What we learned today, Wednesday 4 May
That was May the Fourth, and we had far too many Star Wars jokes. Help me. You’re my only hope.
In today’s headlines:
- Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Labor’s treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers faced off at the National Press Club, and two more leaders’ debates were confirmed.
- (And will Frydenberg lose his seat?).
- Prime minister Scott Morrison admitted he has not spoken to his Solomon Islands counterpart since calling the election.
- Morrison also doubled down on his Icac criticisms, despite being accused of being a “buffoon”.
- One Nation’s unseemly scramble to find candidates was revealed.
- A disaster has been unfolding in Wadeye, in the Northern Territory, and immigration detainees were sent from Melbourne to Christmas Island amid protests.
- And there were no pies for Labor leader Anthony Albanese today – catch up on the rest of the news in our election briefing.
Thank you for being here today. Amy Remeikis will be back at sparrowfart to take you through tomorrow, along with the rest of the Guardian Australia team.
Good night!
Updated
Australia has dropped down a critical list on press freedom, the ABC reports:
Australia slid from 25 to 39 out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index for 2022, ranking below close neighbours New Zealand in 11th place and Timor-Leste at number 17.
“Ultra-concentration of media ownership, combined with growing official pressure, endanger public-interest journalism” in Australia, RSF said.
As we get closer to the finale of May the Fourth ... yes, these were already in Josh Butler’s election briefing. Still worth a post of their own, I reckon:
I regret to inform you there are too many Star Wars #ausvotes election memes pic.twitter.com/hWUQn6XnnI
— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) May 4, 2022
Updated
Here’s Caitlin Cassidy on the girl who was found unconscious – she’s still unconscious:
Updated
First Dog On the Moon brings you... classic, no-cook chicken korma!
NB: Do not read at dinner time:
Remember that whole Solomon Islands – China palaver? Rather large foreign policy issue? Daniel Hurst reports that prime minister Scott Morrison has not spoken to his Solomon Islands counterpart Manasseh Sogavare since calling the election:
Labor leader Anthony Albanese declines a pie, prime minister Scott Morrison declines a “buffoon” tag. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg faces off against Labor’s treasury spokesman, Jim Chalmers, and there are masses more debates to come. Josh Butler’s election briefing is here:
From Calla Wahlquist:
12 detainees, including one person whose refugee status has been approved, were woken by guards at the Melbourne International Transit Accommodation centre early yesterday morning and told they would be moved to Christmas Island.
Does this settle it?
Albanese discussing the pronunciation of his surname on KIIS FM pic.twitter.com/TvYi8N2XIM
— Georgie Moore (@gemoo4) May 4, 2022
Continuing this afternoon’s teal-coloured theme – here’s the Campaign catchup! Sarah Martin and Jane Lee discuss treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s future:
Daniel says independents can get legislation through the parliament “with alacrity” in the case of a hung parliament, and help major parties have difficult conversations:
I think independents can provide cover for the major parties [who] are really very populist ... I am happy to provide that [cover], to raise those hard issues so that our major parties have to have that conversation.
Her campaign has raised almost a million dollars from the community, she says, and that’s roughly double what she’s received from Climate 200.
Updated
Zoe Daniel, the independent (and former ABC journalist) is on Aunty. She’s challenging Liberal incumbent Tim Wilson in Goldstein, and recent polling suggested she’d romp it home.
She is suitably cautious, saying it’s hard to accurately poll a single seat. She also says her running is nothing personal against Wilson, but that people want a new option and more action on climate change.
A reminder that Labor leader Anthony Albanese will be on QandA tomorrow night (or Q+A, as the ABC website puts it):
If you have a question for Anthony Albanese, submit it via the #QandA website before 9am tomorrow morning: https://t.co/BOVpYtQB0j pic.twitter.com/LdIGneFL6k
— QandA (@QandA) May 4, 2022
Some candid moments from the campaign trail from AAP:
A student at Holmesglen Tafe in Melbourne says:
Oh cool. Anthony Albanese. I only ever see you on TV.
Melbourne senior, Jill, on why she wanted to greet the opposition leader during his visit to Holmesglen Tafe:
Because he’s there and I can. He has lovely, soft hands.
Updated
Bandt says the Greens’ policies have been costed through the Parliamentary Budget Office, and that they have more announcements to make.
The Greens’ promises, such as funding dental care through Medicare, will be funded through savings such as cutting subsidies to fossil fuel companies. He says:
Everyday people don’t need to pay higher income tax.
We need to start asking the big corporations that are currently paying no tax or very little tax to pay their fair share.
Updated
The ABC’s Greg Jennett asks Greens leader Adam Bandt if the Greens are to Labor what the “teal” independents are to the Liberal party.
Bandt says support is growing for the Greens (including in a couple of Queensland seats), and says the Liberal party is “terrible”, while Labor agrees with them on some key issues. He says:
We are offering a vision and tackling the big issues.
Updated
7,367 Covid deaths in Australia:
This daily 📅 infographic provides a quick view of the current coronavirus (#COVID19) situation in Australia 🇦🇺
— Australian Government Department of Health (@healthgovau) May 4, 2022
Find out more here 💻 https://t.co/YcsPBOUfPb pic.twitter.com/bYUzrjRO7j
Independent candidate suspends campaign over section 44 concerns
Despi O’Connor, the independent candidate for the seat of Flinders – currently held by retiring health minister Greg Hunt – will suspend her campaign after realising she may be in breach of the infamous section 44 of the constitution due to her employment in the Victorian Department of Education.
In an email to supporters on Wednesday, O’Connor admitted she “may be in breach of section 44 vi of the Australian constitution”, which precludes anyone holding “any office of profit under the Crown” from sitting in parliament.
O’Connor said she was “technically employed in the public school system”, but that she had been on leave without pay for 18 months from the Victorian education department. She said:
This is something I should have picked up on. It was simply an error made in the rush of an election campaign.
O’Connor said added she had been focused on section 44(iii) of the constitution, and renouncing her Greek citizenship.
Her campaign manager told Guardian Australia:
We are continuing to try to resolve the issue. We have been and will continue to work with legal experts with the hope of continuing the campaign.
Everyday campaign operations have been put on hold, but the statement is not a withdrawal from the race.
Updated
Anne Ruston rebuts former Liberal deputy's claim party had 'lost its way'
Ruston is also asked about comments from the former deputy Liberal leader Fred Chaney, which has been published in the Nine newspapers. He said the Liberal party had “lost its way”.
Unsurprisingly, Ruston disagrees with that description, and says her party has a strong plan, particularly on climate change.
Next, the ABC’s Greg Jennett asks her if she’d renegotiate health funding with the states if the Coalition wins (and therefore she becomes health minister). Ruston says:
If I should be so lucky as to have that position, I will be seeking to work with all stakeholders in the health and aged care portfolios to find ways we can make sure that the world-class health system and world-class aged care system are continuously improved.
Updated
Ruston also echoed calls for the big banks – all of whom swiftly passed on that cash rate increase – to also pass on an increase in interest on deposits. She said:
If banks are going to reflect increases in mortgage rates, they reflect increases in deposits. We suggest the banks would ... pass on these interest rate rises to their members and the people banking with them because that would be the fair thing to do.
Updated
Some more distressing news:
#Gracemere - A three-year-old girl was found unconscious in a vehicle at Gracemere today. The girl was located on a bus out the front of a school on Lucas Street just before 3pm. She was transported in a critical condition to Rockhampton Hospital.
— Queensland Ambulance (@QldAmbulance) May 4, 2022
Women’s safety minister Anne Ruston has been talking about those inflationary pressures. There’s “tremendous uncertainty” at the moment she tells the ABC, and that’s “having an impact on the ability to project into the future”
She says the freezing of those deeming rates for pensioners (insulating them so people aren’t punished for interest rate rises) is:
About making sure Australians know we have their back, and will provide them with certainty going forward so they can make decisions, how they reset their lives.
A rare street walk from the PM in Glenelg. Sth Australia.
— Jonathan Lea (@JonathanLea10) May 4, 2022
Plenty of greetings and selfies. 📱
A few salty hecklers. 🗣
✈️🚌🚘 #auspol pic.twitter.com/fGrsW2ylgK
Amanda Meade reports that the third and final election debate will be next Wednesday, but, well, a little later than one might expect:
Seven is launching the reality franchise on Monday and nothing, not even matters of state, will be allowed to bump Big Brother.
A distressing story here from the Northern Territory:
Candidates for NSW seat of Hunter face off
Sky News is hosting a debate between the main candidates for the NSW seat of Hunter, and it certainly is spirited.
Held by the retiring Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon, Hunter is hotly contested and the main aspirants are the Labor candidate, Dan Repacholi, the Nationals challenger, James Thomson, and Dale McNamara for One Nation.
Coal and mining is a major sector in the area, and much of the debate has centred on energy, climate and resources. It’s held by Labor on a 3% margin, with One Nation and the Nationals challenging hard (coincidentally you can read my seat profile on Hunter right here).
Thomson said the Nationals wanted to have a discussion about nuclear power, and asked Repacholi if Labor would support a debate. Repacholi responded: “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know.”
McNamara said One Nation was strongly supportive of nuclear.
Thomson said the Nationals would deliver more for the area than Labor, after the party has held Hunter for more than 100 years. Repacholi challenged that, claiming the Coalition had failed to come through on road bypasses in the area, and that Fitzgibbon hadn’t been able to deliver those roads because Labor hadn’t been in government. He said:
It’s like going to grandma and asking for a chocolate biscuit.
McNamara said he wanted to see Australia spend 5% of the gross domestic product on defence. Currently Labor and the Coalition have committed to spend more than 2% of GDP on defence.
Repacholi and Thomson squared off directly on a number of occasions, including one on which party was better for the region. In response to criticism of the Liberals, Thomson claimed “the Nationals are our own party, unlike the Labor-Greens alliance” – an interesting claim, considering the formal Coalition alliance of the Liberals and Nationals, an agreement that Labor and the Greens definitely do not have.
Repacholi criticised Thomson, a communications manager at a local school, as a “PR spin doctor”.
Updated
Scott Morrison is in Glenelg, by the way. Glenelg is famous for being a palindrome, and for being the former home of Magic Mountain. It’s in Boothby, South Australia’s most marginal seat. The sitting Liberal MP, Nicolle Flint, is retiring at the election, and Morrison has been touring Glenelg with the new candidate, Rachel Swift.
He’s announced an upgrade to the main drag, plus $2m to double an existing reef, and another $2m to build a new reef.
Updated
Fine, these pics of Scott Morrison in the Adelaide sunshine quickly put the lie to my “soggy” claim. As you were.
Meanwhile it's coffee and bebes for the PM. @JamesBrickwood is with him. pic.twitter.com/mv71S81H6r
— Stephanie Peatling (@srpeatling) May 4, 2022
Updated
Good afternoon, all. Coming to you from a slightly soggy Adelaide (I know, east coast, we can’t complain!). There’s definitely a second-half-of-the-campaign busy-ness going on. Big thanks to Amy Remeikis for bearing the brunt of it!
Updated
The campaigns are rolling on, with Anthony Albanese to spend part of his day tomorrow preparing for his solo Q+A appearance.
No word yet on whether a leather jacket will be appearing with him, a la Malcolm Turnbull.
After the rapid-fire nature of yesterday afternoon, here is hoping Tory Shepherd has a slightly more manageable one as she keeps you up to date into the evening. I’ll be back early tomorrow morning. Until then, take care of you, Ax.
Updated
Josh Butler has taken a look at the contest for the NSW seat of Hunter:
Updated
Victoria’s education union has warned that the state’s public schools are underfunded by almost $2,000 per student each year, as it launches a pre-election campaign blitz in three marginal seats.
The Australian Education Union’s Victorian branch will deploy mobile billboards ads that will travel around the marginal electorates of Chisholm, Dunkley and Corangamite.
The billboards demand that the next federal government create “proper and fair funding” for the state’s government schools.
The union has released new public schools funding data, based on its analysis of federal government figures provided to Senate estimates. Its analysis found public schools in Dunkley were underfunded by $127.4m of their schooling resources standard (SRS) – a benchmark created in the Gonski review. Public schools in Corangamite lose out on $84.6m while Chisholm’s schools will be short-funded $50.4m.
The analysis found each school in Victoria could employ an average of 10 additional teachers and provide additional learning programs if they received their full SRS funding.
The AEU Victorian branch president, Meredith Peace, said Victorian public schools were missing out on $1,971 per student each year because they were not funded to their full SRS:
Victorian public-school students continue to be the lowest funded in the country after almost a decade of reckless funding cuts perpetrated by the Morrison government.
Updated
Qantas has cancelled one of its longhaul services, AAP reports:
Qantas will stop using Darwin as a hub for one of its London services after the war in Ukraine restricted the number of passengers the airline could transport on the flights.
The national carrier says the QF9/10 service will fly via Perth between Melbourne and the UK so more seats can be made available to travellers.
“Our flights from Darwin to London are currently operating with reduced passenger numbers,” a spokeswoman said in a statement on Wednesday.
“This is due to the effective closure of Russian airspace, which means we have to carry extra fuel to fly an alternative longer route.”
Qantas said the Perth to London route was shorter, which meant less weighty fuel was needed and more passengers could be carried.
The airline temporarily rerouted its London flights from Perth to Darwin in November after the West Australian government announced it was unlikely to reopen its borders to international travellers amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The NT government and Darwin Airport went above and beyond so that we could operate these services when WA kept its borders closed, and we’re extremely grateful for their partnership,” the Qantas international chief executive, Andrew David, said.
The QF1/2 service in and out of Sydney will continue to operate direct between London and Darwin as scheduled until 18 June when it will return to Singapore.
The first Perth to London flight will depart on 23 May. They were previously scheduled to return to Perth from 19 June.
Updated
Q: The government has said today they have done more than any other to help women. Amanda Stoker was at a pro-life event family ... we also know that Matt Canavan was also there. What message does that show to Australian women and what will Labor do to make sure women in this country are heard on decisions and choices around their body?
Anthony Albanese:
We respect women. We will have a very different approach. If you look at my campaign launch on Sunday, [we] had as a major policy differentiation the issue of the gender pay gap and addressing those issues.
This is a government that sat back and, as a direct result of the way that women in particular felt about the government’s attitude towards women and women’s safety, had ... hundreds of thousands [of women] around the country ... march for justice.
The prime minister couldn’t walk out the front of Parliament House. And then he stood up in Parliament and made the comments that, in other countries, people who were protesting would be shot.
That was the response that women got. We still have a failure to adopt the 55 recommendations of the Respect@Work report. We have questions which still remain to be answered about the prime minister’s offers and what they knew about issues and just a roadblock put up.
We have, I’ll lead a government that respects women, that makes sure that we recognise that one of the things that we can do to advance this country is to fully embrace the commitment of advancing women’s interests because that in our national interest as well ... A good government isn’t one that represents just 50%. It represents the whole society.
Updated
Q: We have hard economic times with a lot of debt, if you get into government can you guarantee no cuts to education and health?
Anthony Albanese:
I tell you what will make a potential savings, it is in the rorts that have occurred under this government.
... They’re rorts in the allocation of funding on political basis with their colour-coded maps. That’s why we have said, we will have an audit conducted by Treasury and finance, and have a line-by-line examination of that.
But Labor will always be be better on education and health. Labor will always be better on education and health than the government, then the Liberal Party. Because we believe that a healthy society is a productive society. We believe a society that invests in education is investing in growth and our future.
Part of a better future for Australia is making sure that people aren’t left behind and people aren’t held back. What that means is investing in health and education, we’ve put forward during this campaign ... including here in Tafe and universities and early learning, the commitments we have made for health are all about improving the system.
