Enough for today, see you tomorrow
Thanks for joining today’s special edition of Politics Live, but that will do us for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with the campaign day, followed by another special edition in the evening for Malcolm Turnbull’s solo effort on Q&A tomorrow night.
Let’s summarise today.
-
Bill Shorten launched Labor’s campaign in Sydney’s west with a speech that was heavy on the themes of unity, of rapprochement with the “true believers”, and core Labor values, like education and health care. The Labor leader also made an effort to present an alternative tax cut and jobs plan with the campaign launch centrepiece, which was a tax break for small companies taking on a job seeker, either a young person or a mature aged worker.
- Before signalling Labor’s pitch to protect Medicare would be a core focus over the final fortnight, Shorten also appealed to the party faithful to believe the party could win on July 2, and rise up in support of the effort over the final stretch of the campaign. “It’s our time, our chance to be more than just a face in the crowd, our chance to make this a better country, our moment to dig a little deeper, to try a little harder, to be part of something bigger than just ourselves,” Shorten told the crowd in Penrith, and the crowd watching on at home.
- Looking on in the audience was Julia Gillard, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, but not Kevin Rudd, who, sadly, had to zip.
Have a lovely Sunday evening. See you in the morning.
Speaking of video, if you’d like to see how it looked as well as reading the rolling report, here’s a short compilation of bits from the Shorten speech.
A short bit of video from Mr Bowers capturing Bill Shorten’s arrival and greeting by the former prime ministers.
Updated
I gather the prime minister was at a truck rally, with grandson, Jack.
Also, a flu question.
Q: Your voice is a bit croaky today. Are you going to make it to the end?
Malcolm Turnbull:
That is very touching. I’m glad that you’re so concerned. Do you have any flu remedies for me? I would be happy to receive some advice.
While we were all preoccupied with the Labor launch the prime minister has been out on the hustings. Two questions about Medicare at his press conference.
Q: On the Medicare issue, you have ruled out outsourcing the payments system to the private sector. The whole reason for that was the modernise the systems. Will it require more spending from the government to upgrade the systems?
Malcolm Turnbull:
Medicare will never ever be privatised. It will never ever be sold. Every element of Medicare services that is being delivered by government today, will be delivered by government in the future. Full stop. That is the fact. What Bill Shorten is doing, is peddling an extraordinary lie, so audacious, is defies, it defies belief. This is the first time I’ve been asked about this issue by this press pack, and we do one of these everyday. You all know it’s nonsense. But Labor has been pushing this. They had trade union officials calling up older Australians at night, trying to frighten them with a scare campaign. Every single element that is delivered by government for Medicare, as part of Medicare, will continue to be delivered by government.
Q: The whole idea was the modernise the system. Will you now have to upgrade that and how much are you looking to spend on that?
Malcolm Turnbull:
Every delivery system of government has to be upgraded and improved, so that people are able to access services on digital platforms. I announced that when I was talking about our digital policy just a few days ago. We will continue to improve the way that Medicare interfaces with their customers, with citizens, and patients, but it also all be done by government and within government. I repeat, there will be no outsourcing of any elements of the Medicare service that are currently delivered by government. Improvements and efficiencies will be undertaken within government. There is no privatisation of Medicare or any part of Medicare. Any element of Medicare that is delivered by government will be delivered by government. Full stop.
In case you weren’t with me from the beginning of the coverage, here are details of the jobs initiative which Bill Shorten unveiled during the launch.
- Small businesses will be able to claim a tax deduction of up to $20,000 per worker to offset the wages of up to five new employees. Businesses will be able to claim a 40% deduction on top of the amount they can currently claim for their employees.
- To qualify for the deduction, the employees will need to be a net addition to the company’s average full-time equivalent staffing level for the previous year. An employer will deduct 140% of the wages expenses of a new employee when doing their accounts.
- Labor’s policy will be targeted to small businesses with turnover of less than $2 million which have been operating for more than two years. The tax cut will be available to businesses hiring Australians who face real barriers to finding work, including:
- Unemployed jobseekers aged under 25 or over 55, and parents or carers returning to work after more than six months away.
Fabulous pictures coming now for a bit.
Bill Shorten's four key messages
The Labor leader had four key messages for the faithful in western Sydney.
