Federal Election 2016: Turnbull, Shorten campaign in Sydney
The Opposition Leader has accepted an invitation - also extended to the PM - to attend a People’s Forum next week.
- Safe Schools commitment
- Joyce defies ‘guy’ ban
- ScoMo slams Labor over growth
- Labor focus on energy
- Shorten’s rat attack
- Sinodinos offers say on super
- Today’s campaign schedule
Welcome to The Australian’s rolling coverage of the 26th day of the campaign. There are 30 days remaining. Both leaders have been campaigning in Sydney.
The biggest story of the day has been Arthur Sinodinos saying coalition MPs and the public will get to have their say on superannuation changes. The silliest moment was Bill Shorten being ambushed by a rat. We’ll wrap the day up with Bronwyn Bishop’s much-awaited interview on Sky News. Join us again tomorrow for live election coverage.
9pm: Bronwyn Bishop opens up
Former speaker Bronwyn Bishop has opened up about her chartered helicopter flight, and Tony Abbott’s personal request for her resignation.
4.30pm:Shorten keen to take on PM
Bill Shorten has accepted an invitation to a Sky News-Courier Mail People’s Forum in Brisbane next week.
Mr Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull were invited today to the forum, which will be held at Brisbane Broncos Leagues Club on Wednesday, June 8.
The forum will feature 100 undecided voters who will be able question both leaders, mirroring the format as that held in Sydney in the opening week of the election campaign.
#BREAKING Opposition Leader @billshortenmp has accepted an invitation to a Sky News and Courier Mail People's Forum next Wednesday #ausvotes
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) June 2, 2016
2.50pm:Shorten heads for Melbourne
Bill Shorten has finished campaigning for the day, and after a private event in Sydney will travel to Melbourne this afternoon.
He is expected to travel to Tasmania tomorrow, before spending the rest of the weekend in his home state.
It’s interesting to note that while in NSW, Mr Shorten didn’t go to any Coalition-held marginal seats.
He visited two safe Labor seats- Kingsford-Smith and Sydney, and Barton, which is now notionally Labor on a 4.4 per cent margin after the recent redistribution.
2.45pm:Labor’s “war on business”
Malcolm Turnbull has ramped up his defence of the government’s company tax cuts, saying the 10-year enterprise plan has been “carefully calibrated” to benefit small businesses first.
“Mr Shorten goes on about the banks. The banks will be waiting eight years before they get a tax cut,” he said. “There are three federal elections between now and when the biggest companies would get a tax cut. This has been very carefully calibrated so that the benefits go to the smaller businesses first because they will react, they will respond more quickly and they are overwhelmingly Australian family-owned businesses.
“The reality is that Bill Shorten has declared war on business and the first casualties are jobs,” Mr Turnbull said.
2.40pm:Quotes of the day
• Mystery woman to deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek during a visit to the Sydney Fish Market: “Can you hold my rat while I take a phone call?”
• Malcolm Turnbull: “Let’s get real about this, nobody likes paying more tax.” (Repeating vow that there’ll be no change to the coalition’s superannuation policy).
• Bill Shorten: “I know if you want an economic plan you’ve got to have a plan for climate change.”
• David Leyonhjelm: “This is political correctness with bells on it.” (about Australian of the Year David Morrison’s campaign against gender-specific terms such as “guys” )
• Barnaby Joyce: “I’m not going to go home to mum and say, ‘Hello parent-type person, how are you?”(On the same subject).
• Scott Morrison: “Economic growth does not happen by accident.”
• Tony Burke: “The government’s economic plan is in tatters, absolute tatters.”
2.30pm:PM’s boast - ’I know the beard man’
A.H. Beard employee Neville Middleton has received an unusual compliment from Malcolm Turnbull - the PM told him he had a “handsome, white beard”.
Mr Middleton has worked at the company for 34 years and does a “little bit of everything”. Mostly he works in product involvement, putting new products on the floor and making sure they work properly.
“We have been talking to some of the team here on the way through and in fact Neville ... was stitching one of the beautiful mattresses there,” Mr Turnbull said.