When it comes to the NDIS we have had a comprehensive plan announced by Bill [Shorten] with six points. One of the things we want to do is take pressure off people who will either have had their funding cut or worried their funding will be cut, take away some of that bureaucracy, the money that has been spent attacking people, and their packages, on the NDIS.
Updated
Q: We know business costs are rising as well, it emerged today the price of printing for newspapers is going up 80%, putting regional newspapers across the country under threat. Do you support immediate financial relief to help the sector and how much of a loss would it be if regional newspapers were to close down, and those communities left without a voice?
Anthony Albanese:
It would be a massive loss, a massive loss. Regional newspapers play such a critical role in regional communities. If you live in the middle of a big capital city like the one we are now you are impacted by a range of factors, the thing about a regional community, Canberra or others as well, that are potentially impacted by this and it is circumstances beyond their control ... I’ve always been very sympathetic when I have met with regional media, Win [News] and others about the pressures they are under, I would take a constructive role on any of those issues.
From now during [the] caretaker period of course, I would be prepared to sit down and I believe they play an important role, and it is legitimate to make sure they have substance.
Updated
Q: People are doing a tough, it’s only going to get worse can you commit to a increase of the jobseeker rate under a Labor government and the pension rate?
Anthony Albanese:
What I have said on both those issues is that one of the things Labor governments should always do is assist people in need, and we know that people are doing it really tough, the jobseeker rate is under $46 a day ...
I have said ... we don’t need a review to know people are doing it tough. What we need to do is, for each and every budget, to examine and do what we can do to assist people. The last time I was in government, I was proud to be part of a government that had the largest ever increase in pensions in Australia’s history.
Q: Will you be increasing the jobseeker rate? You didn’t answer the question.
Albanese:
I did answer the question. I said in each and every budget we will consider what we can do on issues like that.
Updated
Q: Tanya Plibersek, have you been shafted from the official Labor election campaign and is your appearance here today an effort to put those rumours to bed?
Plibersek:
We are here today to talk about education, which is my portfolio. I have been travelling around the country, working very hard for a Labor win. I have visited more than marginal seat so far, I’ll keep doing that. I don’t know how many media events I have done, last count about 30 of them.
And can I tell you one thing? Not a single person has stopped me in the street and asked me the sort of question you just asked me now.
You know what they are talking to me about? The cost of living. The interest rate hike they’ve just experienced, they’re talking to me about the fact it is harder and harder to make ends meet, under the Scott Morrison government.
And you know what I tell them? It is only Anthony Albanese that has the plan to take a little bit of pressure off families by reducing the cost of childcare, by helping them with affordable housing, by reducing the cost of medicine, by making sure they can get a great job and when the business is doing well and employers are doing well, see the occasional pay rise as well.
Albanese:
Can I make this point ... everyone gets one question. I was criticised by some in the media yesterday for taking more than one question so I’ve taken that on board and now you only get one.
... I’ve got my education spokesperson here. Who is Scott Morrison’s education spokesperson?
Who is it? This is a fundamental issue, education is so important. Scott Morrison can’t say who his education minister is, now. And he is the government. Today he has made more comments about Alan Tudge, what is Stuart Robert doing?
I am proud to be captain of a fantastic team. It’s a ripper team. I will appear with all of them over the course of the campaign, and what we are doing is, coordinating people who are out there in every state and territory.
I have shadow ministers today in Queensland, WA, South Australia, Tasmania, NSW and Victoria. Possibly Northern Territory as well. Scott Morrison has ministers who are in witness protection, ministers who are in witness protection, who can’t appear anywhere.
Updated
Q: Referring to the Solomons as our backyard, Manasseh Sogavare [prime minister of Solomon Islands] has said, is offensive. What is your first order of business of repairing that relationship with the Solomon Islands if you win the election?
Anthony Albanese:
We will show respect to all the Pacific family.
Updated
Q: Back on interest rates, what are you paying on your properties and here in Victoria, have you caught up with Daniel Andrews during his visit? Will he be out campaigning with you before the election?
Anthony Albanese:
I have been here for about an hour and a half which you would be aware. During that hour and a half I would assume the Victorian budget, because it was handed down yesterday [is keeping him busy] ... I certainly will be campaigning with Daniel Andrews during this campaign.
He is asked about what interest rate he is paying and says reporters get one question again.
Updated
Back to Anthony Albanese’s press conference which was cut short because of the debate.
Q: On the gender pay gap there is a 28% difference between men and women when it comes to super when they retire, as Labor got a plan to address that difference?
Albanese:
We sure do, it’s called our childcare policy, it’s called a policy that doesn’t include a structural change which gives a disincentive for women to work a third or fourth day. It’s one of the reasons why the Business Council of Australia and other business groups have called for childcare reform.
You need to recognise that one of the things that has an impact about the current mishmash and mess that as childcare subsidies, whereby, for some women if they work a fourth or fifth day, what that does is they can actually lose money or at least not earn any additional funds.
That does a couple of things. One, it stops them being promoted, because they are not full-time participants, and they are at a competitive disadvantage in their workplace. Two, it holds back productivity of those businesses, but three, it means women retire with less superannuation than would otherwise be the case.
And it’s also the case that the gap, and that’s what explains the gap that is there in terms of retirement incomes compared with the current wage gap, the gender pay gap which is 13.8%.
Tanya Plibersek:
There are two things we have to do to reduce the superannuation gap. The first is make sure women are paid equally with men, we have a great set of policies to make sure that happens, including more transparency in workplaces, including the Fair Work Commission having greater powers to make orders to pay men and women equally.
The point Anthony makes about women being discouraged from working those last couple of days a week because it actually costs them money to go to work is a really important one. Families are making decisions all the time about how to best balance their budget.
If it cost the secondary earner in the family money to go to work, I can tell you they’re not doing it. So cheaper childcare and reducing the gender pay gap, that’s how we reduces the superannuation gap.
Updated
Josh Frydenberg didn’t dispute or address this from Jim Chalmers. He didn’t defend it in any future answers, he didn’t challenge it, and he didn’t say Chalmers was wrong, despite the opportunities offered.
Well, the treasurer has just lied to you.
In every way that you measure tax in the budget, this government has taxed more than the last Labor government, that’s just a fact.
They have taxed more in total, they have taxed more as a share of GDP, they have taxed more per person and they have taxed more adjusted for inflation.
So that’s a lie. And we need to call it out when we see it.
It’s one of those big furphies that gets dragged out in election campaigns in particular.
This tax cap that Josh talks about – 23.9%.
In the history of this nation, that tax cap has been breached four times.
Every single time was a Liberal government. Every single time.
No Labor government has got anywhere near breaching the current tax-to-GDP cap. Let’s have some facts about this on the table.
This government is the second highest taxing government of the last 30 years and the highest taxing was John Howard’s.
So enough of this rubbish about tax.
Updated
And the debate ends.
Coalition 'don't know or don't care' about impact of real wage cuts: Chalmers
Jim Chalmers sums up:
This debate in this election can’t be exclusively about the past. It’s got to be partly about a better future and we’ve got to plan for a better future. And at the core of that is a stronger economy and more opportunities for people. And that’s the difference, really, the choice. The Labor side has a plan for the better future and the Liberals and Nationals want to bang on about the 2019 elections, and Australians deserve better than that.
We are here for one reason, to remember, Josh, who sent us here and why we are here, and that is to deliver Australians in their communities. And the very troubling thing about this debate is that you either don’t know or don’t care what the impact of the real wage cuts in your own budget are to ordinary working people, $1,355 this financial year. And that speaks volumes, I think, about a government that has let inflation run out of control and dropped the ball on cost of living, a government that’s gone after wages and job security over the best part of a decade. And the consequence of that is a full-blown cost of living crisis and only Labor has a plan to strengthen the economy to deal with that and deliver the better future that Australians need and deserve.
Updated
'Labor would like to wish away the last few years': Frydenberg
Closing statements.
Josh Frydenberg goes first because he went second with the opening statements:
[Jim] said earlier he respected me and I want to pay that complement, I respect him and he brings a great deal of experience to the role and off-camera we get on much better than we do on camera. But we’re here to debate the issues and the policies, we are here to debate the alternatives that the Australian people have for them at the next election.
The Labor party would like to wish away the last few years but the reality is that we have faced the biggest economic shocks since the Great Depression and he set the test. He said the biggest test of the Morrison government’s management of the pandemic would be what happens to jobs and unemployment. We have delivered the lowest unemployment rate in 48 years and it’s going to go even lower – and each one of those people whose jobs are saved is a mum or dad or brother or sister – and we have the economic plan to set up the budget to make Australia even stronger for the future.
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Q: Labor have announced some plans for what they hope to see change in the public sector and my question for both of you is to invite a comment on how the public sector need more public servants or reform in other ways to help implement the bold economic vision you both put forward.
Josh Frydenberg:
I can only say how outstanding and professional the public service has been and I’m sure Jim will agree with me. We have relied more heavily on it than ever before, not just on the advice of Treasury but the advice of the Department of Health and we have also relied on them to implement the policies in record time, payments that have gone out to the community when they needed it most.
I’ve only got the utmost respect for the public service. Numbers have actually increased under us for the public service. But it’s about making sure they work most efficiently and effectively because ultimately they are paid by the taxpayer.
Jim Chalmers:
I have the same view of Josh about the professionalism of the public service. We’ve both had the opportunity to work closely with Treasury in particular and we do agree that they are first-class public servants in that department and around the service.
It’s one thing to respect and admire the public service but it’s another thing to invest in its capacity. One of the policies that my colleague Katy Gallagher has released as part of our trimming of spending of outsourcing on the public service is to invest in the capacity of the public service in key areas where it’s been especially hollowed out. We have high expectations here and so we should of the public service in Australia. It is one of the finest in the world and it’s got a lot to be proud of.
As governments or alternative governments, we need to make sure we are investing the right amount in their capability and capacity. I worked closely in the past, in the portfolio Josh keeps mentioning, on public service reform.
I thought there was a missed opportunity out of the review that was done over the course of the last term of government and so I think there are opportunities to pick up and run with some of that agenda. But part of that is investing responsibly in people in the public service so that they can continue to deliver the high quality of services and advice that we need in this country and Australians deserve for their taxpayer dollars.
Updated
Josh Frydenberg:
My greatest fear is that if Labor got over the line, they would revert to their natural instincts to tax more and to spend more. Instincts that were on full display when they thought they had the election in the bag last time.
When you go to their national platform, it spells out increased spending on aid, increased spending on paid parental leave, increased spending on childcare. We have totalled up the cost of that increased spending – it’s more than $300bn.
Yet any hard question and Jim will dodge the answer. And that’s the reality. He’s the same shadow treasurer that was shadow finance minister at the last election who described ... [Chalmers: “You’re doing it again, Josh”]
... He was proud and pleased of retirees tax and a housing tax. And he’s the same shadow treasurer that said a housing policy that did not tackle capital gains and negative gearing was a shocker. They’re not my words, they are his. If you ask me what my biggest concern is, it’s what he’s saying to you today is not what you can believe. You cannot take it to the bank because Anthony Albanese, who’s championed higher taxes his whole life, whether it was a carbon tax or a mining tax or the higher taxes at the last election, backed up by the then shadow finance minister, will do the same if they get half a chance.
Updated
Q: Neither of you are really saying what you’re going to do in terms of spending cuts or tax rises after the election. So let’s try something different. Why don’t each of you tell us what you think specifically the other guy is going to do in terms of tax rises or spending cuts.
You have been saying Anthony Albanese wants death duties, for example. Let’s see if you say that here. And while you’re at it, given we’re talking about debt, can Jim Chalmers ... name the net debt ...
Laura Tingle:
No.
Q: OK.
Jim Chalmers:
Net debt $715bn for 22-23 in the budget that was just released.
On the issue of what I fear from this government, I fear that they will continue to ignore this cost of living crisis.
And I fear that this government will continue on the path that they have created for the best part of a decade now. The biggest risk at this election is that nothing changes at all. You know, it takes an especially out-of-touch Liberal treasurer in the context of skyrocketing inflation and falling real wages and rising interest rates and consumer confidence plummeting, his key argument at this election is he wants to stay the course.
Why would Australian families want to stay that course? That course that this government has us on is punishing people. They’re falling further and further behind. Their household budgets are getting pummelled by this triple whammy, this cost of living crisis. And so my big fear and my message to anybody who might still be watching is that the biggest risk here, the biggest risk here in this election, is three more years of the same.
Now only a Liberal government, a Liberal treasurer, a Liberal prime minister, this out of touch, would see the inflation numbers, the real wage numbers, rising interest rates, all the rest of it, and think what Australians really need is more of the same. More of the same from this government is absolutely punishing people and we can’t stay on this course.
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Q: What’s your plan to get tax-to-GDP and spending-to-GDP into line to get rid of the structural deficit?
Josh Frydenberg:
Well, obviously it’s about growing the economy. That’s what we’re seeking to do and, therefore, we can manage those higher debt burdens. But we have set our cap at 29%, bearing in mind in mind it’s about 22.4% today.
We believe in the discipline of ensuring we don’t lift taxes beyond a certain amount. The Labor party will not have that discipline.
As I said, and the reason why I asked Jim about his commitments at the last election, is because that would have seen tax-to-GDP go to 25.9%.
And he’s seeking and the Labor party is seeking to go to the next election saying those things that were hand on heart fundamental principles and policies and philosophies for them little less than three years ago no longer is relevant.
And that is just not being true to the Australian people. So we are seeking to end that emergency support. As I said, you had spending as a proportion of GDP above 30% during the height of the pandemic, that’s come down to around 27% today.
That will come down another per cent to around 26%. Tax-to-GDP at 22%, just over 22% today, does go up over time, but because we have that speed limit with the tax-to-GDP cap at 23.9%, we’re prepared to say we will continue to cut taxes. The Labor party will never say that.
Jim Chalmers:
Well, there’s lots in that. Let me try to gallop through all of the furphies the treasurer just talked about. First of all, the issue about tax-to-GDP.
I dealt with that partly before. Tax as a proportion of the economy averaged 20.9% under the last Labor government, 22.3% under this Liberal government.
The only four times the gap catch has been breached in the history of this country was under the Liberal government. You asked about the relationship between the government’s so-called tax cap and their level of spending – there is an issue with the structural position of the budget and one of the reasons why I think a lot of the serious economists are critical of the approach that the government has taken is because they have capped one and not the other and that depending on the level of growth and the economy has the capacity to deliver a structural deficit.
The IGR says there’ll be deficits for the next 40 years partly as a consequence of the way that the government is going about this.
Now Josh knows, because he reads my transcripts more closely than any other human being on the planet, that we are only taking to this election one tax reform proposal, and that’s multinationals – that he has previously said that he supports.
We have put on the table some responsible spending cuts, we have put on the table a process for the way forward to try to get the budget under control.
When people at home hear the government talk about the budget position, particularly when they try to play politics with Labor, never forget that on the facts, indisputable facts, this government has taxed more and borrowed more and spent more than the last Labor government and delivered less.
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Q: If I could just follow up on Andrew’s question. How can the NDIS be fully funded if the plans are being cut back at a great rate of knots? And the Productivity Commission said one of the problems with the NDIS was not the scheme itself, was the fact that a lot of the care economy wasn’t properly funded. Is there a case for revisiting the arrangements with the states and local governments about the services they provide so that the NDIS is not ending up carrying services that were previously covered by other sectors?