First, to refute the growing idea that the Liberals have this contest won. “Mr Turnbull says he’s got this in the bag, he claims he’s already won – I say to him – you ain’t seen nothing yet. After three years of opposition and six weeks of campaigning we can win and we must win,” he said – to wild applause from the audience, including past prime ministers Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Julia Gillard. (Kevin Rudd was in Russia. He got an honourable mention, but no applause.)
Second, to attack the $48bn tax cut that is the centrepiece of the Coalition’s “jobs and growth” slogan - highlighting the analysis that shows much of the benefit will flow overseas and Treasury analysis suggesting its impact on economic growth would be around 0.6% of gross national income over decades.
Third, to offer his alternative ideas for job creation. Top of the list was a new promise to give small businesses an additional $20,000 a year tax deduction for taking on a new employee who is under 25, over 55 or a parent returning to employment and parental leave. (The $255m cost comes from money that has not been spent in the government’s existing wage subsidy programs.) But the economic benefits of delivering the full promised funding for the Gonski education and Labor’s version of the national broadband network also got an airing.
And Labor’s accusation that the Coalition intends to privatise Medicare (it is actually considering outsourcing Medicare’s payment system) is obviously biting and set to feature large in the final two weeks, with Shorten declaring the election a “referendum on the future of Medicare”.
Shorten’s fourth aim was to try to counter Turnbull’s most potent line of attack, that Labor poses a threat to the economy because it would be a “big taxing and big spending’ government.
Labor has admitted its deficits over the forward estimates will be higher than the Coalition’s, but insists that as its big ticket savings ideas ramp up – for example reducing tax concessions for negative gearing and superannuation – it will be able to deliver a surplus in 2021, the same year surplus is being promised by the Coalition. But this promise is going to come under heavy scrutiny over the next two weeks when Labor releases its detailed costings. “We will not be a big spending government,” Shorten insisted, promising Labor would reduce the deficit every year.
How things looked inside the Joan
I’m here at the “Joan” in Penrith, otherwise known as the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre. It is a grey day, brightened only by the sea of red Labor volunteer T-shirts. The Labor luminaries walked down the concrete carpet, which was lined with corflutes, hiding the construction site next door to Joan.
Security was tight and a lone Nick Xenophon candidate in a sandwich board was asked to stand off the concrete.
The theatre is smaller than those used for past campaign launches, which provided a little extra energy to the event. The highest cheers began when the former PM Julia Gillard entered the room and carried on as Shorten introduced “the one and only” Paul Keating and finally Bob Hawke.
Chris Bowen, whose seat of McMahon is nearby, got a big cheer and pushed the theme of Labor’s policy work - asking for points for eschewing the small target policy of past oppositions. He made much of Labor’s frontbench, particularly the comparison of deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, when put up against a possible future prime minister Tanya Plibersek.
Plibersek herself underlined Labor’s unity and when Shorten finally came on at midday, he won a sustained standing ovation. His delivery showed how far he had come from the clunky earlier performances as opposition leader. He warmed to the task and got louder and more strident - yelling the final lines above the crowd. His was an appeal to the volunteers to stay strong in the face of mounting evidence that Labor might not reach the 21 seats needed to win government.
Now, Medicare, before I get to more pictures and I know Gabrielle Chan is giving me a point of view from in the room. I did cover this pre-launch but I can add a bit now. Medicare privatisation is clearly biting out in the electorate. This is obvious from the prime minister’s very defensive reaction to the Labor campaign.
It’s pretty obvious that Labor is going to go in hard on this issue over the closing fortnight of the campaign, and it makes sense from a political point of view.
But Labor claims of privatisation is over reach on currently available information. I have not seen any plan by the government to privatise Medicare. I have seen a plan by the Coalition to privatise the payments system of Medicare, which is not the same as privatising Medicare. It is privatising an element of Medicare’s system delivery. Facts do matter, and I think Labor risks over reach here.
The other wrinkle Labor has with the big negative Medicare push is the opposition does not have a ten year plan for hospitals funding. The government doesn’t either, but if you are the defender of public health then that’s a bump in your road.
But with those things acknowledged, Labor does have the stronger offering on universal healthcare services in this election, and the government is in a tricky position on the bread-and-butter health services front, and it knows it. Hence the gamble.