“Neville with his handsome white beard has become a household figure in China. He’s become so well known through the publicity for the A.H. Beard products. Next time I go to Beijing I will be able to say to people ‘I know Neville from A.H. Beard, with his own magnificent beard’.”
Mr Middleton said he was more flattered by the PM’s remarks than embarrassed and thinks the Chinese like him because he “looks old and wise with my beard”.
The 63-year-old played his political cards close to his chest, not wanting to reveal who he votes for. “I don’t talk politics,” he said.
2.25pm:How to sell a mattress to China for $75,000
While Malcolm Turnbull found his people - Turnbull’s techies - at a start-up incubator in Brisbane yesterday, he also gave a shout out to the “innovative” workers producing mattresses at A.H. Beard.
“You don’t have to be a brilliant software engineer in a T-shirt to be innovative. Here you have brilliant designers, brilliant embroiderers, traditional engineers coming up with the best products in the world and they can go into the Chinese market and sell an Australian mattress for $75,000,” he declared. “Think of the technology that involves, the innovation, the Australian creativity that that involves. Australians can do anything including selling mattresses into the Chinese market. More jobs, more growth.”
1.49pm:‘Dump the council’
Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm has called for the Australia Day Council to be abolished in the wake of comments by Australian of the Year David Morrison that he has stopped using the term “guys” when speaking to groups of people.
Senator Leyonhjelm said the best response to such “political correctness” would be to shut down the National Australia Day Council which oversees the Australian of the Year awards, and save the federal budget $4 million a year.
“This is political correctness with bells on it,” he said.
“What are we going to substitute? XX and XY (chromosomes)? People with jiggly bits and dangly bits?
“I think Australians are over it.”
Senator Leyonhjelm says freedom of speech was already under enough threat with defamation laws and anti-terrorism legislation which impacted on media reporting.
“I don’t think Morrison has done anything to inspire us,” he said.
1.37pm:PM defends ceremony absence
Malcolm Turnbull has defended his absence from the largest repatriation of dead servicemen and their families from Singapore and Malaysia.
Mr Turnbull has been campaigning in Sydney today, insisting the governor-general was representing the commonwealth at the ceremony at the Richmond RAAF base.
“That is an appropriate and very dignified and respectful representation of the nation, as we bring the remains of those who served our nation bravely, home,” he told reporters at a mattress factory in Padstow.
@colleenwilson20 @CarleitaS @oranglaut I can't believe the insensitivity of Turnbull. All boils down to "dead men don't vote" I guess!
— Duchess #DelCon (@WhosFibbing) June 2, 2016
1.10pm:‘Safe schools would have helped’
Dylan Lloyd was bullied at school. Now the self-identified queer person wants other gay, bisexual and transgender kids to get the help he missed.
When Bill Shorten campaigned on the University of NSW campus earlier, Mr Lloyd got a one-on-one chance to ask for a commitment to continue funding the Safe Schools program.
Mr Shorten gave it to him.
“I’ve deplored the extreme right-wing attack on these programs” he told the 21-year-old law and criminology student.
Mr Lloyd, who was the university’s queer officer two years ago, said several students had been forced to stay at its “queer space” - a section of the campus where people can be “safe” against homophobia and transphobia - because they had nowhere else to go.
“People have been homeless because of the queer identity, their sexuality, their gender,” Mr Lloyd said.
Mr Lloyd said he believes Malcolm Turnbull’s willingness to defund the program shows how little leadership the prime minister has over his party.
“The fact that the extreme right-wing people in the Liberal Party have been holding Malcolm Turnbull hostage to get rid of this program is very serious,” he said.
12.45pm:Accountants slam super
Australia’s largest accounting body has slammed the Turnbull government’s superannuation shake-up, arguing the government has dramatically underestimated the number of Australians affected by the proposed changes to superannuation. Read the full story here.
12.26pm:Farmers in mobile blackspots
The National Farmers’ Federation has launched a campaign on mobile phone coverage, urging politicians to commit to delivering affordable and effective data and voice connectivity to regional Australians.