Josh Frydenberg:
Well, I mean, in terms of federation, there’s always opportunities to sit around with your counterparts at the state level to work through these issues. Because ultimately we’re both heavily invested in the states and the federal government. So there will be those sort of discussions because we both mutually have responsibility for the scheme.
But what I was pointing out, Laura, is that it’s the federal government that is shouldering the bulk of the load right now. Two-thirds of the increase in the NDIS costs have been met by the commonwealth. That’s lifting to 75% over time. And what we did do in the budget is we made an allowance for increased compliance.
Jim Chalmers:
We should always be looking for ways to improve the NDIS. The NDIS is a terrific idea which has not always been well implemented. If there are opportunities for discussions with all of the relevant stakeholders about how we provide a better level of care and service, and how we fund it most effectively, then both sides of politics should be up for that conversation.
You know, as a local member in my part of the world, I know that there are a lot of concerns with the NDIS right now, about packages, about access to decent services, about the responsiveness of the service. And so as we have been saying throughout the course of this campaign and well before that ... we do think the NDIS can be better. That inevitably, necessarily, involves a conversation with all of the stakeholders.
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Jim Chalmers:
We’re not proposing to introduce a levy to pay for the NDIS, as some of the predecessors that you mentioned have proposed in the past. We do recognise, as Josh just did, is that this is a big and growing part of the commonwealth budget, but it’s an important part of the budget as well.
And I think what we need to do in this country is change the way we think about the care economy. You know, this is primarily about providing a level of services to the most vulnerable people in our society – that’s an important part of what we’re talking about here.
But there’s also an opportunity for Australia, a vast opportunity for Australia, in the care economy whether it’s disability care, whether it’s aged care, or whether it’s childcare. And we need to also be seeing investments in this part of the budget as job-creating prosperity-creating productivity-enhancing investments and so they deliver a double dividend.
The cost is substantial – not disputing that – but so are the benefits for individual people being cared for, but also for the economy more broadly.
If you look at the way that our economy is changing and evolving, services, particularly in the care economy, will be a bigger and bigger part of our economy as our society ages. And so we need to see it that way as well. We get a benefit of it as a nation as well as a benefit for it at the individual level. We pay for that in the usual way and we’re not proposing to change the tax arrangements for it.
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Q: I wanted to ask about the NDIS and, firstly, your budget, treasurer, forecast the NDIS costing $70bn by 2030, well in excess of any expectation. Both sides of politics over the years have to their credit proposed ideas to pay for it. Julia Gillard in 2013 with an increase in the Medicare levy. Scott Morrison, too, by another 0.5% in the 2017 budget, you might remember he cited his brother-in-law, wants to give his brother-in-law funding certainty, but he ended up scrapping that idea a year later claiming the government had found source funding through unexpected extra revenue. Now, given the current circumstances, given there’s a trillion dollar debt, do either of you have the courage that Julia Gillard showed, the courage that Scott Morrison showed at one point, to propose a levy to fund the NDIS, which is blowing out in costs? And in anticipation you’re going to mention it, please don’t say it’s fully-funded because if it’s fully-funded, how do you explain that to people who are going to be lumbered, your children, my children, with $1tn debt?
Josh Frydenberg:
Our plans are set out in the budget, but you’re ...
Q: That’s not an answer.
Frydenberg:
But that is the truth. You’re asking about future levies and I’m saying to you that what we have set out is the funding for the NDIS which is going to continue to grow and as I said earlier from 1.2 to 1.5 per cent of the GDP.
What we inherited this from the previous government was a structure where the federal government, the commonwealth government, was up for the bulk of the expenditure increase in the NDIS.
So today we’re picking up about two-thirds of the increase that will lift to about 75%. Now, I recognise that the NDIS, Andrew, is an absolutely critical program and it is providing support for the people who need it most.
But it is increasing, both in terms of demand and in terms of cost, and today you have half a million people on the NDIS, half of whom are getting support for the first time. And those numbers will actually increase over time.
So we’ve got to continue to fund it ... there was $30m in the budget to help the NDIA in terms of compliance, so there are measures there to ensure that we are getting value-for-money out of that scheme.
So we put that in the budget – $30m in the budget. But what I recognise is that we need to continue to fund this scheme and we continue to provide those services even as it becomes more expensive.
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Jim Chalmers:
How much, Josh, do the real wage cuts in your budget cost the average Australian worker this financial year?
Josh Frydenberg:
Well, firstly, we’re saying that wages will continue to rise and there’s about a $900 difference for somebody who’s on average full-time earnings between what the wages would be and what the inflation rate would be. But as you know, they get $1,500 in tax relief from 1 July, so that makes up for that difference between the WPI and the difference between the wages price index and the inflation rate.
(Treasury’s forecasts on wage growth have been wrong 53 out of 55 times.)
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Josh Frydenberg:
My question to Jim – he says we revisit the last election but it actually goes to the heart of the believability of the Labor party. They are trying to sneak into government and say that they will be handing down a budget after the election but not tell the people before the election what would be in that budget. Now, Jim, you said you were proud and pleased of $387bn of higher taxes, higher taxes on super, higher taxes on income, higher taxes on housing, higher taxes on retirees, higher taxes on family businesses, indeed there were media reports even less than a year ago about you revisiting the housing tax. Family business tax. What impact would have $387bn of higher taxes that you took to the last election have had on an economy that has just encountered the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression with Covid?
Jim Chalmers:
Josh, this might come as a big surprise to you, but it’s 2022 now. The 2019 election has been run and won. And I think it speaks volumes, frankly, and with respect of your approach to this job and to this economy and to the future of this country that when you’re given an opportunity to ask one question of your opponent, you ask a question about the 2019 election. I think that speaks volumes about what you’re offering the Australian people.
Australians had their chance to cast their judgment in 2019, they cast that judgment and we respect the judgment that they made. We have been working around-the-clock since then to earn their trust and part of that has been acknowledging where we put forward a policy that wasn’t right and where we have found a better way to deal with some of these issues. Now contest this election on the policies we’re putting forward, not on the policies we’re not putting forward. Contest this policy on a plan for a better future, that’s what we’re trying to do. You should try it too.
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Laura Tingle invites the men to ask a question of each other.
Josh Frydenberg jumps in:
My question to Jim – he says that we’re ...
Jim Chalmers:
After you, Josh!
Frydenberg:
I’m sorry. You did speak first.
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Jim Chalmers on that same question:
This is a long-term challenge, as you know, and it needs long-term policy and long-term planning and shouldn’t make your policy based on kind of near-term spikes in prices. We all recognise – at least the major parties recognise – that there will be a mix of energy sources and that that mix will change over time.
And it’s not just the Labor party saying that energy costs will come down if we introduce cleaner and cheaper energy into the system. The investment community has been saying that for some time to their credit. The peak business organisations have been saying that to their great credit. The contribution they have made to this conversation.
Now getting cleaner and cheaper energy into the system is Australia’s biggest opportunity over the next decade or two, and I think Australians are angry that we have been stuffing around with this for a decade now. All of this uncertainty created by a government where some of the members say that net zero is rubbish and other members say that net zero is locked in, depending on where they are in the country, whether they’re in Kooyong or Capricornia, OK.
There’s a cost to that. There’s a cost to that to our economy and one of the reasons why we need a Labor government, and a key part of a better future for this country, is to finally get on with the job of grabbing this incredible opportunity that we have, probably the most important opportunity that we have as a country and as an economy is to grab this thing, because if we get that cleaner and cheaper energy, we will unlock tens of billions of dollars in investment.
We will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and we’ll make energy cheaper, all the way from pensioners to working families to businesses as well. If we miss this opportunity, we should hang our heads in shame, but that’s what’s been happening. This opportunity has been going begging and it’s not good enough, it needs to change and it will change if there’s a Labor government.
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Q: Both of you claim to be able to control power prices. The government says you’re responsible for bringing the prices down, the Labor party says you can bring them down further. Wholesale power prices are on the march and they’re on the march because the price of coal is on the march. Can you both explain why that will not be the case in the future – that that will continue to set the price of power in the marketplace and as wholesale power prices go up, so will retail power prices?
Josh Frydenberg:
So commodity prices have gone up and coal is one of these and that’s largely out of what has been happening in the Ukraine and it’s the expectation of Treasury that those prices would start to normalise over time and that would play through to the energy system.
I do point out that electricity prices for households are down by about 8% in the last two years under the Coalition and for small businesses down about 10% – and they doubled under the Labor party.
The key here is to get the transition right and that is particularly important as we move to net zero emissions.
I used to be the energy and the environment minister and I’ve got the scars to show it. What you’ve got to get right is that transition to more intermittent sources of energy.
I remember when Hazelwood was closed. It was a dirty coal-fired brown coal source. Victoria went overnight from being a net energy exporter to being a net energy importer at times of peak demand. But they saw a spike in the wholesale price of about 80% at the time.
And I remember getting calls into our office and indeed other offices from pensioners who couldn’t afford the heating and they would have to sleep in bed with extra layers of clothes and extra blankets, and the same pensioners were sweltering in the summer and couldn’t afford their cooling.
So the point here is that unless you get that transition right, the cost to both households, particularly the most disadvantaged members of our community who spend a higher proportion of their income, their disposable income, on electricity, and businesses which are hugely price-sensitive to energy input costs, like glass, like manufacturers of paper, steel, and other manufacturing goods, are all hypersensitive to getting electricity prices.
So our focus is about a proper transition, ensuring dispatchable power like gas, bringing in more renewables into the system, having back-up storage like pumped hydro and Snowy 2.0, all of which hopefully will smooth that transition because inevitably we’re moving to a smaller carbon footprint.
That’s a good thing for the environment but also over time a good thing for the economy.
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Q: A question to you both. Can you tell us what you expect the annual cost of Medicare, aged care and the NDIS to be in 10 years’ time? And how you each believe the growing demand for these services should be paid for? And are either of you prepared to have an honest conversation with the Australian people about this looming challenge for the country?
Josh Frydenberg:
Well, we have set out the forward costs in the IGR and in the case of all of those areas, they’re going to continue to grow up because we have got an ageing population and we’re also spending heavily in another key area which is disability support.
So the expectation is that while the NDIS today is about 1.2% of GDP, that’s going to go up to about 1.5% in the coming years as set out by the IGR.
We’re going to have to pay for all those services, including hospitals, disability support, increased mental health support, and education. And the way to do that is to grow our economy and that is why I do defend the spending in productivity-enhancing areas.
I do defend our record where we have created more jobs, so that nearly two million more people are in work today than when we came to government. The way we’re seeing an improvement in the budget bottom line is actually moving people from welfare to work.
That’s how you improve the bottom line, that’s how you grow the economy, that’s how you pay for those increased expenditures and social services.
(IGR is the intergenerational report.)
Jim Chalmers:
Every dollar that gets wasted or rorted in the budget is a dollar that can’t go to some of those fast-growing areas of important public spending.
Medicare is one, NDIS, as Josh said, is another, aged care is another, the defence – defence spending will need to go up as well and we have acknowledged that too.
And so what we need to be able to do is to flick the switch in the budget not to austerity but to quality, so we can fund the things that we care the most about, including those four things I mentioned a moment ago.
If you take aged care, for a moment, we have got a $2.5bn commitment in aged care which recognises that people are not getting the care that they need and deserve, they’re not getting the food they need and deserve. The workers aren’t getting the support that they need and deserve, and that’s a meaningful, important commitment – a modest commitment which will make a meaningful difference to people’s lives.
And so as we reorientate the budget away from the rorts and the waste that we have seen for much of the last 10 years towards more meaningful, more productive spending, then, of course, we need to factor in that some of the things we care most about are the things that cost more and more as time goes on.
If you look at the intergenerational report, I think one of the great tragedies, as an economics nerd, one of the great tragedies of the release of the intergenerational report is that it didn’t get the attention that it deserved.
What the IGR said ... is that unless we change the way we go about things, we’re up for 40 years where the economy is smaller than it’s been for the last 40, we’ve got 40 years of deficits, we’ve got an extraordinary amount of debt with not enough to show for it – and that’s why we need to start thinking differently about the budget. And we have nominated areas where we can begin that task, but the task should be there for whoever wins office in every budget until we can meaningfully pay for these commitments that we make to the Australian people.
Updated
Josh Frydenberg on that:
Well, the focus of our spending is creating more jobs and driving up productivity, and I think both Jim and I would agree that we need to lift our productivity here in Australia and it’s a global challenge right now.
So the digital transformation, the 10-year $120bn infrastructure pipeline, you know, Melbourne to Brisbane inland rail, getting food from the paddock to the plate that much faster, a second airport for Western Sydney, Snowy 2.0 – a major energy project – they’re all nation-building projects that have begun on our watch and they’re all about driving higher productivity.
So we have also made significant changes to childcare, including $1.7bn in last year’s budget which was designed to make it easier for 250,000 families who will save more than $2,000 a year.
So I would defend our spending – we have turned off the emergency support. And with respect to taxes, our record is very clear – people are paying lower taxes under us than the Labor party, and if Jim had his way and introduced $387bn of taxes at the last election, the tax-to-GDP raise would have gone to a record high of 25.9%.
Jim Chalmers:
Josh is fighting the last election again. Look, the point that I would make about this is the quantity of spending in the budget obviously matters a great deal. We pay interest on the debt that the government has racked up and so it matters.
So you need to get maximum bang for buck. But what matters just as much, if not more, is the quality of that spending.
And if you stack up the record of the government against the commitments that we have made in this – well, before this election campaign, over the course of the last three years – let me give you a couple ...
The government spent at least $5.5bn on submarines that will never be built. We think we should invest a little less than that, but around that, in childcare. But people can work more and earn more if they choose to.
I can go through lots of examples of this. Our spending is responsible, it’s carefully calibrated to deliver an economic dividend, whether it’s productivity, whether it’s participation, whether it’s other forms of economic dividend. Because the big challenge in the budget, which gets missed in the kind of conversation around the headline figures, is that we’re just not getting value for all of this debt.
And we want to get some value for it and we measure that by the economic dividend. There’s been a lot of waste, there’s been a lot of rorting of the budget over the best part of the last 10 years and we need to do much better than that.
Updated
Laura Tingle brings them both back to the question:
Well, neither of you have actually completely answered John’s question, which was about spending and tax and also reflected what I was saying – we’re now in a different economic environment of rising inflation to one we had certainly in the last 20 years.
So the question I’d like both of you to answer is: Can you nominate actual discretionary spending cuts in terms of proportion of GDP that you’d be aiming for in the next three years?
And with respect, Jim Chalmers, $3bn is big, you know, a big deal in a trillion dollar ... [Chalmers: It’s $3bn more than they have offered] ...
And treasurer, you haven’t answered the question, the fact that you really haven’t engaged in any serious discretionary spending cuts either. What is the task that we have to face and the taxpayers have a right to know about in the next three years?
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'Enough of this rubbish about tax'
Jim Chalmers has been waiting for this moment:
Well, the treasurer has just lied to you. In every way that you measure tax in the budget, this government has taxed more than the last Labor government, that’s just a fact.
They have taxed more in total, they have taxed more as a share of GDP, they have taxed more per person and they have taxed more adjusted for inflation.
So that’s a lie. And we need to call it out when we see it. It’s one of those big furphies that gets dragged out in election campaigns in particular.
This tax cap that Josh talks about – 23.9%.
In the history of this nation, that tax cap has been breached four times. Every single time was a Liberal government. Every single time.
No Labor government has got anywhere near breaching the current tax-to-GDP cap. There’s have some facts about this on the table.
This government is the second highest taxing government of the last 30 years and the highest taxing was John Howard’s.
So enough of this rubbish about tax.
