear power plants, which he – contrary to what many industry leaders, experts, top energy officials, the CSIRO and the market operator claim – says will lead to lower energy bills. He has walked back his claim that annual waste from a nuclear reactor could fit into a Coca-Cola can, saying instead this week that it would depend “on the size of the reactor”.

Another way Dutton is proposing to decrease power bills is by implementing a gas reserve on the East Coast if he’s elected, which he claims would bring down wholesale gas prices from roughly $14 to less than $10 a gigajoule. The Australian Energy Regulator’s most recent figures indicate that average prices have been below $14 lately.

Albanese, meanwhile, included a $1.8 billion cost-of-living measure in last week’s budget, wiping another $150 from household and small business energy bills on the eve of his election announcement.

Labor also plans to roll out subsidies for household batteries, which can cut more than $1000 from the average family home’s annual power bill after a $10,000 to $15,000 fee, pre-installation.

Would the Coalition indeed raise taxes as Anthony Albanese is claiming?

On Sunday, Albanese repeated Labor’s attack line that a vote for the Coalition was a vote for higher taxes. That claim is premature, because the Coalition could still announce a tax cut policy, and it ignores Dutton’s plan to cut fuel excise for 12 months.

“[Dutton] is going to an election not just having voted against our tax cuts this week, he is saying that he will introduce legislation to increase the taxation rates of all 14 million Australians,” Albanese declared on the ABC’s Insiders program.

Labor’s reduction of the bottom tax rate to 14 per cent over two years, starting from mid-2026, is only worth at best $10 a week to people earning more than $45,000. It was a surprising element of Jim Chalmers’ fourth budget, but within a day of its announcement, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor announced the Coalition would repeal the tax cut if elected.

Dutton, also on Sunday, said his plan to halve fuel excise for 12 months was superior to the “hoax” of Labor’s tax cut, saying: “[Albanese] is promising 70 cents a day in a tax cut which doesn’t start for 15 months. I think this prime minister is out of touch with how much pain Australians are feeling.”

Did Peter Dutton cut $50 billion from hospitals as Anthony Albanese claimed? Not really

Albanese whipped out his Medicare card once again on Tuesday in Adelaide, claiming that when Dutton was Minister for Health and Aged Care between 2013 and 2014, there was “$50 billion cut from hospitals, he attempted to introduce a tax every time people visit a GP and … abolish bulk-billing altogether.”

Budget documents from 2014-15 show that Dutton did plan to slash hospital spending by $50 billion over the following decade, but his forecast never came to fruition. In fact, data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows hospital spending has consistently increased over the last 12 years, including before Tony Abbott shuffled Dutton out of the health portfolio in late 2014.

Dutton did try to introduce a $7 co-payment charge for traditionally bulk-billed services including standard GP consultations, out-of-hospital pathology and imaging services, though after 10 months of back-and-forth, the policy was dumped in March 2015. And many GPs have been charging significant gap fees for consultations during Labor’s time in office.

Peter Dutton has said he will not cut Medicare, no matter how many times Anthony Albanese brandishes his card

The Coalition has denied it would cut Medicare or health funding, and has also denied its plan to cut 41,000 public servants would impact frontline services. In February, the Coalition matched Labor’s $8.5 billion boost to Medicare.

Anthony Albanese’s Medicare card has been a constant presence on the campaign trail. He’s pictured here with it in Adelaide on April 1.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

This week, the Liberals released a new television advertisement saying Labor’s claim the Coalition would cut health funding is disinformation – though the figures they use as evidence in their rebuttal are slightly misleading.

The ad cites Australian government hospital funding figures to suggest the Liberals gave hospitals dramatically more money when they were last in office compared to Labor. It also points to higher bulk-billing rates in 2021-22 as evidence they will look after Medicare.

The Morrison government did boost hospital funding primarily to combat COVID-19, with the new Liberal ad comparing the extraordinary pandemic figure with funding under the Gillard government more than a decade ago, when Australia had a smaller population to care for. It has not been adjusted for inflation either.

As for the bulk-billing rate figure, it ignores the years-long Medicare rebate freeze that largely happened under the Coalition, meaning the bonus for bulk-billing did not keep up with inflation, which soared as the world emerged from the pandemic, causing the rate of free doctor visits to fall sharply early in Labor’s term. The bulk-billing rate also reflects the number of Australians getting free COVID vaccines, which has subsided.

Wages have gone backwards under Anthony Albanese as Peter Dutton claims, but it’s not that simple

Dutton has repeatedly claimed real wages – wages adjusted for inflation – have fallen under Albanese, which is technically correct. According to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, real wages have fallen 1.1 per cent during Albanese’s term.

Looking back at real wages under Morrison, however, it’s worth noting real wages fell even more as inflation surged following COVID-19. Under the previous Coalition government’s watch, real wages fell 2.9 per cent.

With Shane Wright, Natassia Chrysanthos and Millie Muroi.

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