NFF President Brent Finlay said while the Coalition’s commitment of $60 million to the Mobile Blackspot Programme was welcome, no party had yet clearly demonstrated a permanent solution to the nation’s below par regional connectivity.
“We’re still waiting to see policies from the parties that take a long-term approach to rectifying this crippling issue and to empowering farmers and regional communities with the technology they need to perform to the best of their ability,” Mr Finlay said.
12.17pm:‘No net cost’ - really?
Bill Shorten has claimed today’s renewable energy policy that will force government departments to purchase half their energy from renewables will have “no net cost”.
As the opposition continues campaigning on its renewable energy policies, Mr Shorten announced today that a Labor government would require federal government departments to purchase 50 per cent of their energy from renewable sources by 2030.
The party’s press release on the policy announcement said this would be achieved by working with energy providers to enter into 10 to 15-year contracts, known as Power Purchase Agreements.
When asked how much the announcement would cost, Mr Shorten said: “There will be no net cost in terms of what we are proposing,” he said.
“A Labor government will create certainty in renewable energy investment and markets so that we won’t have the sort of up and down craziness of the last three years under this climate sceptic government.”
Mr Shorten was asked to confirm if the policy had been costed, and if this had found there would be no net cost, but he dodged the question.
12.06pm:Joyce vows to defy ‘guy’ ban
Barnaby Joyce has a message to David Morrison: Sorry, but Australians aren’t going to stop calling people “guys”.
The straight-talking deputy prime minister has vowed to defy a call from the Australian of the Year to stop using gender-specific terms.
Words like “mate” are just part of the Aussie lexicon, the Nationals leader argues.
“I’m going to continue using ‘fellas’, I’m going to continue using ‘guys’, I’m going to continue using ‘ladies’,” Mr Joyce told reporters in Rockhampton on Thursday.
“I’m not going to go home to mum and say, ‘Hello parent-type person, how are you?’” Mr Joyce was in the marginal seat of Capricornia, held by Nationals MP Michelle Landry on a 0.8 per cent margin, to pledge funding for an expanded car park at the local hospital.
The announcement was made by the side of a busy road which, as the deputy prime minister learnt, can be a tricky background to sell your message with tooting horns and rowdy drivers.
As Mr Joyce was spruiking the benefits of the upgrade, a man on a lawnmower found himself inadvertently crashing the media event with a roaring motor.
TFW you're tryna do your job but crash a @Barnaby_Joyce presser instead @aappoll16 #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/pyqqbgMoZG
— Rashida Yosufzai (@Rashidajourno) June 2, 2016
Like a deer in the headlights, he stopped as the deputy prime minister turned around to check where the noise was coming from. But it also gave him the opportunity to test his Morrison-lexicon-defiance.
“How you goin’ mate?” Mr Joyce asked.
The groundsman nodded - and stood there waiting patiently in the background for another 15 minutes when the press conference finished.
Mr Joyce caught up with him later to offer his thanks.
12.00pm:A decade of deficits?
Mr Shorten has refused to say whether Labor’s proposal to keep the deficit levy for a decade means it is forecasting deficits for each of the next ten years.
Speaking in Sydney today, the Opposition Leader said Labor would keep the measure because of the need for budget repair, but also indicated that the money raised would go to the party’s spending priorities.
“We have made it clear that we have several priorities of equal importance, we have rigid budget discipline and we intend to make sure that we reduce debt over the nest ten years - that is an absolute priority of a Labor administration if we get elected,” he said.
When again pressed on whether this meant deficits for a decade, Mr Shorten said he would release the party’s forecasts closer to the election.
11.46am:Who is telling truth on super?
Bill Shorten has attacked the Coalition over its superannuation policy, saying the divisions within government could see the party’s economic plan change after the election.
“Malcolm Turnbull...promised on Sunday night at that debate that there would be no changes after the election to superannuation,” he said.
“Yet his right-hand man, his numbers man, Senator Sinodinos has said in the last 24 hours that the party room could well change superannuation measures after the election.