Now John’s question about how do we start to take seriously this fiscal challenge we have in the context of high and rising inflation? That is a key challenge that either of us will face, no matter who wakes up as the treasurer on 22 May – it is a key challenge.
And we have already put on the table two ways that we think we can start to make a meaningful difference. John, you ask about discretionary spending cuts. We have announced $3bn in trimming a budget which has gotten out of control when it comes to outsourcing, and labour hire and contractors and consultants in the public service.
And we have said that there is something that can be done responsibly, modestly, carefully, to change the way that we tax multinationals so they pay their fair share of tax. Josh has said before he supports that.
So I don’t know why all of a sudden he says he opposes it. We need to take this seriously. The budget’s got a trillion dollars in debt with not enough to show for it. Only one side in this election is being up-front with people about the task ahead.
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Q: We have an inflation issue in this country now that’s been misjudged by the Treasury, the Reserve Bank, the budget forecast inflation at just 4.25%. The RBA says it’s now going to peak at 6%. So my question is to both of you: The budget tipped an extra $39bn of discretionary spending into the economy at the time we’ve already got inflationary pressures. More commitments [are] being made during the election. Labor has also pretty much matched most of the government’s commitments and has some of its own spending priorities too. Are either of you prepared to make discretionary spending cuts or tax rises to help take pressure off the RBA on inflation and lifting interest rates? Or is this just a job for the RBA to keep lifting interest rates as high as they need without help from fiscal policy?
Josh Frydenberg:
Our plans have been set out in the budget and have been announced subsequent to the budget. Treasury was asked at budget estimates whether the announcements we made to ease the cost of living would have a material impact on inflation and they said no.
And then if you look at the statement, which no doubt you would have looked at the statement from the Reserve Bank yesterday, they were very clear. In their words – these are not mine – the main driver of inflation has been international factors.
And you had Moody’s come out yesterday and criticise the Labor party for trying to politicise the cash rate increase. You see, Jim, can’t have it both ways.
He was criticising the Coalition when interest rates fell and yesterday he was criticising the Coalition when interest rates rose. And Moody’s called him out just yesterday in a statement, which is very unusual.
And so the point here is it’s been the Covid pandemic and it’s been the war in Ukraine which have been the main drivers of the inflation. Now importantly you raised the notion of higher taxes. Other countries in the world, like the UK and the US, have lifted taxes through the pandemic. We have not. We have cut taxes by $40bn for households alone. And we increased that tax relief in the budget. It is a very different approach between us and the Labor party and the Australian people need to know it.
We are prepared for the discipline of a tax-to-GDP cap at 23.9%. They are not. They took to the last election $387bn of higher taxes, something that Jim said at the time he was proud and pleased of, yet now they’re trying to hide and not reveal what their true intentions are until they have a budget if successful after the election. That’s not good enough. We know the Labor party will always tax more, they’ll always spend more, whereas our plans are set out very clearly in the budget.
Updated
(The government defended its net zero by 2050 plan, which was released with less than 13 pages, after criticisms it had released a “pamphlet”.)
Updated
Jim Chalmers:
One of the reasons why the government is maintaining almost exclusively a focus on Anthony and the Labor party is that they’re hoping they can get all the way to the 21st of May without having taken any responsibility for this cost of living crisis which is punishing people right around Australia. And they have their little slogans about Anthony and about the Labor party because they can’t defend their record. As I said before, spent more, taxed more, borrowed more and delivered less. And because they’re entirely bereft of a plan for the future.
Now the two things you need if you want to pitch up for a fourth term is the ability to defend your record and a plan for the future, and they have neither of those things and that’s why we get this pathetic point-scoring about Anthony.
Anthony is one of the most experienced candidates for prime minister that we have had in Australia. He was in a key economic portfolio of infrastructure and he performed extremely well in it and so I think you can take all of this other rubbish from the government in that light.
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Q: My question is directed at the treasurer. A lot has been made by the prime minister and yourself regarding Anthony Albanese’s lack of economic experience, in particular the economic portfolio and not having done a budget. In fact, you have said it earlier in your speech. Do you accept that many Australian prime ministers have been in the same boat including Robert Menzies, Tony Abbott, Bob Hawke, looking elsewhere you’ve got Angela Merkel and you could look to the president of Ukraine being a comedian before he entered politics. Do you accept that they are effective leaders or have been effective leaders? And aren’t you reflecting back on them?
Josh Frydenberg:
Certainly not. What our major concern is with Anthony Albanese is what we have seen to date – which is after three years in opposition, a lack of a detailed economic plan. I mean, Jim put out a 13-page pamphlet and that’s what he calls his economic plan.
Three-quarters of it was sledging the Coalition and then the last few pages was talking about some multinational taxes that they wanted to introduce, which was a rehash of what Bill Shorten had talked about, and the other part of it was to have a review after the election and we know he wants to have a budget after the election if he’s successful, but he won’t tell us beforehand what’s to go into that budget. The other is some more public servants.
So I look at what Anthony Albanese has done with respect to his economic opportunity over the last three years to put an alternative plan and he hasn’t done so.
And so that is what is most damning of him. And he was found out early on in the campaign when he didn’t know what the cash rate was and he didn’t know what the unemployment rate was and, as the prime minister said, it wasn’t whether a per cent was missing here, you know, 0.5% here or 0.5% there, he was just way off.
And I had said during the budget speech, of course, which was sitting across the table, the unemployment rate today is its equal lowest in 48 years at 4%. And he didn’t know what it was. Now, Jim would have known it because Jim has worked in this portfolio. But at the same time, he is the leader of the Labor party and the choice is very clear – who is going to lead a Labor government if they were successful? It would be Anthony Albanese, not Jim Chalmers.
Updated
Jim Chalmers:
I don’t think the chief minister will let me down for beating me to an Andrew Barr shoutout. I think this is one of the defining issues in the economy. We’re up for a sensible conversation about the optimal migration mix as we emerge from the pandemic.
My colleagues including Kristina Keneally and others have talked about trying to get that balance right between permanent and temporary. I think that is one of the big challenges.
But bringing people in, even in sensible ways, should never be a substitute for training people for opportunities as well. You know, I agree with something that Josh said, which is inevitably it is a mix between the two things.
Too often I think in the public conversation about skills and migration, people pretend that it’s one or the other, and in reality, of course, it’s a mix of both. Now our issue that we have with the government is they spend a long time hacking away at training and skills and Tafe in our economy, and now all of a sudden the chickens are coming home to roost.
If you look at the Reserve Bank governor’s statement yesterday, I thought one of the things that really leapt out at me was the issue that you raise about capacity constraints and skill shortages are probably the defining capacity constraint.
Now training is a big part of it, we’ve got a policy for fee-free Tafe, more than 400,000 places – that’s part of the story. But also childcare is part of the story here. If we want a bigger workforce, we need to make it more attractive and easier for people to earn more and work more if they want to. That’s a story about parents returning to work as well. Our policies are geared towards this challenge specifically. We’ve got inflation running out of control, we’ve got real wages falling – part of that is capacity constraints domestically, not just the international issues that Josh likes to lean on. And so that’s what our policies are all about dealing with.
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Q: Capacity constraints in the economy supply side issues are a big part of the rise in inflation and now interest rates. And also a big part of that story, the supply constraint story, is around the labour market – there’s severe labour market shortages. Business want two things – skills and a greater investment in skills, more upskilling for the nation. You both agree on that. They also want a boost to skilled migration. So we can get over the hump in the near term while we skill up the country. Why is neither of the major parties prepared to come to this election with a commitment to increased temporary skilled migration, at least for a temporary – sorry, for permanent skilled migration at least for a temporary basis.
Josh Frydenberg:
You won’t see from us cheap political opportunism when it comes to skilled workers. You will see that from the Labor party and we have seen that from the Labor party.
Those skilled migrants perform an absolutely vital role in our economy, helping to address some of those workforce shortages, whether it’s engineers on mining sites, whether it’s IT programmers in our telecommunications companies or whether it’s people working in our hospitality industry. And since we opened the borders in November, we saw more than 70,000 skilled migrants coming to Australia.
But it’s not just about skilled migrants, it’s also about labour mobility across state borders. And Andrew Barr is in the audience and we worked together around the council of federal financial relations table to get an agreement to occupational licensing changes which stayed in the too-hard basket for more than a decade. And what that will see is more than 150,000 people benefit as they move between states without needing a new licence, paying a new fee, a new qualification. And that’s going to provide more than a billion dollars of lift-off or benefit to the economy more broadly.
And then the third aspect of this – because there’s no silver bullet, but it’s skilled workers, it’s labour mobility and also training up the Australian workforce. And we put aside more than $3.5bn in the budget for 800,000 new training places with a fundamental structural reform to our skilling system, to replace what is known as the Naswad with the states and territories and to use the National Skills Commission front and centre, with more efficient pricing and a better model rather than untied grants to the states.
Our focus is on addressing some of those workforce shortages which are very real. But I do point out to everyone here, it’s a very clear contrast with Australia’s previous experience after coming out of recessions. In the 80s and 90s, unemployment remained elevated for up to a decade. This time around, when you speak to employers, the biggest issues is: “Where do I get more workers?” That’s good news for young people entering into the workforce and ultimately for our economy.
Updated
Both are asked when the reckless spending will stop.
Josh Frydenberg:
As you know the peak of the pandemic we saw payments go up to about just over 30% of GDP. Now they have come down to 27% of GDP and are going to come down further to just over 26% of GDP.
What we are seeking to do is to end that emergency economic support and we were criticised by Jim and his party for doing so. Jobkeeper, the Covid disaster payments, we were criticised by Labor when we brought that spending to an end.
What we want is the economy to normalise and that means ensuring that we focus on the things that will boost the productivity of the nation and will create more jobs – tax relief, investing in more roads ... investing in water infrastructure and investing in telecommunications infrastructure.
Jim Chalmers:
We don’t doubt the government’s ability to make announcements, we doubt their ability to deliver them. And when you look at the spending in the budget, Josh wants to make an issue out of the things that we agree with the government on. I think Australians expect us from time to time to have the same view about some of the initiatives that he’s talked about.
But this is a government which has spent more, taxed more and borrowed more than the last Labor government, but delivered much less, but that’s because the budget is absolutely riddled with rorts and waste and that’s why it’s heaving with a trillion dollars in Liberal party debt.
So what Katy Gallagher and I have said is that immediately if we are elected to office, we will audit the wasteful spending in the budget, the rorts in the budget, to try to get the budget on a more sustainable footing so the spending in the budget, the investment in the budget, delivers a tangible economic return.
Updated
Josh Frydenberg responds:
It’s, of course, the Labor Party is always holier-than-thou, even though the paper showed the Labor Party were providing small grants in a whole range of targeted seats and we do know that the Labor Party in which Jim Chalmers was a shadow finance Minister ahead of the last election also had a park and ride scheme and Bill Shorten was announcing ahead of the last election. They’re about projects to get more people on to public transport.
But with respect to local community programs, they’ll always exist, have always existed and they’ll continue to exist but our focus in the lead-up to election day has been making a big announcement, big announcements about glucomonitoring for people with people with type 1 diabetes, big announcements about the income thresholds for concession cardholders to make it more available to 50,000 seniors, big announcements around the copayment for PBS medicines.
And so for - and also bic announcements about deeming. All of which - of all which - the Labor Party has simply copied us. So this is the Labor Party’s strategy: A small target strategy to forget about their addiction to higher taxes and simply to copy the Coalition.
There’s four policies that we have announced in recent weeks where - the Labor Party was quick to say, “Yes, we’ll do that.” Wasn’t their idea, but, yes, to do that, because they know we were the ones who came up with cost of living measures. We were the ones who took to a budget just matter of weeks ago measures to halve the fuel excise.
Things that Jim himself was questioning before we announced it.
We took measures to - to the budget which we’re implementing now to ease the cost of living. We recognise this is the number one topic of discussion around the kitchen tables of Australians. Australians are doing it tough right now and just as we had their back at the height of the pandemic, we have their back now. The Labor Party is simply trying to sneak into Government and to copy our policies which are designed to ease the cost of living for millions of Australians.
Q: I love my dog, Scully. I know we all love dogs. [Chalmers: We all love Scully]
I took Scully for a run this morning without incurring any cost on the taxpayer. But the Coalition has promised $320,000 for a dog park in the marginal Liberal-held seat of La Trobe and Labor’s promised 200,000 to upgrade two dog parks in the marginal seat of Macquarie. Given the level of debt and deficit, why is it a good use of taxpayers’ money to expend that money on pampered pooches in marginal seats? And is there any productivity gain to be made by spending money on dog parks?
Jim Chalmers goes first:
There is a time for investment in communities, but you need to make sure that that spending is well motivated, that it’s not politically-motivated, and what we have seen, partly because of your work and Katina Curtis’s work, is we have seen from the most wasteful government since federation, we have seen people in ministerial offices pouring over colour-coded spreadsheets, allocating money purely for political purposes.
This is one of the reasons why Australia doesn’t have enough to show for Josh’s trillion dollars in debt.
This is one of the big problems we have got. And one of the most egregious examples of this was the more than $600 million committed to commuter car parks.
Every 10th dollar of that, Josh committed to his own electorate. In some cases at train stations which soon won’t exist and he had to walk away from that commitment. None of them were even built and completed. Now, there is a problem in the budget with spending in politically-motivated ways.
Now, our commitments are typically working with local Governments or state governments or others to make sure that we’re getting maximum bang for buck, which should be the test. There will be commitments made by all parties around Australia, the key is to make sure we get value-for-money for that. There is not been enough value-for-money in the budget to last almost 10 years.
That’s why we got these high levels of debt and why we haven’t got enough to show for it and we are committed to doing better and we’re also committed to auditing this wasteful spending in the budget. Treasury and Finance within the first year of a Labor Government because Australians deserve better value-for-money for their cherished taxpayer dollars.
Jim Chalmers responds:
You’ve got to hand it to Josh. Even in the midst of a full-blown cost of living crisis, the most wasteful government since federation, taking for the first time to an election a trillion dollars in debt and almost nothing to show for it, and he’s still managed to find a way to give himself a little pat on the back.
And it is incredibly frustrating for Australians right around this country for the treasurer and the prime minister in the midst of this cost of living crisis for them to be telling Australians just how lucky they are.
Now Australians have had enough of this self-congratulation, they know after a decade in office the challenges in the economy are acute and they know that only Labor has a plan to take seriously and deal with these challenges.
And that’s why the economic plan that we released is all about how do we deal – how do we grow the economy in an inflationary environment?
How do we give cost of living relief over the long term, not just to get themselves through an election? You know, how do we get real wages growing again? How do we get some benefit from this trillion dollars in debt?
These are the key questions which are being ignored in this flurry of self-congratulation from the treasurer. Australians are not asking for too much from us. They just want us focused on their everyday concerns: How do they feed their kids? How do they provide for their loved ones? How do they service a mortgage with interest rates rising? How do they save for a holiday when their real wages have been going backwards for some time, not the last few months? These are the defining issues in the economy and they should be the defining issues in the election as well.
Now all of the numbers that Josh will tell you about commodity prices and all the rest of it, they are cold comfort for people who are doing it tough, and you can’t take credit for high commodity prices without taking responsibility for the rest of the mess that Australians in real communities right around Australia are dealing with.
Updated
Laura Tingle, as the moderator and president of the National Press Club asks the first question:
Let’s take a stocktake of what one of you will face after the election on May 21. Got a budget with unprecedented debt and deficits and in the budget that you handed down, treasurer, there was over $70bn of new spending, no savings and you basically relying on the economy growing to improve the bottom line. It’s now pumping more money into the economy as we speak and there are more election promises to come.
