Federal election 2019: Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison campaign on Easter Monday
Fresh from declaring he does not follow AFL, Scott Morrison went to footy at the MCG, while Bill Shorten tried to woo Australia’s migrants with cheap visas and pushed for higher wages.
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Fresh from declaring he does not follow AFL, Prime Minister Scott Morrison watched the footy at the game’s spiritual home — the MCG.
Mr Morrison was among the crowd watching the Hawks play the Cats at the Melbourne stadium this afternoon.
The proud Rugby League fan last week admitted he did not follow a particular AFL team.
But on 2009 he declared on social media his love for the Western Bulldogs.
The Coalition is working hard to win over footy-mad Victoria.
He was seen chatting to former Victorian Liberal premier, Jeff Kennett.
Earlier, Mr Morrison lashed out at those who made fun of him singing at church as Bill Shorten tried to woo Australia’s migrants with cheap visas and pushed his plans to change penalty rates and wages.
Mr Morrison has lashed out at “keyboard warriors” in their “mother’s basement” making fun of photos of him singing at his church on Easter.
The Prime Minister this morning called on the Greens to condemn comments from an anti-Adani protester who likened people who work for the mining company to Nazis.
“I find those comments abhorrent, just like I find the swastikas that have been put on Josh Frydenberg’s corflutes and on Julian Leeser’s corflutes and some of the mockery that has been made of my faith by the union movement over n Western Australia to be abhorrent,” Mr Morrison said.
“There was another one, another group, likening my praise in church on the weekend to some sort of Hitler salute. I mean, it’s disgusting.
“Australians are bigger than that. I think these grubs are gutless, your keyboard warriors in your mother’s basement trying to make heroes of themselves.”
Mr Morrison allowed a rare glimpse into his Sutherland Shire church, Horizon, on Easter Sunday.
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Speaking at Berwick Temple, Mr Morrison also expressed his sorrow at the Sri Lankan attacks.
“We don’t know yet who was responsible for this violence, but I do know this: hate and evil are what sits behind any such attack,” he said.
“They are the enemies of peace, they are the end of innocence we saw in the beautiful young girls dancing in front of us today.
“We stand here together and we look at these young people and we are full of hope and we are full of love, because love conquers fear.
Love conquers evil. Love is the basis of peace and it is what binds is together as Australian people and more broadly people all around the world.”
His wife Jenny was wearing a traditional Sri Lankan salwar kameez.
Mr Morrison made a $15 million election commitment for migrant communities, including funding for business initiatives and funds to help elderly migrants access aged care.
Berwick is in La Trobe, which is held by the Liberals with a margin of 3.2 per cent. Jason Wood has been in the seat since 2013.
Almost $300,000 was this morning announced to complete a new Multicultural Education and Resource Centre in the electorate.
La Trobe Liberal MHR Jason Wood paid tribute to the beauty and love of Sri Lankans in his community.
Two per cent of the electorate was born in Sri Lanka, according to the 2016 Census.
“Local people are affected (by the bombing),” Mr Wood said.
The full impact of the explosions is not yet clear, and Australian authorities were this morning working to confirm reports an Australian citizen has been injured.
Mr Morrison later spoke at Pakenham Football Club, where he drew on one of his favourite analogies while addressing the blue T-shirted crowd.
“Let me tell this story about a curry that really sums up for me how multiculturalism in this country works,” Mr Morrison said.
“When it all blends and you get the garam masala in there - you know what I’m talking about - it’s so good. That’s multiculturalism in Australia.“
One audience member suggested Mr Morrison invite the crowd for dinner.
Mr Morrison’s wife Jenny posed for selfies with people at the football club while others lined up for a photo with the nation’s leader himself.
SHORTEN TO RESTORE PENALTY RATE CUTS
On the campaign trail in Cairns, Bill Shorten promised to launch a “full-throated” offensive in pursuit of wage rises if he wins the upcoming election.
We’re going to use the full force of commonwealth advocacy to support a wage improvement, a wage increase, for 2.2 million Australians,” he told reporters. “A government I lead will make a full-throated, full-bodied submission to the independent umpire.” Labor has calculated that hundreds of thousands of hospitality, retail and pharmacy workers stand to lose up to
$27,000 each through penalty rate cuts over the next three years.
Mr Shorten has promised to restore the penalty rate cuts within 100 days of taking office, saying low paid workers are being sucked into a “laboratory of extreme right-wing thinking.” Various Senate crossbenchers say they will only support him if Labor also legislates a ban on unions trading away penalty rates.
But Mr Shorten is not interested.
“The tail does not wag the dog here,” he said.
“We use the word mandate a lot in politics. I’m going to be very clear - if we get elected, we’ve got the mandate to change the penalty rates.”
PM DEFENDS WATERGATE
The Prime Minister has defended Energy Minister Angus Taylor as having no knowledge or involvement in controversial 2017 water buybacks that benefited a company he once directed to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
Pressure is mounting on the Coalition over the $80 million in water entitlements purchased from Eastern Australia Agriculture, with opposition parties and stakeholders questioning whether the sale gave value for money.
Mr Taylor was once a director of Eastern Australian Agriculture but has never held a financial interest in the company and stepped away from the role after joining government.
Mr Morrison today said the buybacks were negotiated at arm’s length from any government ministers.
Asked if he was satisfied Mr Taylor and then agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce did not benefit financially from the purchase, Mr Morrison said: “Not only am I based on the information that I have quite satisfied by that, but the information that’s been made available by the Senate inquiry directly to the department is very clear that these arrangements were conducted at complete arm’s length from any ministers.