“Who was telling the truth? Is it the case that the government believe you can have one economic plan before an election, and another economic plan after the election?”
“If they are not telling the truth about their plans on superannuation, what else is it that they’re prepared to change after the election?”
The Opposition Leader said Labor’s superannuation policy had been clearly laid out last year, and would not “up-end” the sector by making changes that were retrospective.
11.33am:Has PM lost his spring?
Political commentators have noted a lull in Malcolm Turnbull’s election campaign and we’re not sure his electorate visit in southwest Sydney today will help matters. He’s headed to “innovative” mattress company A.H Beard in the battleground seat of Banks, held by Liberal MP David Coleman on 2.8 per cent. The business specialises in an innovative spring and one of its mattresses retails for a whopping $75,000. Banks was won by the Libs in 2013 for the first time since its establishment in 1949. A redistribution improved Mr Coleman’s margin, which was at 1.8 per cent.
A bit more on A.H. Beard... it has 23 stores in China after exporting mattresses there for the last three years. It also has links to the Liberal Party, having had some of its Chinese stores opened by former PM John Howard. We’re told the shops there are like Louis Vutton stores - it’s all about targeting the wealthy Chinese market. “The last thing they want to do is buy a Chinese made product,” one of the company’s directors Allyn Beard says. But rest assured, if you’re looking for A.H. Beard’s specialised reflex springs, which the company says give you better spinal alignment, you can buy one of its mattresses for $699.
11.05am:‘Growth not by accident’
Treasurer Scott Morrison says Labor is wrong to try to downplay the strength of yesterday’s national economic growth figures on the basis that they include net exports.
“I’m not surprised that they don’t wish to acknowledge the export performance because frankly
they opposed things like the China free-trade agreement when we first sought to introduce it and they of course did nothing on these agreements when they were in government for six years and nor have I heard anything from the Opposition in the course of this election campaign or before about what they would do to continue to grow exports, Mr Morrison told a press conference in Sydney.
“Exports are a big part of our national economic plan for jobs and growth.
“Economic growth does not happen by accident. You have to have the settings right. You have to have the policy environment right and you have to be able to stick to that plan to drive economic growth.”
Mr Morrison accused Opposition Leader Bill Shorten of having an agenda for $100 billion of higher taxes, which would be a “toxin on growth”.
He said there would be higher taxes on small business, investment, income, housing and electricity if Bill Shorten became Prime Minister.
“The Greens have already said they want $22 billion more in spending,” he said.
“Well that will be the price of a Labor/Greens government.”
“What will they tax next?”
The Treasurer also said post-election party room consultation on superannuation would not result in policy changes.
10.50am:Poverty push ignored
The Australian Council of Social Services has launched a campaign pushing for politicians to commit to a national target to reduce poverty, but neither major party has embraced the idea this morning.
ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie said that despite two decades of sustained economic growth, an estimated 2.6 million people and 600,000 children live below the poverty line.
But both major parties declined to throw their support behind the target idea this morning.
Coalition campaign spokesman Mathias Cormann said the best way to reduce poverty in Australia was to increase economic growth and job creation.
Opposition campaign spokesman Tony Burke said Labor’s policies were based on fairness compared to the government.
10.40am:Help for Asthma sufferers
Health Minister Sussan Ley has announced a subsidy for medicines for severe asthmatics which the government claims will save patients more than $6000 a year.
The promise, which will see breakthrough medicine Omalizumab (Xolair®) listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, will cost $5.4 million.
The government estimates about 200 Australians who suffer from severe allergic asthma will benefit from the subsidy.
10.32am:Super ‘business as usual’
Coalition campaign spokesman Mathias Cormann has joined the chorus of ministers downplaying Arthur Sinodinos’s comments that there will be more consultation with the party room over changes to superannuation tax concessions.
“The consultation, as there always is, will be in relation to administrative implementation arrangements,” Senator Cormann said during his daily campaign press conference in Canberra. “That is just business as usual. The substantive changes that we have put forward ... if we are successful at this election will be implemented.
“But as is always the case, we will ensure that the implementation is administratively as efficient as possible. “
Senator Cormann said he believed internal concerns over the changes were overstated.