That stimulus is now working against interest rates and monetary policy which raised yesterday, of course, and with the [Reserve Bank] governor indicating we’ve got at least a year of rate hikes to deal with inflation. Further, the outlook for Australians based on what the Reserve Bank had to say yesterday was for further cuts in real wages in the next three years. So my question to both of you is: The arms of economic policy seem wildly out of sync now. What are you going to do about it?
Josh Frydenberg goes first:
You raise debt levels which of course are higher, as they are around the rest of the world, given the size of the shock that we have faced. But what we saw in the budget was a material improvement to the bottom line by more than $100bn, the fastest fiscal consolidation in more than 70 years in Australia.
We’re seeing deficits more than halve over the forward estimates and more than halve again over the medium term.
We’re seeing the debt, as a proportion of the size of the economy, more than five percentage points lower than what was previously forecast.
We have done so on the back of conservative commodity price assumptions, unlike the Labor party when they were last in government who baked in iron ore prices $180 a tonne. I’ve got in the budget iron ore at $55 a tonne, even though you’re selling today at $130 a tonne.
I’ve got thermal coal in the budget at $60 a tonne, even though today it’s $360 a tonne. And same with metallurgical coal – $130 in the budget even though it’s selling for $[I miss that] a tonne today. If these commodity prices stay where they are for another six months, that will be worth an extra $30bn to our budget bottom line.
But we took conservative commodity price assumptions and we saw that more people are going into work – three-quarters of the fiscal dividend that we saw and we banked in this budget came from having more people in work and fewer people on welfare. So our goal is to grow the economy, an economy that is expected to grow by 4.25% this year and 3.5% next year, an economy that is leading the world.
Updated
Josh Frydenberg finishes with this:
This is the choice – the Coalition under prime minister Scott Morrison who’s delivered a budget, who’s held a treasury portfolio, and Anthony Albanese who’s never delivered a budget, never held a treasury portfolio, doesn’t know what the cash rate is, doesn’t know the unemployment rate. That’s the clear choice for 26 million Australians.
Updated
Josh Frydenberg takes to the lectern and lays out what the government has done during the pandemic and in the last budget.
He goes on:
Now the Australian people will go to the ballot box in just a few weeks’ time.
They will face a very clear choice between a Coalition that has delivered more jobs and lowered the unemployment rate and a Labor party which when they came to government the unemployment rate was 4.4% and when they left government the unemployment rate was 5.7%.
Between a Coalition that has delivered lower taxes – $40bn alone since the start of the pandemic – and a Labor party when they were last in government increased taxes by $120bn and took to the last election $387bn of higher taxes.
And a Coalition that has steered the economy through the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression, leading the world with our recovery, and a Labor party that got the big calls wrong like on jobkeeper, when Anthony Albanese said the economic roof would come crashing down when it was ended, and they wanted a Covid disaster payment to keep going and they wanted to splash $6bn of taxpayers’ money on people to get the jab when they already had the jab. You see, the Coalition has delivered lower unemployment, lower taxes and a strong economic recovery and we have the plan to take Australia forward.
Whereas the Labor party has no plan other than the 13-page brochure which means more public servants, another review and Bill Shorten’s old multinational tax agenda.
Updated
Jim Chalmers finishes his speech with:
What we are proposing is responsible and meaningful change, not radical change. We know that we can’t undo all of the damage done over almost a decade in one budget or, indeed, even in one term, but Australians are asking for better than this.
Their government at the same time just promises them more of the same.
But more of the same government means more of the same punishing combination of skyrocketing cost of living and falling real wages from a government that takes credit for the good things but none of the responsibility for the difficult things. And a prime minister who has excuses for everything, but plans for nothing.
You can’t pay your mortgage or feed your kids with the excuses that we get from this government.
So Australians have had the enough of excuse-making and the buck-passing, the overpromising and the underdelivering, and what we commit is to put people at the centre of our vision for the economy and to put a stronger economy at the centre of our vision for a better future.
Updated
Speaking of debates, the prime minister may have snubbed the ABC for an election leaders’ debate but Anthony Albanese has agreed to appear on a one-on-one special edition of Q+A with David Speers as host on Thursday at 8.30pm.
Scott Morrison accepted invitations to debate the Labor leader on two commercial TV networks and Rupert Murdoch’s pay TV platform – but has refused to appear on the ABC.
You can read more about that here.
Morrison has also declined an invitation to appear on Q+A.
Q+A also hopes you can put your questions to Scott Morrison and has extended a standing invitation to the Prime Minister for a one-on-one special at any time during the campaign,” the ABC said.
Labor needs to pick up seven seats for an outright election victory. Is the Opposition Leader doing enough to ensure success? If you'd like the chance to ask Anthony Albanese a question this week, register to join the audience via the #QandA website now. https://t.co/hdvdP5FBvY pic.twitter.com/V1pfFR0zK4
— QandA (@QandA) May 3, 2022
The Thursday night episode includes a live performance from comedian Sammy J, casting his satirical eye over the voting process.
On Thursday night, we’ll also have a live performance from the ABC’s own @sammyjcomedian, casting his satirical eye over the voting process. Tune in at 8.30pm AEST on @ABCTV and iview. pic.twitter.com/WTpWlNsJNF
— QandA (@QandA) May 3, 2022
Q+A is simulcast LIVE around the country on ABC TV, ABC iview and ABC News on radio. ABC Australia also broadcasts Q+A into Asia and the Pacific.
Nine’s debate on Sunday 9 May is 90 minutes long and will go to air after Lego Masters at 8.45pm.
Seven’s debate with Mark Riley as moderator will air at 9.10pm on Wednesday next week.
Updated
Treasurer and shadow treasurer go head to head in National Press Club debate
Labor’s Jim Chalmers won the toss and is speaking first.
He says cost of living is the defining issue of the election campaign:
And it didn’t just show up when Russia invaded Ukraine. It showed up when the Coalition, the best part of a decade ago, started attacking the wages and job security of Australian workers.
And neither a war in Europe in 2022 nor even a pandemic explains or excuses what has been almost a decade now of economic mismanagement.
Now, last Wednesday, Australians got confirmation of something that they already knew – that costs of living are out-of-control, that wages are nowhere near keeping up with inflation, and then a rate rise yesterday just added to the pain that so many are feeling – and there’s more rate rises to come.
No wonder consumer confidence is absolutely plummeting. This is the thanks that Australians get for the sacrifices that they have made for each other to get through this pandemic – a country which rose to the occasion and a government which fell back into old habits.
Now, from this lectern not that long ago, my opponent, who I respect, said that his hero throughout the pandemic is Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher, of course, said that there is no such thing as society.
Well, I couldn’t disagree more. My heroes are the essential workers and the shift workers who did so much to keep the wheels of the Australian national economy turning throughout the course of this pandemic and the reward for their efforts can’t be another three years of working hard, but still going backwards in this economy.
Updated
And the broadcast leaves the Anthony Albanese press conference to go to the debate between Jim Chalmers and Josh Frydenberg.
Laura Tingle:
I’d like to say the press club, as a platform for national debates, has invited the major parties to take part in debates on health, foreign policy, aged care, women and climate change. We have not been able to get the parties to agree on those debates.
Updated
Q: On public sector wages, should the public sector get a pay rise to put pressure on the private sector? And around the Solomon Islands, Jason Clare said you are seeking an urgent briefing regarding what happened in the Solomon islands. Have you received that briefing and if so has it changed your tack on what the government will do?
Anthony Albanese:
We have asked for that to be scheduled in Canberra and that will be taking place. What is extraordinary is that the prime minister today has indicated that he still hasn’t spoken to the prime minister of the Solomons. I find that quite extraordinary.
Q: You didn’t answer the question on public sector pay.
Albanese:
You only get one question (he has previously taken two from the same reporter).
Q: If you agree to this extension of two years, it was introduced as an emergency measure, isn’t that just an acceptance that the cost-of-living crisis is going to continue for another two years, irrespective of who wins on 21 May?
Albanese:
What it is, is the recognition that people are doing really tough and is a recognition that the government’s measure of a $250 payment done during an election campaign and then ending after an election campaign is not good enough. It’s also a wrecking mission, I note that the interest rate fell four times between 2015 and 2019.
There was no change during this entire period. Scott Morrison had to be dragged kicking and screaming to make any changes to deeming rates. This is the same prime minister who wanted to increase the pension age to 70.
Updated
Q: The federal court earlier today upheld the sacking of baggage workers by Qantas was unlawful [but rejected they should get their job back]. Will Labor’s same job, same pay policy extend to outsourcing arrangements like this, that outsourced workers are paid the same as what direct employees are and, secondly, here in Victoria, how confident are you you can win and pick up seats and hold the things you have got here?
Anthony Albanese:
I am very confident that we can hold all of the things we currently hold and I note that we have a prime minister who won’t be campaigning in seats like Kooyong and seats like Higgins – it is a no-go zone for the prime minister.
You have senior members of the government who were not putting the Liberal party logo on material and on the issue of an anti-corruption commission you had Josh Frydenberg just this morning disassociate himself from the comments of his prime minister – an extraordinary split between Josh Frydenberg and Scott Morrison over whether it was appropriate to call the ICAC in New South Wales a kangaroo court. You have chaos within the Liberal party here in Victoria, but that is replicated right around the country.
We support, of course, respect the integrity of core processes, including industrial ones.
Our processes will be worked through in terms of the details of the legislation with businesses, with unions. The principal is very clear, that people who are doing exactly the same job should be receiving the same pay. But we will work through those issues, constructively. One of the things I’ve said is that I will bring unions and business together. They have common interests.
Updated
Q: Scott Morrison has described a risk of setting up a too strong an integrity commissioner would create a public autocracy. What do you think he means by public autocracy?
Anthony Albanese:
What he means is the reason why there is no national anti-corruption commission is sitting all in his front bench or behind him. That’s the fact of the matter.
You have had these extraordinary attacks on a legal process the likes of which no national leader I’ve seen, whether it’s John Howard or Malcolm Turnbull or Tony Abbott, we have not seen anyone from either side of politics call a legal process that is not a court, it is a legal process, that Scott Morrison has repeatedly referred to as a kangaroo court.
That’s an extraordinary statement to make, which is why the outgoing, one of the outgoing Icac commissioners has referred to that as buffoonery, the comments that have been made.
Dominic Perrottet, the premier of New South Wales, has also stood up to Scott Morrison on this issue and I give Dominic Perrottet absolute credit for doing just that.
I think in terms of the issues that are there, there are so many integrity issues where this government has just failed to give answers, whether it is the Leppington Triangle, $30m for land that was worth $3m, whether it is sports rorts, whether it be commuter car park fund rorts, including here in Melbourne, where you had car parks committed for commuters where there are no train stations.
The abuse of taxpayers’ money that we have seen under this government, scandal after scandal, we never get answers over questions including about what the prime minister’s own office knew about issues. We still don’t have answers about the issues relating to Alan Tudge and compensation and payments that were made.
This prime minister just dismisses any integrity issues. What is very clear is that if Australians want a national anti-corruption commission and to clean up politics, they need a Labor government to do so.
Updated
Q: What is the RBA’s cash rate?
Anthony Albanese:
It is at 0.35.
Q: If you form a government, what will you do when rates go up, are you going to simply blame Scott Morrison for it or will you have a way in which you can prevent them going to 2.5%?
Anthony Albanese:
One of the things that the Reserve Bank governor said yesterday was he spoke about domestic capacity constraints. One of those is about skills. That is a real constraint on our economy.
We have around about 1.5 million Australians who either are unemployed or want more work – the issue of insecure work is a big one – it is what I have been speaking about since I have been Labor leader.
The casualisation of the workforce, the use of labour hire, contracting out means insecure work, people need more hours, and those capacity constraints are things we will deal with.
One of the things we have to do is boost productivity. So when we have prioritised what our spending commitments will be, they will be in areas like childcare that will grow productivity, that will produce a return just like our Tafe investment will.
Updated
Labor has plan for growth which doesn’t add to inflation, Albanese says
The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, is up for his press conference after a morning campaigning in the Melbourne seat of Chisholm which Labor hopes to win from the Liberals.
He is all about cost of living and Plans with a capital P. Labor Plans, that is. Not those other plans.
The combination of low-wage growth, rising inflation and rising interest rates is putting real pressure on working families in the suburbs and the regional towns of Australia and Scott Morrison seems to think that people have got it easy in this country.
Scott Morrison has an excuse for everything and a plan for nothing. He wants to always take credit when things are going well, but never accept any responsibility when things aren’t.
Labor has a plan for growth, but growth in a way which doesn’t add to inflationary pressure. That’s why we’ve targeted areas such as education, whether it be early education through childcare that will boost workforce participation, that will boost productivity, whether it be schools or right here at this Tafe with 465,000 fee-free places in areas of skill shortage, or whether it be the 20,000 additional university places. One of the big chasms in Australian politics is on the area of education, whereby Labor understands that education is about opportunity and aspiration, but it helps not just individuals, it helps the entire country.
We need to compete in this globalised world based upon how smart we are, not trying to drive down wages. Another thing about this government is that low-wage growth was a key feature of their economic architecture. They themselves say that.
They are oblivious to the pressure that working families are under.
Labor has a plan, whether it be for the cheaper childcare, cheaper electricity prices, investing in new industries, making sure that we have our National Reconstruction Fund, creating new industries and new jobs, new energy apprenticeships, of which we will have 10,000, fee-free places in Tafe, additional university places, this is all about growing the economy in a way that doesn’t add to inflationary pressure and our cost of living.
And Australians, when they cast their vote on 21 May, can think about this, is this as good as it gets? Because a government that goes into its fourth term doesn’t get better, they just get more out of touch, more complacent, more arrogant, and that’s what we’ve seen from this government.
Updated
Qantas to ask high court to look at outsourcing decision
Earlier today we reported that Qantas lost its appeal over a ruling that it illegally outsourced the jobs of about 1,700 ground handlers in part to avoid enterprise bargaining and protected industrial action.
Qantas now plans to go to the high court to appeal the decision handed down by the full bench of the federal court.
In a statement, Qantas said it “has always said the decision to outsource our ground handling function was based on lawful commercial reasons in response to the unprecedented impact of the Covid crisis”.
Qantas is arguing that it was actively investing in ground handling equipment and that this is a sign it had no plans of outsourcing its internal operations. It has previously argued the outsourcing could save the airline $100m a year.
We’ve covered off on the complex legal saga that has followed the Transport Workers Union’s initial legal challenge of the outsourcing here.
Now, the matter turns to the judge presiding over ongoing remedy hearings, who will decide on what compensation for affected workers and financial penalties Qantas will have to comply with, after reinstating all workers was ruled out.
However, Qantas is now insisting “today’s judgment does not mean Qantas is required to pay compensation or penalties”.
We will be asking the Court to stay any further hearings on this issue until after the High Court process,” Qantas said.
Updated
18% interest rates were bad, but mortgages weren’t up to six times your income at the same time.
ABS reports the average mortgage nationally hit a fresh all-time high in March at $600,000. When the Coalition came to office, it was about $354,000.
— Shane Wright (@swrighteconomy) May 4, 2022
Tanya Plibersek, who has been leading Labor’s campaign in marginal seats, is at this press conference.
This is after questions had been raised by journalists on the campaign about why Plibersek wasn’t appearing with Anthony Albanese at campaign stops.
Treasurer and shadow treasurer to face off
Josh Frydenberg and Jim Chalmers will be debating each other at the National Press Club in just over half an hour.
We’re not sure when Anthony Albanese will be stepping up for his press conference (he is currently baking apple pies at a Tafe).
