Hello readers, and welcome to today’s election edition of Afternoon Update.
We’re on the brink of the third week of the campaign, and attention on the hustings today was focused early on the Coalition’s promise to axe a key element of Labor’s flagship clean car policy.
Peter Dutton has vowed to mess with Labor’s vehicle efficiency standard – an initiative it managed to legislate last year after a heated consultation process with the auto industry – and remove fines designed to disincentivise car companies from sending their most polluting vehicles to the Australian market.
Dutton has labelled the standard a “car and ute tax”, but Anthony Albanese blasted his threat to remove the associated fines for manufacturers as “nonsensical”. The prime minister claimed such a move would contradict the Coalition’s push to lower fuel costs for motorists, since the standard is designed to bring more fuel-efficient, cheaper-to-run vehicles to our shores.
Questions surrounding the Coalition’s 41,000 pledged public sector job cuts – now watered down to be achieved through natural attrition – have continued to bubble, with Dutton dodging questions about how many voluntary redundancies would be offered.
And meanwhile, each side continues to promote their own defence policy as more responsible: Dutton said earlier today he had “huge concerns” about the Aukus deal under Labor; pushed for a response, Albanese said the comment was “irresponsible”.
Today’s big stories
Albanese condemned political threats and said he had personally contacted Dutton this morning after reports the opposition leader had been the target of an alleged terror plot.
“It’s a brutal business, no question about it,” Dutton told a crowd at a Perth event. “It takes a decision … to abandon your anonymity and contribute to a country that you love very much.”
Asked by reporters in Darwin if he had been generally more concerned for his own safety in recent years, Albanese referred to “a range of issues” and one “pretty serious incident” that he said was currently before legal processes.
Down in Melbourne, Guardian Australia revealed that police had removed two offensive and homophobic banners targeting Labor MP Julian Hill that were hung over a major Melbourne highway.
Hill said whoever had displayed the signs – which prompted bipartisan condemnation – had resorted to “these sorts of smears as they’ve got nothing positive to say”.
What they said
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“It is unacceptable for any member of the public to hand out Easter eggs, lollies or any other consumable to children outside a school.”
In a rare election intervention, the New South Wales department of education criticised Scott Yung, the Liberal candidate in the battleground seat of Bennelong in Sydney’s north, after he handed out Easter eggs to students at Lane Cove public school. The department issued the statement after the school’s principal raised concerns officially.
A party spokesperson defended Yung, saying he was in a public space, talking with parents about the cost-of-living crisis, and offered the chocolates with parents’ permission.
How social media saw it
If you cast your mind back to the 2022 election, when then prime minister Scott Morrison infamously (accidentally) tackled a child while playing football in front of reporters, you’ll recall Labor milked images and footage of the incident for its online campaigning.
They appear to be trying to recreate that goldmine to spruik the government’s record on funding Medicare. Hunter MP Daniel Repacholi repurposed video from Saturday, when Dutton accidentally kicked a football that hit a Channel 10 cameraman in the head.
But as someone on X points out, the heavily edited video – which superimposes Repacholi as an apparently injured camera operator – reveals a blind spot. The MP is promoting Labor’s Medicare urgent care clinics for people “injured by a stray football” – but what if the ball struck him in the teeth? Labor has – unlike the Greens – resisted promising to broaden Medicare to include dental care.
The big picture
This was the scene on Friday morning at the Sydney Masonic Centre, as the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) spun ballot balls to declare the order in which candidates appear on ballot papers. All ballots were declared at the same time across the country.
The proceedings followed an earlier announcement from the AEC of record high enrolment for this election, with 98.2% of eligible voters registered.
Watch
A football to the head, some gaslighting around the first debate between Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton, and arguably more visits to petrol stations than necessary.
James Colley looks back at the second week of the campaign in this week’s instalment of Surviving the Election with James Colley.
And in other news …
Australian stock market slumps amid fears of worsening US-China trade war
Australian comedian ditches US trip due to concern she could be denied entry over Trump jokes
Legal and ethical ‘nightmare’ after woman gives birth to stranger’s child due to Monash IVF mistake
Hot weekend for south-east Australia, with Melbourne to get warmest April day in four years
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: ARF. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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