“The changes that we have made are reasonable,” he said.
10.28am:Shorten talks energy
Bill Shorten is now at the University of NSW, in the electorate of Kingsford Smith. He is touring a lab with Ms Plibersek and talking about renewable energy. No rats here, hopefully.
The uni has a specialist course in photovoltaic and renewable energy engineering.
10.22am:Economic plan ‘in tatters’
Manager of Opposition Business Tony Burke says the government’s economic plan is “in tatters”, and budget measures which were supposed to be locked in are now being changed.
He’s listed the backpacker tax, cuts Treasurer Scott Morrison suggested he will make but did not outline during his Press Club debate with Shadow Chris Bowen last week, a shift in the focus on the business tax cuts to the next three years rather than ten, and superannuation.
“(Cabinet Secretary) Arthur Sinodinos made clear that after the election they would look to further changes in their superannuation policy, a policy that everybody all the way up to
the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party has been incapable of explaining,” Mr Burke told journalists in Canberra.
“This drives a hole through the middle of their budget plans, drives a hole through the middle of their economic plan.
“The government is in a situation where they told us the budget would be the blueprint for what they wanted to achieve as a government after the election and measure by measure, day by day, their election promises are falling apart.
Mr Burke said Labor had a plan which included measures that have been public for more than a year.
“We, before the budget came out, had put forward more than $100 billion worth of improvements to the budget bottom line across the decade,” Mr Burke said.
10.11am:Ciobo downplays super dissent
Trade and Investment Minister Steven Ciobo has downplayed reports of internal dissent over the Coalitions changes to superannuation.
Campaigning in Tasmania, the Gold Coast MP told ABC radio that when he’s explained the intent of the changes to constituents, they’ve broadly accepted them.
“The federal Coalition government has had to take hard decisions to make sure that we appropriately focus Australia’s superannuation system to do what the policy is intending to do, which is to encourage people to provide for their retirement,” Mr Ciobo said.
“It’s not about estate planning. It does affect only four per cent of Australia’s superannuation account holders, and for example, the cap of $1.6 million of the retirement phase of a superannuation account.
“When you explain to people that they’re going from having no tax for over $1.6 million to paying 15 per cent tax, still very concessional taxation on balances over $1.6 million, I find, is broadly accepted.”
Mr Ciobo said the inclusion of the transition to retirement stream in the changes was an “integrity measure”.
“I’m not foreshadowing changes at all,” he said.
10.05am:Port objections ‘xenophobic’
Northern Territory chief minister Adam Giles says there’s a high degree of xenophobia in opposition to the lease of Darwin’s port to a Chinese-owned firm.
But that was just part of the Australian way, he said.
“I think there is a high degree of xenophobia but that is part of the Australian spirit. We all stand up for what we believe in. We are proud as a nation and whenever new people come in we’re sceptical,” he told ABC television last night.
Under the controversial deal announced late last year, the NT government agreed to lease the port to Chinese-owned firm Landbridge for $506 million for 99 years.
9.45am:NXT ‘poster pinchers’
Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Christopher Pyne has accused Nick Xenophon Team helpers of replacing Liberal party posters with their own in his seat of Sturt.
Sturt Libs have put up 1700 posters. About 500 stolen. NXT helpers watched removing PYNE posters to replace with NXT. #lightfingers #auspol
— Christopher Pyne (@cpyne) June 1, 2016
Federal Member for Mayo Jamie Briggs responded to Mr Pyne’s tweet this morning saying he was aware of some poster pinching in his electorate too. “We estimate about 200 gone in Mayo also,” he said.
9.40am:Seniors confused by super
There’s been a range of views expressed by seniors groups on the government’s changes to superannuation this morning.
National Seniors Australia chief executive Michael O’Neill said his members are confused — some to the point of outrage — by the government’s changes.
“I don’t think it has been well sold and that’s really fed into this whole area of people now resisting, I suspect, the importance of reform,” he told ABC radio.