Updated
National Covid-19 update
Here are the latest coronavirus case numbers from around Australia on Wednesday, as the country records at least 56 deaths from Covid-19:
ACT
- Deaths: 1
- Cases: 1,080
- In hospital: 67 (with 4 people in ICU)
NSW
- Deaths: 21
- Cases: 11,939
- In hospital: 1,510 (with 68 people in ICU)
Northern Territory
- Deaths: 0
- Cases: 399
- In hospital: 37 (with 1 person in ICU)
Queensland
- Deaths: 8
- Cases: 7,668
- In hospital: 504 (with 21 people in ICU)
South Australia
- Deaths: 12
- Cases: 3,591
- In hospital: 221 (with 11 people in ICU)
Tasmania
- Deaths: 1
- Cases: 1,078
- In hospital: 50 (with 2 people in ICU)
Victoria
- Deaths: 11
- Cases: 10,779
- In hospital: 473 (with 25 people in ICU)
Western Australia
- Deaths: 2 (historical)
- Cases: 9,782
- In hospital: 242 (with 10 people in ICU)
Updated
Tasmania reports one Covid death
This is not the official Tasmania Health account, but the numbers match the state’s health reporting.
Sadly another reported death
— COVID Tasmania (@CovidTasmania) May 4, 2022
Reported new cases = 1078
Hospital = 50
ICU = 2 pic.twitter.com/JeZHM5Zjmo
Updated
Scott Morrison would say this isn’t a photo op, it’s being shown the skills Australia’s apprentices are learning and then having a go himself.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese is about to get a lesson in making apple tarts at Holmesglen TAFE.
— Dan Jervis-Bardy (@D_JervisBardy) May 4, 2022
We’re in Liberal Gladys Liu’s hyper-marginal seat of Chisholm in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs #ausvotes @canberratimes pic.twitter.com/N8cyc3GYom
Queensland reports eight Covid deaths and the ACT one
We are slowly getting the other jurisdictions’ reports:
Today we have recorded 7,668 new COVID-19 cases.
— Queensland Health (@qldhealth) May 4, 2022
Sadly, we have reported 8 deaths in the past 24 hours.
Full details➡️ https://t.co/MyDwPPidE5 pic.twitter.com/xsOHTAHoyD
(1/4) ACT COVID-19 Update – 4 May 2022
— ACT Health (@ACTHealth) May 4, 2022
💉 COVID-19 vaccinations
◾ Aged 5-11 years (1 dose): 80.7%
◾ Aged 5-11 years (2 doses): 65.9%
◾ Aged 5+ years (2 doses): 97.0%
◾ Aged 16+ years (3 doses): 75.4% pic.twitter.com/WyIR9sLxN6
Updated
Auspol just continues to set insane posting standards.
Bob Katter has released an advertisement comparing himself to the major party leaders in what is, of course, the most Bob Katter way ever.
At least he isn’t shooting anyone this time round.
Bob Katter has another TV ad. Let a thousand blossoms yadda yadda pic.twitter.com/JXeIxRoqhQ
— Amy Remeikis (@AmyRemeikis) May 4, 2022
Updated
This time round, Eric Abetz is running the biggest below the line campaign after losing his guaranteed Senate spot on the Liberal ticket.
Eric Abetz’s below the line campaign for re-election in the Senate: doesn’t mention the Liberal party, and doesn’t suggest voting for other (nameless) Lib candidates after he gets your first preference. Doesn’t mind what you do after #1. #politas #auspol pic.twitter.com/pp2L7OFzOP
— Adam Morton (@adamlmorton) May 4, 2022
Updated
Qantas loses outsourcing appeal
Qantas has lost its appeal over a ruling that it illegally outsourced the jobs of about 1,700 ground handlers in part to avoid enterprise bargaining and protected industrial action.
On Wednesday morning a full bench of the federal court dismissed Qantas’s appeal of a July 2021 ruling that the airline had acted against protections in the Fair Work Act when it terminated approximately 1,683 ground handling and fleet presentation workers amid restructuring in November 2020.
Qantas had claimed the outsourcing decision was a necessary financial measure that could save it $100m annually.
The legal saga grew in complexity in the months following. Qantas appealed the ruling – the outcome of which was made today – at the same time as remedy hearings were taking place between the airline and the Transport Workers Union – the party which brought the initial challenge against the outsourcing decision.
The remedy hearings previously ruled out ordering Qantas to offer the outsourced workers their jobs back, in part due to the third-party agreements Qantas had since entered into. The TWU appealed this decision, pushing for reinstatement to be reconsidered.
The full bench of the federal court also considered this separate appeal from the TWU, however it was dismissed by Justices Mordy Bromberg, Darryl Rangiah and Robert Bromwich.
From here, the saga will now return to the judge presiding over the remedy hearings, who will decide on what compensation for affected workers and financial penalties Qantas will have to comply with.
The TWU national secretary, Michael Kaine, said “safety, service and sentiment for the airline have all plummeted over this unlawful decision to outsource” and called on Qantas to discipline those responsible for the decision.
“There is only one appropriate response from the Qantas board – heads must roll,” Kaine said.
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And that there, in Scott Morrison’s last answer, is the Coalition’s re-election platform – vote for us because we are not Labor.
As Murph laid out yesterday:
Vote for us because we’ll do great things is compelling, it’s always electrifying, whether you agree with the things or not. But vote for us because we are not Labor is the most unfulfilling call to action in recent memory. Is this really it? All you’ve got guys? At this moment in history?
But voters should not assume because Morrison’s arguments are tired, self-serving, and often internally contradictory, that this shtick won’t work.
It might work, and we know Morrison will throw everything he has at making his message stick.
Q: How can you credibly claim to be a better economic manager than anyone?
Scott Morrison:
Because unemployment is at 4% and falling. Because our AAA credit rating has been maintained through one of the worst economic crises we’ve seen through the Great Depression, because there are more now more in work – in fact, 400,000 more in work after the pandemic than there were before.
Because our rate of growth in Australia is stronger than we’ve seen in countries like the United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada.
All of these things. Australia’s economic performance during the pandemic has beaten the strongest and most advanced economies in the world. And what’s real is the pressures on the Australian economy.
And all we are simply saying is this – those pressures will continue and my argument is based on our proven performance and our strong economic plan, that our government will be better able to shield Australians, whether they be self-funded retirees here and their access to part pensions, or whether they be Australians who are working, ensuring they have lower taxes and ensuring they have sensible housing policies like our home guarantee and many others that have seen 300,000 Australians get into their own home over the last three years.
What I’m saying is, that our economic policies are going to more strongly shield Australians from these uncertain times and the economic pressures that they are facing, whether they be on interest rates or costs of living.
And I’m also going to be upfront with Australians about the pressure they’re facing. I’m not going to tell them a fairytale like the Labor party is, that somehow how you vote on that day is going to make international pressures just vanish.
That is a statement which betrays either a complete lack of understanding of the Australian economy, or just political cynicism taken to a whole other level by the Labor party.
I understand the pressures that the Australian economy is under. I’ve been managing, together with Josh Frydenberg and Simon Birmingham and my whole cabinet, for the last three and a half years, and that has ensured that Australia is in a stronger position today than it otherwise would have been. Jobkeeper – 700,000 jobs saved. The cashflow boost, which got thousands upon thousands of small businesses through, who know that and who understand that, and understand that their businesses would not be around today. 220,000 apprentices that we could have lost over the course of the pandemic, finishing their training, in training today, the highest level we’ve seen since 1963.
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Q: Prime minister, have you spoken to [Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh] Sogavare since you suggested he was merely parroting Beijing’s lines? And given that war of words, how can Australians trust to you rebuild that relationship on such a critical national security issue?
Scott Morrison:
I have had no discussions with him since the election was called. And since he’s made those comments. And I’d be looking forward to the opportunity on the other side of the election to continue to mapping that relationship positively. We are Solomon Islands’ primary security partner. That is something that the prime minister has conveyed to me again. And that remains the case. So we have a strong relationship with …
Q: [On your words about parroting Beijing]
Morrison:
They weren’t my words. That was others’ commentary. They were not my words.
Q: You said they were the same lines from Beijing?
Morrison:
I said there was a remarkable similarity.
At his press conference on 29 April, Morrison responded to Sogavare’s comments that he only found out about the Aukus deal through the media and said:
And so I did have that conversation with the prime minister the day following the announcement, and no issues were raised at that time in that discussion. But obviously, as time goes on and new relationships are entered into, there’s obviously been some clearly other influences in the perspective taken by the Solomon Islands prime minister. Now, I understand that.
A journalist sought clarity on what Morrison was implying: Are you saying he’s parroting China’s rhetoric?
His reply:
There’s a remarkable similarity between those statement and those of the Chinese government.
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Q: Prime minister, who will your education minister be if you’re elected on May 21?
Scott Morrison:
I’ve answered that before. It’s Alan Tudge. If he’s available to come back into the ministry, he will.
Q: What do you mean if he’s available?
Morrison:
He decided to stand aside for his own personal reasons and should he be in a position to be able to step up again, I would welcome him back.
Q: Has he expressed an interest in doing that recently?
Morrison:
I haven’t spoken to him recently.
Q: Do you support his campaign?
Morrison:
He doesn’t need my help there. He’s done a fantastic job in Aston and he enjoys strong support in Aston.
Q: Is he joining you on the campaign?
Morrison:
He’s campaigning in Aston. He’s the member for Aston. That’s where I expect him to campaign.
Q: Will you support Dave Sharma and [campaign in Wentworth]?
Morrison:
My mum lives in Wentworth.
Q: Will we see you in those seats and can we get a clear answer from you on this it’s a question you’ve been asked a number of times now?
Morrison:
I will go where I believe it is best for my campaign for me to go. I’ll flag where I go on the day. You’re on the bus. You know. You find out where we go each day, just like it works in the Labor campaign. I’m not going to be telecasting where I’m going each day. That’s not something we do in campaigns. And you know that to be the case.
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Anne Ruston:
Today we do recognise the women of Australia who have died at the hands of an intimate partner. As you rightly point out, this is a completely unacceptable statistic in a first-world country like Australia that we continue to wake up to news stories of another woman who has been killed in a gender-based violence situation. But as the government, I think no government has done more to support women who face family, domestic and sexual violence than this government.
The next national plan to end violence against women and their children, a $2.5bn commitment over the first five years of the first action plan, a commitment to support Indigenous Australians with their own dedicated action plan, that’s currently being worked on and prepared by a group of leading Indigenous women, to make sure that we’re addressing the unique circumstances that they find themselves in and the unique challenges for their communities.
But we simply must address the core of gender-based violence, which is disrespect and that is why this government has made major, major investments and commitments, not just to respond to domestic violence and support those people when they find themselves the victims of domestic violence, but making sure that we put things in place to prevent domestic violence from happening in the first place.
Because unless we can stop domestic violence, we will never end domestic violence and we have a plan, a very, very strong plan, a plan that has been enabled, obviously, by a very strong economy, that has enabled us to put $2.5bn against the first five-year plan to address all the things that make up domestic, family and sexual violence in this country, whether it be prevention, early intervention, and recovery, so we can help people who have victims through that journey of dealing with trauma, getting themselves self-sufficient, getting themselves back on their feet and becoming financially capable.
No government has done more to support Australia’s women. But today we recognise so many women whose lives have been cut short, so many children who have lost their mothers and some children that have lost their lives and I commend Hayley Foster for what she’s done in supporting and making sure that this issue is front of mind for every Australian. Because unless every Australian accepts their responsibility to end gender-based violence, we will end it and today I thank her for bringing this to everyone’s attention.
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Q: Prime minister, 18 women at least this year have died due to domestic violence. The National Women’s Safety Alliance today has been calling for a number of things, including a significant increase to social housing specifically for domestic violence victims. Is that something you would consider? And secondly, your assistant minister for women, Amanda Stoker, was recently at an anti-abortion rally. Given we’re having what’s been described as a national domestic crisis in violence, why is that what your MPs are focusing on? And do you agree with her views on abortion?
Scott Morrison:
Well, on the latter matter, there is no change to policy on that issue. I’m aware of the reports that are coming out of the United States, but that’s in a different country. In Australia there are no changes to those laws.
So I don’t see it, really, as an issue.
Q: But why is your assistant minister at an anti-abortion rally?
Morrison:
Well, it’s a free country. It’s a free country. But on the issue of domestic violence, it has been our government that has put in place record investments in dealing with exactly, as you say, I think it’s one every 11 days, women are killed by someone they know, a partner, and this is an horrendous, an horrendous statistic, and it’s real. And that’s why under our national plan, we’re the one who is have invested over $2bn, including specifically on the issues of accommodation, to support women fleeing domestic violence.
That has been a big part of our plan and I’ll ask Anne to speak more to because she’s the minister for women’s security, and we have been investing and listening very carefully to those voices about how we can ensure women in those circumstances can get access to emergency accommodation they need.
It’s a partnership, of course, with state governments and state governments invest in this as well and will continue to under the national action plan. But that national action plan, which has been running since the Gillard government, which we have actually invested in far more than when it was first established under Labor, because we believe in it. We absolutely believe in it. And we’ve stepped up financially. And the reason we can do that is because of our economic management, which enables us to invest in these services.
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Q: Would you commit to funding increasing healthcare and hospital funding in South Australia in order to hold on to the marginal seat of Boothby, given the recent successful campaign run by state Labor, Peter Malinauskas, on hospital and ambulance ramping?
Scott Morrison:
Well, what we have done over the course of the pandemic is we’ve funded 50/50, hospitals here in South Australia and across the country for all of their Covid-related expenses and that continues out to the end of September, where it will be considered again.
We also struck an agreement with all states and territories, Labor and Liberal, about our health reform agreement that takes us well out for many years yet, and we struck that agreement and we’ve honoured it. And what that means is that our increase in investment in public hospitals across the country outstrips, outstrips state government expenditure increases in public hospitals every single year.
So we are increasing our investment and particularly over the next few years. We’re increasing it by another $5bn of further investment in public hospitals right across the country. What I’d like the state governments to do is use it wisely and run better hospital systems.
Every government can say it is making record funding in heath, as it increases with the population.
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'No one has a crystal ball,' Morrison says after RBA rate rise
Q: Can I ask you about the RBA: are you disappointed the Reserve Bank indicated rates would stay at historic lows until 2024, misguiding many Australian people in their investment choices? And what does this mean for the nation’s debt repayments, interest repayments, as interest rates continue to go up? We’re obviously already carrying a record rate of national debt. How much do you estimate that the nation’s interest repayments will go up in terms of billions of dollars?
Scott Morrison:
Well, a couple of things. Retaining our AAA credit rating means that those impacts will be limited. And because of the debt profile that we’ve been able to secure through our bond issuances, then Australia’s management of those issues under our jurisdiction, I would say, in the short to medium term, will continue to be in the know.
Those matters haven’t been recalculated on our most recent. But our current level of debt is on current bond issuances and those rates are fixed on those bond issuances and as you go forward and do further tranches of bond issuances – I was the treasurer to do the first 30-year bond.
We did 30-year bonds, locking in those rates over 30 years and we did that smartly during the course of the pandemic, and earlier when rates were really, really low.
We’ve done the same thing as a government that Australians have been doing with their own finances. We’ve been locking in lower rates while rates have been low with our own bond issuances.
I was doing that as a treasurer well before the pandemic hit. And we’ve certainly been doing it over the course of the last few years.
And because Australia’s AAA credit rate something only one of nine countries to have it, that means when we go to the market to support our programs and when we did this in the middle of the pandemic – I can tell you on my dashboard that I would see every single day, particularly in those early phases of the pandemic, I was watching our issuances on bonds every single day and how many times coverage we were getting on those bonds because that was essential to be able to do what we were doing on jobkeeper.