“In terms of Minister Taylor, he would have had no knowledge or involvement at all.”
But the Prime Minister did not answer who did benefit financially from the transaction.
“At the end of the day, the Australian environment would’ve benefited under the Murray Darling Basin Plan,” Mr Morrison said.
TURNBULL SLAMS ENERGY POLICY
The Prime Minister has batted away criticism from his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull on the Coalition’s energy policy.
Mr Turnbull tweeted at the weekend that his signature National Energy Guarantee had the support of Mr Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg but failed because of a “right wing minority” in the party room.
“That is the only reason it has been abandoned by the Government,” Mr Tunbull’s tweet said.
“The consequence is no integration of energy and climate policy, uncertainty continues to discourage investment with the consequence, as I have often warned, of both higher emissions and higher electricity prices.”
But Mr Morrison today shrugged off the social media spray.
“That’s no longer the government’s policy,” he said.
“That’s not my government’s policy. My government’s policy is a 26 per cent emissions reduction target, which we’ve committed to and I’ve outlined a half billion dollar program which will ensure we meet that target.”
LIBS IN KEY MARGINAL VICTORIAN SEATS
The Coalition is kicking off week two of the election campaign in key Victorian seats.
Victoria is critical to the LNP if it hopes to win the election in May — and the Prime Minister’s tour of marginal electorates will mark his second trip to the state since campaigning started last week.
The Liberals know they have a battle ahead. Labor campaigning has centred on the toppling Malcolm Turnbull and attacks on Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton in its bid to swing seats their way. The state is often described as Australia’s most progressive — and it strongly rejected the Victorian Liberals in the January state election.
TROUBLE AHEAD FOR LIBS IN CORANGAMITE
Labor and the Greens have targeted blue ribbon seats with broader campaigning on progressive issues including climate change.
Southern Victorian electorate Corangamite is one seat tipped to swing to Labor after a redistribution badly harmed sitting Liberal MP Sarah Henderson.
Ms Henderson has held the seat — which includes coastal towns and outer Geelong suburbs — since 2013. Labor is running former teacher and journalist Libby Coker.
The Melbourne seat of Chisholm could also prove critical to the Coalition. Liberal candidate Gladys Liu last week made headlines for comments made about what she said were Chinese-Australians’ views towards LGBTI issues.
LABOR’S PUSH FOR CHEAP VISAS
Parents of migrant Australians will find it easier and cheaper to get visas if Labor wins the May federal election.
The party is promising to end the current “cruel” system, which forces Australian families to choose which set of parents can get a visa to visit.
“Many elderly parents want to reunite with their families but have to travel to Australia as tourists - proving costly, frustrating, disruptive and exhausting as they ferry between countries,” Labor leader Bill Shorten said on Monday.
“The most heartless, callous and cruel condition of the Liberals’ visa is that they are forcing families to choose between which parents or in-laws they reunite with by limiting the visa to one set of parents per household.” Labor is planning to introduce Long Stay Parent visas, which will remove the current 15,000-place cap on parent visas, and allow families to bring both sets of parents out.
The cost will also be reduced, from $5000 for a three-year visa to $1250, and from $10,000 for a five-year visa to $2500.
Temporary parent visas cannot currently be renewed from within Australia, but Labor is promising to allow parents of migrants to renew their visas while they’re in the country.
“Labor knows that modern Australia and multicultural Australia are the same thing - which is why we value families being able to spend time together and help each other,” Mr Shorten said.
LABOR’S PUSH IN QLD MARGINAL SEATS
It comes as Labor’s election campaign went tropical, with the opposition hoping to capitalise on a massive tourism spend to seize the marginal Queensland electorate of Leichhardt.
The Cairns-based electorate is currently held by the LNP’s Warren Entsch by a margin of just four per cent and is on Labor’s hit list of seven seats it wants to clinch off the Coalition in the Sunshine State.
This will be Bill Shorten’s sixth visit to the electorate since the 2016 election, signifying its importance to Labor’s chances of forming government.
Mr Shorten has paid the electorate particular attention since becoming Labor’s leader, holding several town halls with locals.
The seat has been solidly held by the LNP for the past two decades, after Mr Entsch first took it out in the 1996 election.
But Labor did manage to briefly hold it for three years after Kevin Rudd was swept to power in 2007, proving the electorate is well within Labor’s reach when the swing is on.
With the Great Barrier Reef on its doorstep, tourism plays a major role for this massive regional electorate which spans north of Cairns.
Labor has LNP MP George Christensen’s seat of Dawson in its sights, which he holds with a slim margin of 3.3 per cent.
LNP MAVERICK HANGING BY A THREAD IN DAWSON
HERBER COULD TURN ON JUST 19 VOTES
Labor will also want to sandbag the Townsville-based electorate of Herbert, the most marginal in the country, held by Cathy O’Toole with a margin of just 37 votes.
Today’s commitment from Labor to spend millions of dollars on regional tourism will likely be a vote winner in an electorate that relies heavily on tourism dollars.
His promise includes $100 million to help grow regional airports, as well as $40 million to improve infrastructure around existing regional tourist attractions.
Mr Entsch has been an outspoken MP on many issues, including being one of the first Coalition MPs to come out in support of same-sex marriage.
He also declared his support for a private member’s Bill last year that would have put a stop to the live sheep export.
He will square off against Labor candidate Elida Faith.
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