Atonement, values, rallying the base
Just some quick first analytical thoughts, leaving aside the merits of the Medicare push, which I’ll treat separately.
To understand what Bill Shorten just did there, we have to take ourselves back to 2013, the hollow, terrible, broken campaign launch of the last campaign, where Anthony Albanese was onstage on the brink of tears.
From the vantage point of the true believers, Labor has much to atone for. They won government by backing a Messiah leader – Kevin Rudd – and threw it away because the party then proceeded to prioritise a toxic personality struggle over standing and delivering for the faithful. The base was, understandably ropable. Labor handed government to Tony Abbott in 2013, who then proceeded to deliver an unfair budget that directly attacked Labor’s base and wound back the progressive achievements of the two terms.
Today, Shorten had to atone. He had to stand up and admit the past wrongs. He had to underscore the lessons learned. He had to put himself in the centre of a movement, and a party and a tradition, be an institutional player, in order to ask the base to stand up and campaign for their lives during the next two weeks. Because that’s Labor’s only chance of victory – if the marginal seats operation well out of sight of the national campaign is stronger and more resourced and more targeted than the Coalition’s. That’s the difference between a win and a loss – that ground game. And getting those people out required humility, acknowledgement of past wrongs and it required clarion statements of Labor values. That’s the speech he delivered. That’s the campaign Labor is running, and the recent past is why Labor’s running that campaign. It’s like an extended apology to the base: we screwed it up, we’ve picked ourselves back up, and we know now that this is not about us – our egos and our squabbles and our noxious sense of entitlement: it’s about the movement.
Now, as for the public at large, will that speech cut it? It was certainly long on the issues that come up repeatedly at community forums. Shorten started a bit flat but the confidence improved as he went along. There is a risk that speech will present to swinging voters as very tribal, an in-house conversation, I think that is a present risk of the presentation today – but the risk of that can be balanced to some extent by the fact that people are nominating Labor’s issues as the issues they are worried about at this point in history.
As for Shorten himself? Well, he’s performing at his peak right now. He’s done so much work to clean up his communications, to sound like he’s saying what he means and meaning what he says, there’s nothing particularly wrong with the delivery apart from the fact it lacks a bit of gravitas. The problem of framing yourself next to the Gods of Labor history is you invite comparisons. Bill Shorten doesn’t have the magic dust of a Hawke or a Keating, or the fierce loyalty that Julia Gillard inspires in the Labor base. He’s always just that bit short of the great pitch, the decisive intervention, the big moment.
Bill Shorten has removed the barrier to entry over the course of 2016, he’s forensically removed the reasons why people would just treat him as a figure of fun, or write him off as a wannabe, he’s neutralised his various weaknesses with a lot of support and a lot of personal application – but is removing the barrier to entry enough for voters who are looking at the contest presidentially? Does he need to lift some more to convince Australians that not only that he would be a competent alternative prime minister, but now is his time? I think this is what the next two weeks is about, can Shorten lift, or is this the best it gets?
That’s it for Shorten.
I’ll be back very shortly with analysis and pictures and more.
'We can win this election if we give it every ounce of our energy.'
Bill Shorten:
The Australia I see in the future is a creative country, a place of community, a Commonwealth built by common effort, courageous and generous people, striving together, shared opportunities and shared reward. We carry that fight forward. We can win this election if we give it every ounce of our energy. We will be a Labor government that will always put people first in the finest tradition of this great country we all love together. Putting people first!
Bill Shorten is into the summation now, a rallying cry to the base.
There are people who will tell us [we can’t win]. Mind you, these are the same people who said less than three years ago Tony Abbott was unbeatable, that the 2014 Budget was right for the times, that national conference would divide and break our party, that a royal commission would crush our movement.
The same people now tell us that Malcolm Turnbull is invincible.
There’s always someone willing to write Labor off and they are always wrong. This election is a battle for our generation of true believers. It’s our time, our chance to be more than just a face in the crowd, our chance to make this a better country, our moment to dig a little deeper, to try a little harder, to be part of something bigger than just ourselves. And for all of the complexities, all of the intricacies, for all of the to and fro in the 13 days to come, in the end, the choice for Australians is simple.