Now, we were getting many times coverage on those bonds every single day and that says the world’s financial institutions knew Australia had a strong economy, strong economic management, which would be able to see Australia through.
Now, that has been proven by the endorsement of our AAA credit rating, one of only nine countries to do so, through the pandemic. So in answer to your question, Jono, economic management and strong financial credibility means that those borrowing costs are as low as you can get them.
Look, on the RBA, no one has a crystal ball, and everyone can be critical in hindsight. But in the last 12 months, we have seen Russia invade Ukraine. And to think that that is not going to have an impact, particularly on energy prices, and supply chains and disrupt the global economy, well, I think that would be unfair.
And I don’t think that would be a realistic ... I mean circumstances change. Events change. That’s what volatility and uncertainty means. And what I’m saying to the people of Australia is that uncertainty will continue. It will continue past 21 May.
I mean, the waters will remain choppy globally and the headwinds will still be there. And what you will need is a government that knows how to handle this, that has been through the testing times of these last three years and has brought the Australian economy through.
Now is not the time to risk Labor, who over three years still do not have an economic plan* and a Labor leader that doesn’t even know what’s going on in the economy and couldn’t tell what the cash rate or the unemployment rate even was three weeks ago. It’s not that he just got it wrong. He didn’t know.
*Labor has an economic plan
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Q: Do they accept any responsibility for rates rising considering they’re now predicted to go to 2%?
Scott Morrison:
I’d have to put the same question. Moody Analytics have said, incorrectly, they say, the most recent hike in the cash rate has already been politicised by the Labor opposition as an indictment on the Coalition’s economic management. This is not accurate.
That’s what Moody’s Analytics says.
May’s rate hike is in response to the Australian economy being able to increasingly stand on its own after the unprecedented support that was offered during the pandemic.
Now, there was nothing – well, I’m saying, there’s nothing in the Reserve Bank governor’s statement, there’s nothing in the credible analysis, that suggests that the rate rise yesterday was any response to government policy whatsoever.
Whatsoever. I mean the rate rise yesterday was a function of the Reserve Bank saying that in, frankly, in the same way that we ended jobkeeper when we had to, that the Reserve Bank’s emergency rates that they’ve had in place for some time, as the Australian economy is strengthening and returning to normal, that they are relaxing those arrangements as well.
So what Moody’s have said, what the Reserve Bank governor has said, is that Australia’s economic policies have been working through the pandemic, which have provided a shield to the Australian economy, which has enabled it to strengthen and come back again.
And as a result, the emergency supports that we’ve had in place, that have been supporting the economy – the economy is increasingly able to do that without those supports. And so that’s the situation.
Now, these pressures that I keep saying will continue, as the Australian economy continues to strengthen, and as the pressures from overseas – some of which are hopefully temporary when it comes to the war in Ukraine – but others, which relate to global supply chains are very real and structural and ongoing.
That’s what has led the IMF to increase their estimates of global inflation to more than double just in the last 12 months. See, the thing about the economy and the world today is it is very uncertain. No one has a crystal ball that can tell you every single thing that will happen, and provide a guarantee around that.
But what you can count on is whether the government has a credible economic plan, and has demonstrated through its own management the ability to shield Australia from the many negative impacts we’ve seen through this pandemic. And Australians have seen that. And that’s why at this election they do have that choice about proven economic management against the risk and uncertainty of a Labor party whose leader didn’t even know what the unemployment rate was and the cash rate was just three weeks ago*.
*Expect to hear this line a lot more over the next two and a half weeks
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Q: The New South Wales Icac commissioner has labelled anyone who refers to Icac as “a kangaroo court” as “buffoons”. You’ve done that. Firstly, your reaction to being called a buffoon? And secondly, is this why Josh Frydenberg has said that he would choose his words differently when describing Icac to the way that you’ve described it?
Scott Morrison:
Well, I stand by what I’ve said about why I don’t think that model is a good model for the federal jurisdiction. He can say whatever he likes. He can say whatever he likes. I’m not easily offended. I think you’ve learned that about me. I’m quite resilient when it comes to those. He’s free to disagree with me if he wishes. I just don’t think that their model is the right model at a federal level.
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Q: Prime minister, you talked about wage growth yesterday ... You’ve talked about how quick the big four banks are to pass on interest rate rises but slow to deposit-holders. What’s your message to big four bank CEOs who are thinking of being, perhaps, a little bit slower and stingy in passing along that? And just the RBA now sees inflation peaking at 6%. We’re probably going to be lucky to get WPI at somewhere between 3% and 4%, if things go well. What’s your message to households who are looking down the barrel of having a fairly decent backwards steep in real wages in the coming years?
Scott Morrison:
First of all, when it comes to deposit rates, deposit-holders have been doing things tough. Self-funded retirees have been doing things tough. They’ve been, you know, pushing through this pandemic like so many others have.
And my message to the banks is to give them a fair go. Those deposit-holders have stood by banks and holding their savings in banks and banks have, through the pandemic, supported mortgage-holders, provided mortgage relief.
I acknowledge all of that.
They’ve done that for businesses as well through the pandemic and I acknowledge what they have done there as well. And that is a positive thing that they have done for their clients …
Now, you’re right about the pressures on the economy. And the Reserve Bank made it very clear yesterday that the inflation outlook, based on world events, will see inflation continue to have pressure upon it before later falling. But the good news yesterday was the Reserve Bank said that they are seeing evidence of wages rising.
Now, our plan has always been for wages to rise by getting more and more Australians into work. That is what puts, ultimately, pressure on wages to rise and the Reserve Bank chair said very, very clearly yesterday, the governor said very clearly, that they are now seeing that.
Now, I’m getting the same feedback from businesses as well, that they’re moving because of the competition for labour force all around the country, when unemployment falls to these levels and the Reserve Bank yesterday was saying that their revised outlook for unemployment is now down to 3.5%.
Now, that’s better than a 50-year low. And this shows, I think, the strength of where the Australian economy was it.
It was only a few years ago when Jim Chalmers, the Labor shadow treasurer, was attacking the government and saying it was an economic failure for rates to be falling, and now he’s attacking the government when the Reserve Bank has said that rates are returning to more normal levels. So you can’t have it both ways.
See, the Labor party is trying to con the Australian people about what’s happening in the economy. What’s happening in the Australian economy and the global economy is real. You can’t wish it away. You have to deal with the reality of these pressures.
And after 21 May, our government, or the alternative with Labor and the Greens and a cavalcade of independents, will have to deal with exactly the same issues and exactly the same pressures.
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Scott Morrison moves on to the deeming rates announcement the Coalition made today:
What we’re announcing here on deeming rates is about giving self-funded retirees and pensioners a fair go. They’ve saved hard for their retirement.
They’ve been doing it tough over the last two or three years as well. And they’ve been [trying] to eke out their earnings on superannuation for reduced rates for a long time. And we want to ensure that they have a fair go going forward and that’s what our economic shield is all about.
And we don’t want to risk that economic shield with a Labor party that we know does not have the economic record of the Coalition, a Labor leader who even just three weeks ago didn’t even know what the interest rate was, let alone how to deal with it, or a Labor party who we know just doesn’t know how to manage money. And it’s those it’s those self-funded retirees and pensioners I spoke to this morning, they’re the ones who experienced the 18% interest rates.
They know what it’s like when a Labor party loses control of the finances. They know what it’s like to run small businesses as they did as they were saving for their retirement many years ago, when a Labor party has a recession that they had to have, as they were told by the Labor party.
They understand the risk of what happens when you get a Labor party that doesn’t know how to manage money, because they paid the price and they paid a heavy price and I want to make sure they get a fair go.
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Scott Morrison press conference: 'We are providing a shield'
The prime minister is in Radelaide where the Liberal party is working to hold on to Boothby.
But the press conference is all about the cost of living and the “shield” Scott Morrison has invoked for the last few days, in an attempt to head off blame for what has happened under the government’s watch. He is once again walking the line that the government had no control or influence over the cost-of-living pressures that have hit, but at the same time, his government is the only one which can manage and control those influences in the future:
In making the decision they [the RBA] made, as Australia comes out of this pandemic there are many pressures that continue, whether they be on interest rates, whether they be on the cost of living, these pressures are real and after 21 May they remain as real and they will continue and that’s why our economic plan is about providing that shield to Australia from these pressures to mitigate and lessen the impact of these pressures that are occurring from around the world.
That is why Australia has found itself in a stronger position when it comes to issues of pressures on inflation or pressures on rates. Australia is faring much better and that’s because of an economic plan that understands and pre-empts, in many respects, these impacts on the Australian economy.
And that will continue in the years ahead. That’s why I’ve said from the outset of this campaign that this election is a choice and it’s a choice about who is going to be better able to manage these significant pressures on the Australian economy in the years ahead.
Pressures that will impact on you and your family. On your income, on your retirement income, on your jobs, on your communities, because these pressures will continue to be real. The election doesn’t change what the pressures are. The election can change, though, who is managing those pressures on your behalf and the strength of the economic shield that is available to you because of the economic management credibility and policies of the government.
And that’s why, with these pressures on the Australian economy, now is not the time to risk Labor and the risk of Labor is very real. They will tell you that simply a vote at the election will make these pressures fade away*. Australians know that’s not true. And they know that shows a lack of understanding about the very real economic challenges that the country continues to face.
*Labor has not said this – it has been very clear that whoever wins will inherit the pressures and there will be no sudden turnaround.
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Property groups are expecting to see a slowdown in construction with the interest rate rise, as AAP reports:
Rising interest rates are expected to curb demand in Australia’s construction industry, particularly in the residential sector, Ai Group says.
The Australian Industry Group/Housing Industry Association performance of construction index eased 0.6 points to 55.9 in April, but held above the crucial 50-point market that separates expansion from contraction.
Ai Group chief policy adviser Peter Burn said while new orders were growing at a faster rate than in March, the industry was finding difficulty sourcing materials and labour, as well as facing continuing prices pressures:
The rise in interest rates announced yesterday by the Reserve Bank and the further rises foreshadowed can be expected to ease demand growth somewhat, particularly in the residential sectors.
Burn said while both the federal and state governments were adding to their infrastructure pipelines, the ability of the industry to meet still higher levels of activity would depend on the supply of skilled labour, including from abroad, and on the success of efforts to repair disrupted supply chains.
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Comments from home affairs minister Karen Andrews have drawn the ire of Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare:
Solomon Islands PM Manasseh Sogavare takes another swipe at Australia, and says referring to his country as "our backyard" is offensive - particularly as this is where toilets are often located, and where rubbish is burnt pic.twitter.com/9C2ioCTa48
— Stephen Dziedzic (@stephendziedzic) May 3, 2022
It is not the first time Andrews has referred to Pacific nations as “our backyard”. This was her comment in a Sky News interview last month:
Q: Minister, thanks so much for the chat. Let’s not muck around here; this is a sovereign country. A sovereign country can make its own decisions but also its own mistakes and it’s also very obvious that China – who has had it out for this government since you stood up to them on the pandemic – is more than happy for this to have played out like it has for the past week.
Andrews:
Well, that’s an observation that many people are making. Anyway, we’ve been very clear as a government that Solomon Islands is a very good neighbour of ours and we are a very good neighbour to Solomon Islands. The Pacific region is our region and what is happening there is effectively happening in our backyard. We are very conscious of the action that China has taken. Now, anyone who thinks that the only action that China is going to take is to sign an agreement with Solomon Islands and that will be it, is quite frankly quite naive in their thinking, because what China is doing – is more at the start, rather than at the end of what China is likely to do in our region. Now as a government, we are very mindful of China’s activities and we will always put Australia’s interests first, second, third and fourth, and that’s the way we will be proceeding. I think there are a lot of questions that people should be considering and really thinking about.
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The NSW teachers’ strike march has begun.
Teachers and their union representatives want the government to come to the table on pay negotiations and address staff shortages. Negotiations have been called for since February 2021. The government asked teachers to wait until after the budget is handed down next month before striking. Industrial actions have been suspended in the past but negotiations have not moved forward, hence today’s strike.
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Michael McGowan and Joe Hinchliffe have taken a broader look at One Nation’s candidate selection:
One Nation was still scrambling to find people to run for this month’s federal election just hours before the close of nominations, telling one prospective candidate to leave the electorate he was running in “blank” on his form while the party desperately tried to fill seats.
Guardian Australia can also reveal that several of the candidates chosen to run for the party live in other states than the seat they’re standing in, including a husband-and-wife couple selected to run in separate seats in New South Wales and Victoria.
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After his op-ed was published in the Nine newspapers, former Liberal deputy leader, senator and minister in the Fraser government Fred Chaney spoke about why he is backing independents, like his niece Kate Chaney, who is running in Curtin, over Liberal candidates.
Fred Chaney quit the Liberal party in 1995. Asked why he was speaking up now on ABC radio, he said:
I’m sick of being a quiet Australian. I’m fed up of the way that parliament has operated and I think it’s time for a change. It will come only if the major parties are forced to change.
The reality is that we’ve got people in parliament now whose primary interest is the business of politics and not enough interest in the business of good government. And I like to think that in previous generations there were people there whose primary concern was the national interest, who really looked at the facts and tried to get the right answers, rather than saying, ‘What’s the political answer we can get away with today and that’s the way we’ll go.’
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I’m not sure who thinks politicians are hard done by or need less accountability than the public sector, but Scott Morrison seems to think it is a winning argument:
Scott Morrison has ratcheted up his warnings against a powerful national anti-corruption commission, arguing handing control over to “faceless officials” could turn Australia into “some kind of public autocracy”.
Amid growing political pressure on the Coalition over its failure to meet its previous election promise to legislate a commonwealth integrity commission, the prime minister told the Nine newspapers politicians were accountable to voters at elections.
He argued elected members should be able to allocate funding for infrastructure and community grants and without undue fear of public servants investigating those decisions.
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The Antipoverty Centre is holding an online launch of its rental assistance overhaul policy this evening as it tries to drag the major political parties to a position that recognises the 21st century pressures people on income assistance face (Australia’s social security safety net has not really been updated since the 1990s):
Details can be found here but some of the centre’s research has found:
- Only 39% of people on the JobSeeker payment are accessing rent assistance. The maximum assistance available is $48 per week for someone living in a share house or $73 for someone living alone.
- We have compared DSS data to show that the number of people who rely on JobSeeker (formerly Newstart) has increased by 41% to 786,139 people (83.84% of all people on JobSeeker) compared to 557,395 before the pandemic.
- Antipoverty Centre analysis of ABS and Department of Social Services data shows that while the unemployment rate has not been this low since before the global financial crisis in 2008 when it was also 4%, the proportion of working age people who rely on an unemployment payment has nearly doubled – from 3.3% in mid-2008 compared to about 5.9% today.
- A November 2021 Ipsos poll found 65–74% support for JobSeeker payments to be above the poverty line in Liberal-held marginal electorates. The electorates polled were Boothby, Swan, Longman, Blair and Dobell. Between 49% and 60% of voters in the five seats said they would consider changing their vote to a party that would lift the rate above $69 a day – an increase of 50% on the current rate.
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The Coalition is running a dual line at the moment, which is essentially – we had no control over interest rates, but you can only trust us moving forward to keep things under control.
Here was Anne Ruston explaining how this wasn’t contradictory on ABC radio this morning:
Q: You seem to take the responsibility when the news is good. But then say that there are global factors. This is the disconnect, isn’t it?