But Council of the Ageing CEO Ian Yates was more supportive of the government plan, which will limit the tax-free status of retirement accounts over $1.6 million and transition-to-retirement arrangements.
He attacked accused those opposed to the changes of “fire and brimstone” criticism and said those who will be affected have benefited from taxpayers subsidising their plans.
“This isn’t the end of tax concessions, this is trimming it back,” Mr Yates said.
9.30am:Tax cuts ‘death blow’
The government’s business tax cuts might cost about $3bn more than first thought.
The independent Parliamentary Budget Office has today released an analysis of the proposal which would see company tax reduced to 25 per cent over a decade, and found it would cost more than $51bn.
A previous Treasury analysis had found it would cost $48bn over a decade.
The PBO analysis was requested by the Greens.
Greens treasury spokesman Adam Bandt says the report is a “death blow” to any argument that giving a tax cut to big business is affordable.
“First Malcolm Turnbull refused to say how much his big business tax cuts would cost the public. Then Treasury told us the figure was $48b,” Mr Bandt said.
“Now the independent Parliamentary Budget Office says the Budget would be $51b better off if the tax cuts were reversed.”
Meanwhile Grattan Institute CEO John Daley told ABC radio a corporate tax cut over the long run will help the economy, but not by that much.
“The dominant effect will almost certainly be the innovation and investment that happens anyway,” he said.
9.14am:Return of the rat
Bill Shorten has done a walk through the Sydney fish markets with his deputy leader Tanya Plibersek.
He was greeted warmly by workers, but one business owner, Tony, wasn’t happy to see the opposition leader and put up a hand drawn “vote Libs” sign.
He said the Labor Party didn’t care enough about debt and “went berserk” spending in government.
Tony, who put up the Vote Libs esky lid for @billshortenmp visit tells us why #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/gCQacF51Wi
— Sarah Martin (@msmarto) June 1, 2016
As Mr Shorten was leaving the markets, he and Ms Plibersek were ambushed by what is believed to be the ABC’s Chaser team.
A woman approached her with a crate holding a rat, saying “can you look after my rat, I have to make a phone call”.
The woman then vanished, leaving the Labor leadership team to awkwardly handle the rat.
Of course it’s the second campaign rat to make an appearance after Mr Turnbull met Splinter the rat earlier this week.
“It’s happy in Tanya’s hands,” Mr Shorten said, declining the opportunity for a cuddle.
Ms Plibersek took it in her stride, vowing to hold a Twitter competition to find the pet a name.
She’s promised #electionrat as the hashtag.
The rat and crate have now left with Ms Plibersek in her government car.
7.59am:You’ll have your say on super
Cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos says coalition MPs and the public will get a chance to put their views on the government’s superannuation changes forward after the election, as Malcolm Turnbull stares down dissent within the Coalition over the policy.
The Turnbull government is facing questions over the fairness and retrospective nature of some parts of its superannuation changes outlined in the May budget, with Liberal members threatening to leave the party and withdraw donations.
Some coalition MPs say they were not properly consulted before the changes became government policy.
Senator Sinodinos said the superannuation changes were presented to the Coalition party room as part of the budget on budget night, but not discussed in detail.
“The superannuation changes were part of the budget, so they were presented to the party room before the budget was handed down to the party room in the parliament,” he told Sky News.
“The next process will be that we win the election, then there’ll be consultation on various changes, then legislation presented to the party room.
But Senator Sinodinos said he did not envisage that consultation leading to major changes to the policy.
“We will have consultation, but I’m saying, if we get a mandate from the people, we will argue to parliament we have a mandate to implement these superannuation changes,” he said.
Finance Minister Matthias Cormann said all of the measures in the budget had been put to the party room in exactly the same was as they always had been during his time in parliament.
“You don’t have in the party room before the budget is brought down the opportunity to go through 300 or 400 specific individual measures line by line,” Senator Cormann said.
7.45am:Top opinion pieces
• Niki Savva writes that Malcolm Turnbull is successfully magnifying Bill Shorten’s flaws and in that vein, our editorial argues that Turnbull’ s best advocates are Shorten and Keating.