If you want to save Medicare, vote Labor. If you want better schools, not richer banks, vote Labor. If you want a tax cut for local jobs, not a tax break for foreign share-holders, vote Labor.If you want a housing affordability plan that’s more than just get-rich parents, vote Labor. If you want a first-rate NBN for a first-rate economy, vote Labor. If you want to save the reef, vote Labor. If you want the pension and penalty rates to be safe, vote Labor. If you want marriage equality to be a reality, vote Labor.
Bill Shorten gives a shout out to Hawke in the front row, who has fronted Labor’s Medicare ads.
Bill Shorten:
You built Medicare and we stand with you now to defend it. We will prevail.
Bill Shorten:
Medicare is more than a column in a spreadsheet. It’s not some corporate asset to be sold off and exported. It’s not a shell company where you can rip out the heart, keep the brand and outsource the responsibility. Medicare is not just another business. It is everyone’s business. It belongs to all of us. It belongs in public hands.
'The Liberals have never liked Medicare and they want to tear it down again.'
The Coalition is dissembling on Medicare, the Labor leader says.
Bill Shorten:
Now, first Mr Turnbull said there was nothing wrong with this. Then he said there was nothing to see here. Now the Liberals are trying to pull off the biggest fraud of this campaign and there’s some stiff competition for that title. They’re pretending their task force doesn’t exist and that now privatising Medicare isn’t part of their plans. But facts have an inconvenient way of ruining a Turnbull story. Today, we have new proof of their true intentions. The Liberals have given the Productivity Commission new riding instructions to investigate privatising human services and Americanising Medicare. This is Mr Turnbull’s second strike on Medicare and we know he won’t stop, he won’t rest, piece by piece, brick by brick.
The Liberals have never liked Medicare and they want to tear it down again.
The big Medicare push
Shorten addresses the disaffection with politics in the Australian community. Some people think politics doesn’t matter, but he has a word for why politics matters: Medicare. Applause for that. In the front row Bob Hawke and Paul Keating are having a little chuckle, rather like those critics from the Muppets.
Bill Shorten:
Friends, this election is a referendum on the future of Medicare. Your individual vote will decide the fate, direction and quality of health care in this country. Medicare is the community standard. It’s the gold standard. It speaks to Australians about who we are. It’s an echo of an older, uncomplicated sense of solidarity, the belief that the health of anyone of us matters to all of us.
It’s also a thoroughly modern economic policy. Lifting productivity up and keeping sick days down, saving employers the expense of paying health insurance for their employees, and Medicare costs Australia far less than other countries pay and we get better care. It is the job of good government not to just preserve Medicare as it was, but to make sure it keeps up with the needs of our people, but under my opponent, the Liberals have cut $650m from bulk billing for pathology and diagnostic imaging.
Labor won’t proceed with the cuts.
Teenage mental health now.
Bill Shorten:
There is a hidden story in our country. Teenagers are taking days off school to attend the funerals of classmates who’ve taken their own life. Parents sitting at kitchen tables numb within comprehension, shattered by grief, trying to write a eulogy for their child. No parent should ever bury their child. Yet seven Australians die every day at their own hand. Every single day. We can do better than this. A new Labor government will start by providing $72m for 12 regional suicide prevention projects. I say to the people among us at the brink of despair that we must offer more than help. We must offer hope.
There’s funding for Headspace as well. A prelude to Medicare, this.
Bill Shorten addresses equality for women, and marriage equality.
In modern Australia, no-one should have to justify their sexuality or their love to anyone else and instead of sitting in judgement, instead of providing a taxpayer-funded platform for homophobia, we will gift every Australian an equal right in respect of love, nothing less.
The NBN – the prime minister has messed it up. And a bonus zinger.
Bill Shorten says the management of the NBN was the perfect preview for his time as prime minister: over promise, under deliver and take forever to get to the point.
Education now. A big clap now for the commitment to lock in the Gonski funding, needs based funding for schools. Bill Shorten talks about a hustings visit to one of Australia’s most disadvantaged schools, in Cairns. He says Labor needs to win the election to make the case that education investment is a productivity investment.
Bill Shorten:
When I think about how they keep having to do more with less, it is an outrage, when the Liberals say that money doesn’t make a difference in education. Let is win this election, so we put to bed forever the argument that funding schools is not an investment in our future.
The only three-word slogan I want to see and hear a lot more about in the next three years is - Made In Australia!
A section on infrastructure and on TAFE and on apprenticeships and some bonus economic nationalism for advanced manufacturing.