Ruston:
Not at all. I think what you’ve got to do is we’ve got a look at our track record, a track record where invariably interest rates have been lower. Certainly the unemployment rate has been low and under the government, under Coalition government, we inherited a 5.7% unemployment rate at 4% today and expected to go lower. And you also have to remember that Mr Chalmers has actually set a test for the government coming through the pandemic where he said the government would be judged on the unemployment rate in relation to how we handled the pandemic. We came out of the other end of the pandemic with unemployment rates that are actually now seeing wage growth, which is something that obviously all Australians welcome at the same time as we are opening the economy.
Now, this is a supply-driven inflation increase, and it is true that supply issues are being driven by international factors, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ongoing Covid shocks. But there are domestic issues at play too. And wage growth in some sectors is not matching inflation. Overwhelmingly, wage growth has been stagnant, which is compounding the inflationary pressures, and late last week we also learnt power prices would be increasing because of the growing price of fossil fuels – which Australia’s power grid still relies on and under the Coalition has been very slow to shift from.
The government is relying on people hearing its message and not that disconnect.
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It’s not just new candidates who have problems with previous tweets. Those who have been in political life – in both opposition as well as government – haven’t seen all their tweets age so well either.
@wackypoll that excuse will not wash with people who know the Gov'ts spending is forcing up interest rates
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) October 14, 2009
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Border Force won't confirm reports of asylum seekers moved to Christmas Island
We asked Border Force yesterday morning to confirm that asylum seekers were being moved from the Melbourne immigration transit accommodation centre to Christmas Island and, this morning, received this response:
The ABF does not comment on the details of specific operational matters.
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said yesterday that it had spoken with people inside Mita who said some detainees had been handcuffed and loaded on to minibuses and were believed to have been taken to Christmas Island. Protesters, including Greens senator Lidia Thorpe, blockaded the centre yesterday afternoon.
They said they were attempting to prevent the transfer of 12 people. The ABF would not say why people had been moved.
The Morrison government reopened the Christmas Island detention centre in August 2020. There are now about 212 people held in detention on Christmas Island, 90 of whom had their visas revoked by home affairs minister Peter Dutton.
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Josh Frydenberg, who is one of those inner-city Liberals trying to hold on to their seat against an independent challenger, wouldn’t repeat the term “kangaroo court” when asked about it on the ABC today – but still tried walking both sides of the fence.
Q: Just about out of time but integrity is one of the key platforms that [challenger] Monique Ryan is campaigning on. Do you agree with the prime minister that the New South Wales Icac is a kangaroo court?
Frydenberg:
He’ll explain his comments. What I would say ...
Q: Do you agree with the prime minister the Icac in New South Wales is a kangaroo court, yes or no?
Frydenberg:
I would put it to you like this. I think the Icac has produced results where good people have left office without convictions being made and without huge amounts of evidence.
Q: Would you use the words kangaroo court to describe that body?
Frydenberg:
I would use different words.
Q: Are you angry with the prime minister for using those words? Integrity, a stronger anti-corruption body, is a key issue in your seat, as you well know.
Frydenberg:
We’ll all use our own words to explain our own positions. I support a commonwealth integrity commission. We have a model for doing so. It’s got a public sector division, it’s got a law enforcement division, I put more than $100m towards its establishment. It’s got to be the right model. In terms of having people proven guilty when they’re not.
Your reminder that the government model does not look into non-criminal corruption, Icac does not make findings or pass judgment, it hands a brief of evidence to the Department of Public Prosecutions which makes the decision whether or not to press charges and take it to court, and Gladys Berejiklian and Barry O’Farrell both resigned.
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I was getting to this, because it is very important – despite the criticism from outgoing Icac commissioners, despite the reports that this rhetoric is playing very badly in inner-city Liberal-held seats and despite the untruths – Scott Morrison is continuing his attack on Icac. He told Nine Newspapers:
The PM from @KnottMatthew interview today on ICAC. Quite something #auspol pic.twitter.com/2Xgv2hbqkx
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) May 3, 2022
Outgoing NSW Icac commissioner Stephen Rushton didn’t hold back while speaking to a parliamentary review about the attacks against the commission, taking aim at those who had called it “a kangaroo court” – a term Morrison has repeatedly used to describe the commission.
Rushton:
To those buffoons who have repeatedly described this commission as a kangaroo court, I would say three things.
First, it is deeply offensive to the hard-working staff of the commission. It undermines the institution.
Second, there are vast differences between the functions of the commission and a court.
Those differences are readily accessible, and there has been much written about those vast differences. To describe us as a kangaroo court is not just misleading, but untrue.
To make an uninformed comment that this commission is a kangaroo court has a real capacity to undermine the commission’s work, and just as importantly, public confidence in public administration.
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NSW reports 21 lives lost to Covid, Victoria reports 11 deaths
Covid continues to make an impact across the nation:
COVID-19 update – Wednesday 4 May 2022
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) May 3, 2022
In the 24-hour reporting period to 4pm yesterday:
- 96.2% of people aged 16+ have had one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine
- 94.8% of people aged 16+ have had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine pic.twitter.com/cJ2TV3dl5Y
We thank everyone who got vaccinated and tested yesterday.
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) May 3, 2022
Our thoughts are with those in hospital, and the families of people who have lost their lives.
More data soon: https://t.co/OCCFTAtS1P#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/tPunoaFJv7
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Social services minister Anne Ruston is not exactly known for her communication skills. But the South Australian knows how to stick to a line when she has to. And stick to it she will, as she did on ABC radio RN this morning.
Has the government done the numbers on how many mortgage holders will find themselves in economic distress from the rate rises (some reports put it at 300,000)?
Ruston:
Well, certainly the banking sector has indicated they believe there is great resilience being built into all people who have done, have taken out loans in recent times when the interest rates were as low as they have been through the pandemic and they have built into those those rates the buffer that allows people to have some confidence that they have got the scope for the normalisation of interest rates going forward.
But we’re not under estimating in any way shape or form the pressures that are on Australians at the moment, and it’s not just about interest rates, it’s more generally about cost of living. And that’s why we put the measures that we did in the budget, things like the halving of the excise and the $250 hit people’s bank accounts last week, the extension of the low and middle income earners tax offset, as well as continuing to put tax relief policy in place for Australians and Australian families and Australian businesses because collectively the government understands that it’s a suite of measures that will support Australians.
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Here’s the official government announcement on that:
A re-elected Morrison Government will guarantee the rate used to determine the income earned from financial assets will be frozen at today’s record low level for the next two years to ensure payments are not reduced as earnings increase from deposit accounts held by social security recipients.
The Prime Minister said about 450,000 Age Pensioners and 440,000 other payment recipients would benefit from greater certainty around their fortnightly social security payments because of the Government’s deeming rate freeze.
“This is another shield to help protect Australians from the cost of living pressures people could feel from an increase in interest rates,” the Prime Minister said.
“In addition to our indexation of social security payments, we will guarantee the rate of income for people who could otherwise see their social security income drop because of the increase in interest rates.”
The lower deeming rate will be frozen at 0.25% for financial investments up to $53,600 for single pensioners and $89,000 for pensioner couples.
The upper deeming rate will remain at 2.25% on investment assets over the amount of $53,600 or $89,000 respectively.
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Government announces freeze on deeming rates
In a move designed to hold on to what is known as the “grey vote”, the government has announced a two-year freeze on deeming rates, in response to the interest rate rise.
That means pensioners with cash deposits which will increase with the rate rise (interest rates on bank accounts go up too) won’t have to worry about hitting the cap of how much they can earn before their pension is impacted.
Labor has matched it, with Kristina Keneally telling the ABC:
We have always said where there are good ideas we will support them. We sought to be constructive during the pandemic and did support many of the measures and, you know, looking at this decision today, we have said, yes, this is a good idea and we will.
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Scott Morrison was by Josh Frydenberg’s side yesterday afternoon after the rate rise was announced but he hasn’t been playing a role in helping Frydenberg fight for his seat.
ABC News Breakfast asked why.
Q: When is the prime minister joining you in the hustings in Kooyong?
Frydenberg:
He already has, we went to a religious service at a local synagogue and no doubt he has many competing requests on his ...
Q: It’s a pretty key seat. You know full well yours is a very key seat. You are a potential future Liberal party leader and prime minister if the government’s re-elected. Why won’t the prime minister campaign with you, go to local shops in the suburbs of Camberwell, side by side with you and speak to voters?
Frydenberg:
Well, thanks for that vote of confidences are but I think I’m the best advocate for myself.
Q: What are you afraid of? Why are you scared to bring the prime minister into Kooyong.
Frydenberg:
I’d put it to you, to the contrary. I’d say to you – I am the best person to sell the government’s message to meet my own local constituents and to be out there campaigning myself as I have been doing for the last three years in my local area. I have to say, I have never taken my local area for granted. It’s been a privilege to respect them for the last 12 years. I fought hard for local infrastructure projects, I fought hard for local community organisations, I fought hard to support our ...
Q: But why – why won’t you get the prime minister to say just that on your behalf? He is of course the leader of the country and your party in those suburbs in Kooyong?
Frydenberg:
There’s 151 seats in the country and he’s already been to my seat.
Q: But that wasn’t, as you say, it was quite rightly to celebrate Passover, it wasn’t a full campaign stop in going to shops and speaking to voters on the street.
Frydenberg:
Can I just tell you once again – I think I’m the best advocate for myself and for the Liberal party in my own seat. I’m looking forward to debating Monique Ryan. I like to have debated her in another channel studio but she refused to do so. She’s a former longstanding member of the Labor party. She sought to conceal it, she won’t tell our local community how she will vote on the other side of election in the event of a hung parliament. I think that people is of Kooyong deserve better.
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Former longtime WA senator, deputy Liberal leader and Fraser government minister Fred Chaney (he quit the party in 1995) has an op-ed in the Nine newspapers today about how he believes the Liberal party has lost its way. His niece Kate Chaney is running as an independent in Curtin, where she is posing a strong challenge to Celia Hammond, who was elected after Julie Bishop retired.
Don’t expect the government to undergo a spiritual or moral conversion to the need for accountability, the need to use borrowed and taxpayer funds for public rather than party interest as shown by the absurd levels of pork barrelling, the need to repair the aged care system, the need to end the use of cruelty in our refugee policies and obscenities like the robo-debt approach that unlawfully pitted a bullying government against those least able to resist.
The government will only change its approach if the parliament does not tolerate these things. The moderate Liberals have shown they do tolerate these things by supporting the government in doing them. Neither major party should be trusted with absolute power.
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Josh Frydenberg has also seized upon the RBA’s mention of international pressures:
Well, ultimately what we’re seeing is the normalisation of monetary policy just as we saw the normalisation of fiscal policy and that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone as they understand international markets and they have seen other central banks move globally in the same way that the central bank of Australia has done.
You’re absolutely right – the Reserve Bank did say that the main drivers of yesterday’s rate rise were international global factors and particularly what that means is that the Covid pandemic has led to supply-side disruptions which have increased freight costs by up to fivefold and we have also seen the impact of the war in Ukraine with a spike in commodity prices, not just fuel, but also wheat and other commodities.
Now, with respect to domestic challenges that we face, the biggest issue for employers today is how do they get more workers and that is one of the challenges that we’re seeking to meet with more than $3.5bn set aside in the budget to create 100,000 new training places.
What we’re seeking to do is make it easier for workers to move between states to take jobs, and obviously we got skilled workers coming into our country as well. So that will help meet some of those supply-side constraints including our massive $120bn infrastructure plan and rollout, which is actually creating a more productive economy.
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Josh Frydenberg, meanwhile, says the government will only take responsibility for the factors he says it can control.
He told ABC News Breakfast:
Our responsibility is for the economy more broadly and, whether it’s interest rate changes or whether it’s the fall in the unemployment rate, or whether it’s the growth numbers, we take responsibility right across the economy for the factors that we can control.
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Chalmers criticises Coalition's ‘economic jargon’
This seems to be a preview of where Jim Chalmers will be going at the press club today:
You know, the economic jargon talks about capacity constraints and what that really means is whether or not the economy can grow strongly enough without adding to these inflationary pressures, and the key issues there are are you training people to deal with skill shortages? Are you reforming childcare so that more people can work more and earn more? Are you dealing with issues around infrastructure in the digital economy? Are you investing in new secure well-paid jobs. And those issues are absolutely central to our economic plan. The government’s got a plan to get themselves through an election. We’ve got to plan for a better future with a stronger economy at its core.
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Jim Chalmers is also everywhere this morning.
He is asked, while on ABC radio RN, whether the Reserve Bank’s comment that there has been some increase in wages takes away one of Labor’s attack lines.
Chalmers:
Well, the last wages data we have has wages a bit over 2%, which is nowhere near inflation at 5.1%. We’ll get some more data on wages in a couple of weeks’ time and I genuinely hope that real wages begin to pick up because, even with that unemployment rate coming down in welcome ways, we’re not seeing the real wages growth we need for ordinary Australians to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of living, and that’s why they’re falling further and further behind.
And the government has made 55 wage projections over the course of their almost decade in office.
They’ve been wrong 52 of those times. It’s a government notorious for over-promising and under-delivering on wages, and we can’t see that again.
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NAB raises mortgage rate
And the last of the big four banks have passed on the rate increase.
Rate rises tend to get passed along faster than rate cuts.
National Australia Bank is the last of the Big 4 to pass on the Reserve Bank cash rate rise in full - NAB's standard variable home loan to increase by 0.25pc to 4.7pc - reward saver bonus interest rate will increase by 0.25pc @abcnews @NAB
— Peter Ryan OAM (@Peter_F_Ryan) May 3, 2022
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Josh Frydenberg has been doing the media rounds this morning, defending the government’s record on the economy.
He and Jim Chalmers are due to debate each other at the National Press Club today. It’s going to be a long day.
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Good morning
There’s apparently 24 useful hours in every day. And on day 24 of the election campaign that won’t end, Australia will use them to talk about interest rates.
John Howard, who not only lost the election, but his seat in parliament in 2007 – the last time an interest rate rise was announced during an election campaign – says there is no problem for the government.
Scott Morrison won’t stop talking about the economic “shields” he says his government provided during the pandemic and choices about who should handle the economy.
Anthony Albanese is all about the “triple whammy” and trying to get at least some of the blame to stick with the Morrison government.
Meanwhile, people already on the bubble of economic stress are facing watching rates rise to 2.5 %. And while that’s not the 17% rates those in the 1990s experienced, people didn’t tend to have million-dollar mortgages then either, or have spent more than six times their earnings on their house.
Wages have not increased in a real sense for close to a decade. That’s a problem in itself but it’s an even bigger problem when the cost of living inflates and suddenly your dollar doesn’t go as far. For those on income support, it’s even more dire. Rentals are already beyond reach. If you don’t think landlords won’t pass along any interest rate rises, then I’ve got a bridge I’d like to chat to you about taking off my hands. That’s on top of power prices increasing, basic, non-discretionary items increasing and transport costs increasing. So it’s not about what to eat, it’s about if you eat. If you go at all. If you use the power. Those have already been hard choices for people on low incomes. Now they are becoming impossible ones.
In NSW, teachers will go on strike after the government didn’t come to the table with a pay rise to address shortages. Premier Dominic Perrottet asked teachers to wait until the budget is delivered next month to negotiate – unions said teachers had waited long enough, with the latest round of negotiations having been sought since February. Last year.
So strap in for what’s going to be a pretty political day debating what is a very scary and real issue for many of us.
Katharine Murphy, Sarah Martin, Daniel Hurst, Josh Butler and Paul Karp are keeping watch and you have Amy Remeikis here on the blog.
I’m not ready either. We’ll get through it together.
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