• Richard Di Natale and his Greens have both major parties on edge, says Sid Maher in a lengthy feature written after spending time on the road with the Greens leader.
• Today’s Strewth features piglet racing for charity and comment from Barnaby Joyce on the Greens’ entree into his tough on dogs portfolio.
• If you’re affected by the Coalition’s super changes you are only 1 per cent or 4 per cent or 10 per cent. But you don’t matter, writes Judith Sloan.
• The national accounts show an economy where everyone is working harder and producing more but getting less for it, writes David Uren.
• Cutting company tax from 39 per cent to 33 per cent in 1993 proved to be one of Paul Keating’s best decisions, writes Adam Creighton.
• Greg Sheridan reckons Australia needs to talk about Donald Trump.
7.30am:Key political stories
Here’s some reading material while we’re waiting for today’s campaigning to get underway:
• Malcolm Turnbull is staring down a new bid from Liberal MPs to scale back a $6 billion tax hike on superannuation.
• A strong rise in national growth has sharpened the election contest on economic management, as Malcolm Turnbull warns that Bill Shorten is “sealed off from reality”.
• The rise and fall in Malcolm Turnbull’s popularity has followed an eerily similar trajectory as when he was opposition leader seven years ago.
• A record number of Australians have signed up to vote in the election.
• Soaring childcare and early learning costs would influence almost a third of Australians to support specific political candidates.
• Bill Shorten intervened yesterday to commit Labor to keeping the 2 per cent deficit levy for a decade after his Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen sparked confusion.
• Workers on the nation’s building sites are being paid “reckless” wages — as much as $160,000 — under union agreements.
• The suburbs just across the river from Perth’s CBD have become more Liberal but sitting MP Steve Irons knows his seat is at risk.
• La Trobe University yesterday suspended Safe Schools co-founder RozWard, as a former member of Victoria’s gay and transgender advisory committee warned the program was untenable.
• The Greens have promised to build about 1000km of bike and walking tracks in Australian cities.
• The Greens will not move to reopen Australia’s trade agreements with China, Japan and South Korea if they win a balance-of-power position after the election.
• Bill Shorten has been forced to quash internal divisions over the diesel fuel tax rebate.
7.00am:Today’s schedule
Both leaders start today in Sydney, where Malcolm Turnbull is expected to focus on the theme of innovation in manufacturing and exports. The Prime Minister is facing internal pressure to scale back the Coalition’s superannuation policy. The Australian’sRosie Lewis is travelling with the Prime Minister.
Bill Shorten will continue with his theme yesterday of renewable energy, announcing a policy to drive investment in the sector, reduce household power costs and create jobs. Labor wants 50 per cent of all energy to be renewable by 2030. The party plans to put taxpayers’ money where its mouth is, signing 10 to 15-year power purchase agreements with energy companies, which will force the purchase of the same amount of renewable energy as half of the commonwealth’s power usage. Our reporter Sarah Martin is travelling with the Opposition leader.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is spending the day in the central Queensland seat of Capricornia, which is held by LNP MP Michelle Landry on a slim margin of 0.77 per cent. Mr Joyce is expected to make a health funding announcement in Rockhampton.
Mr Shorten may have backed a winner in the State of Origin Rugby League match yesterday, using wife Chloe’s Queensland roots as a reason to back the Maroons, who beat Mr Turnbull’s NSW Blues 6-4. However, the winner of yesterday’s campaign was the Prime Minister, according to Political Correspondent David Crowe, who concluded the Coalition’s good fortune with the announcement of strong economic growth figures outweighed rumblings of internal dissent over superannuation changes.
The Greens are expected to announce a $10 billion public transport plan, which involves light rail projects in most capital cities and bike and walking paths.
Additional reporting: Sarah Martin
Add your comment to this story
LNP ditch Herbert challenge
The Liberal National Party won’t pursue a by-election in Herbert after it struggled to build a “strong” case for legal action.
By-election case tough for LNP
The Liberal National Party is struggling to build a ‘strong’ case for a by-election in the Townsville seat of Herbert.
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout