Did Albanese ‘lie 97 times’, did Coalition ‘rip $30 billion’ out of schools? We reality check

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Anthony Albanese’s fall from a stage, and the swift denial of what many saw with their own eyes, set the tone for an eventful second week on the campaign trail. A week when each day was once again dominated by havoc being wrought from the White House.

While most eyes were drawn towards the stock market shocks, Albanese, Peter Dutton, and the political parties they lead, were making questionable claims.

Anthony Albanese, Peter Dutton and their supporters made some questionable claims this week on their race to the top.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen/James Brickwood

Here’s the week that was on the campaign trail, fact-checked.

Was Anthony Albanese involved in Kristina Keneally’s ill-fated Fowler bid?

Three years ago, in a grave miscalculation, Labor lost one of its safest seats. For the first time since its formation in 1984, Fowler, in Sydney’s outer southwestern suburbs, did not have a Labor MP. Instead, it was won by independent Dai Le.

Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally, of the enclave of Scotland Island on Sydney’s northern beaches, more than 50 kilometres away, had been picked as Labor’s candidate for Fowler by the party’s national executive. That decision turned out to be disastrous, and famously went against the wishes of longtime Fowler MP Chris Hayes, who had announced his retirement in March 2021 and wanted lawyer, and Fowler local, Tu Le to succeed him.

With Tu Le now running against incumbent Dai Le, Albanese was questioned about the Keneally controversy while in western Sydney on April 4.

“I thought it was an error at the time,” Albanese said, though he said Keneally’s installation as Labor’s candidate was not his decision, and, when asked directly whether he had backed the push to install Keneally, he said: “No.”

More than a few eyebrows were raised at his single-word response. Media reports, including in this masthead, had previously described Albanese as backing Keneally’s candidacy for Fowler. A 2021 report in The Australian said Albanese would “back in Kristina Keneally as his preferred candidate for the seat of Fowler”.

“Today I’m writing to the NSW general secretary, and asking them to write to the national secretary to put in place timetables for preselection,” Albanese told reporters in September 2021.

“I’ll be asking for the held seats, Hunter and Fowler, to be determined, if necessary, by the national executive. I think it is likely they will be unopposed, with Kristina Keneally continuing her contribution to our caucus and to the national parliament.”

At the time, the prime minister also upheld Keneally, who was born in the United States, as a migrant success story after facing criticism over Tu Le, who is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, being overlooked for the seat.

Did Peter Dutton forget Bill Shorten has retired from politics?

“We have the same amount, same number of women in the shadow cabinet as Labor does, exactly the same number,” Dutton confidently said in Adelaide on April 7. He was facing questions about the Coalition having a “women problem” after comments made by since-dumped Liberal candidate Benjamin Britton and a now-binned working from home policy.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so confident.

The shadow cabinet comprises 23 ministers, 10 of whom are women. Labor’s cabinet, meanwhile, also consists of 23 ministers, however, 11 of them are women, and 11 it has been since Aged Care and Sports Minister Anika Wells was promoted in January following Bill Shorten’s retirement.

Before Shorten’s decision, both cabinets were made up of 10 women and 13 men.

James Paterson says Albanese ‘lied 97 times’. Did he really, though?

It’s no secret Albanese failed to deliver on his 2022 election promise to slash household power bills by $275, but did he really lie 97 times about it as James Paterson has alleged?

“We won’t make … the same mistake that Anthony Albanese did before the election when he lied to the Australian people 97 times and told them their electricity would go down $275,” the senator for Victoria said on March 30 while spruiking the Coalition’s gas policy, which, since-released financial modelling promising to reduce household power bills has come under fire from experts.

This masthead could verify 57 times Albanese himself publicly promised to cut household power bills by $275 by 2025 in the lead-up to the 2022 election. Questions of whether a broken promise is a lie aside, and even with Jim Chalmers, Chris Bowen, Tanya Plibersek, Penny Wong and other Labor members spruiking their failed plan, it appears Albanese himself did not promise it as much as Paterson said.

Dutton, meanwhile, this week continued to repeat the line that power prices for Australian households have gone up by $1300. As we wrote last week, power bills have shot up by roughly $500 for the hardest-hit households. It’s still clear Labor is under pressure to explain how its renewable energy plan will provide bill relief.

Albanese’s debate rebuttal sparked laughter at Dutton’s expense, in more ways than one

Dutton and Albanese went toe to toe behind a paywall on Tuesday, but the audience in the room at the Sky News-hosted debate had front row seats to the prime minister’s quick and accurate wit.

“This is the highest-spending government in 40 years,” Dutton said while the duo bickered over government spending.

“Well, that’s not true, except for the one that you were a part of during COVID,” Albanese fired back, drawing laughter from the crowd.

Based on last month’s budget, government spending as a share of gross domestic product will hit 27 per cent this financial year. That’s the highest level of the Albanese government. The record was set in 2020-21 by the Morrison government, at 31.4 per cent of GDP.

Morrison’s 2019-20 government is also behind the second-biggest spend at 27.7 per cent of GDP. Both were efforts to deal with the pandemic, during which, Australia suffered its biggest economic downturn since the 1930s.

Did the Coalition really rip $30 billion out of public schools? Not like Albanese claims

While Albanese’s quip above rang true, the waters were murkier when he repeated one of Labor’s favourite attack lines.

“One of the things we’ve had to deal with is the last time government changed in Australia, in the 2014 budget, $30 billion was ripped out of public schools,” Albanese said in the debate.

That “cut” to school funding is based on two budgets – Joe Hockey’s in 2014-15, and Labor’s 2013-14 paper from Wayne Swan. Labor’s line is that if nothing changed socio-politically and economically through to 2024-25, the Coalition would have spent $30 billion less on schools than Labor says it would have spent in that same 10-year period, according to those two budgets.

But we’ve now lived through that decade. In real expenditure, per the Productivity Commission, the Coalition increased spending on all schools (government and non-government) by almost $8.7 billion between 2014-15 and 2021-22.

LNP declares Dutton debate winner – before audience delivers verdict

At 8.33pm AEST on Tuesday, minutes after the leaders’ debate, a triumphant graphic graced the social media pages of the LNP alongside the message, “Congratulations Peter Dutton”.

Peter Dutton was falsely declared the winner of the first debate against Anthony Albanese by his own party on social media.Credit: Facebook/@LNPQLD

The opposition leader’s party had declared him the winner of his first leaders’ debate against Albanese. Unfortunately for Dutton, Sky News had a metric for deciding the debate winner and it revealed its verdict 40 minutes later.

One hundred undecided voters were invited to sit inside the room at western Sydney’s Wenty Leagues Club and voted on who won. The scores were: 44 for Albanese, 35 for Dutton and 21 remained undecided. So Albanese won the debate based on Sky’s metric– but that didn’t stop News Corp’s top political minds from questioning the audience’s independence the following day.

Yes, the Coalition would continue the Paris Agreement … but it might not meet targets

On Thursday came confusion between Liberal senator Jane Hume and the party’s climate spokesman Ted O’Brien, who had hedged his bets about Australia sticking with the emissions reduction deal if the opposition formed government.

Asked in a debate with Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen if Australia would leave the Paris Agreement, as the US has done under President Donald Trump, O’Brien said: “I can commit that we will always act in the national interest, and we will be up front with the Australian people.”

Hume had a different message hours later in an interview with the ABC, saying on Afternoon Briefing: “Yes. There is no doubt about that, but on Labor’s current trajectory, the idea of cutting 43 per cent is an absolute fantasy and I think that’s exactly what it was Ted was alluding to.”

A spokesman for O’Brien later confirmed to this masthead that “we are committed to the Paris Agreement, including net zero by 2050”.

“But under Labor’s trajectory, Australia’s chances of hitting the 43 per cent target by 2030 is pure fantasy,” he said.

Nations hitting emissions reduction targets, and increasing their targets every five years, is part of the Paris Agreement. So whether the Coalition, or Labor for that matter, can live up to Australia’s obligations remains to be seen.

With Mike Foley, Matthew Knott, James Massola and Shane Wright.

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