Bill Shorten:
We choose local content. We choose the apprenticeship system. We choose renewable energy and Australian steel. Because we believe advanced manufacturing has a future in this country. And the only three-word slogan I want to see and hear a lot more about in the next three years is - Made In Australia!
Shorten references the jobs package I flagged earlier on this morning, and returns to the empathetic language about jobs in a time of transition. He’s pitching to people in the hard-scrabble suburbs and postcodes of this country, where perhaps the family unit isn’t working as well as we’d like it to, or those older migrant workers in the great factories of Australia, who 30 and 40 years ago came off the boat and into our factories and delivered us our standard of living.
Bill Shorten:
We are a more imaginative country than we give ourselves credit for. My policies, our policies, for small business and to jobseekers is one and the same - Labor believes in you and we will invest in you.
Not new paperwork, just new jobs.
Bill Shorten brings the speech around for jobs. Labor doesn’t have a slogan, it understands the issues, and has a plan.
The Australian economy needs a real jobs plan because, from Western Sydney to northern Tassie, from regional Queensland and the Hunter Valley to the suburbs of Perth, the Australians finding it hardest to find a job are young people under 25 looking for their first start, and workers over 55 displaced by change, stranded by change, looking for another chance, and, of course, the parents and careers returning to work after more than six months away.
Labor is determined to do more to help people find work in a changing economy, not by waffling about agility, but just getting on and doing the job, not talking about jobs, doing something to create them.
Hope is not found in a three-word slogan. Hope is an unemployed Australian finding a job.
A segment on bank bashing, the cultural problems in the financial services sector, banks don’t need a tax cut, they need a royal commission.
'Foreign aid for foreign companies'
Big target politics, versus a tax plan which is foreign aid for foreign companies.
Bill Shorten:
I am so proud of Labor. We have taken the high road of politics, outlining the most comprehensive program in a generation and how we pay for it.
And the difference in competing economic visions has never been sharper or starker. A Labor party investing in people, in productivity, in infrastructure and in technology and a Liberal party asking for three more years on the back of one bad idea: a $50bn giveaway to big business, $30bn of which goes straight overseas.
This is not a plan for the Australian economy. It is foreign aid for foreign companies.
'We will be a government for the fair go, fully paid for'
Bill Shorten moves to the team, he says Labor has a better team than the government. Then to the policy agenda and fiscal management. We’ve got the best people. We’ve got the best policies. And we’ve got the best plan to pay for them.
Bill Shorten:
We are being accountable and responsible for every single dollar. Only policies that we can fund. Only policies our country can afford.
We will not be a big-spending government. We will be a government for the fair go, fully paid for. Bringing down the deficit, each and every year, saving more than we spend over the decade, returning the Budget to balance at the same time as our opponents, and each and every year therefore, our surpluses will be bigger and stronger and we will pay down the public debt faster. Because our savings plan is built upon structural reform, not savage short-term cuts.
Paul Keating taught us well - you do not grow the economy by shrinking opportunity.
Updated
Then the delicate business of leaders, who is here and who isn’t.
Bill Shorten gives a shout out to Kevin Rudd. Shorten wants to thank him for his example and his service. With that dispatched, Julia Gillard. A continuing inspiration for everyone who fights for Labor. Paul Keating. A man of courage, conviction and imagination, a person whose public life was spent painting the big picture, yet always with working people at the centre, the reason the true believers kept the faith, the one that every other party would like to have but only Labor has, the one and only Paul Keating. Then Hawkie. Bob Hawke. There is more fight in Bob Hawke’s right arm than the whole of Malcolm Turnbull’s cabinet put together.
Hawke and Keating even indulge a grip and grin for the cameras.
Updated
Shorten: it's ain't over til it's over
Bill Shorten:
We can win. We must win, because only a Labor government will build astronger economy and a fairer society. We will fund our schools and protect Medicare. We will create jobs and build roads, rail, a proper National Broadband Network. We will grow our regions. We will make our cities work. Only Australia will have a Labor government which delivers prosperity for everyone who works and prosperity that works for everyone. Only Labor can do this.
A shout out to the ground game operation, the union campaigners and the volunteers.
Friends, our issues are starting to bite. Please keep up the great work!
His first objective it to counter the suggestion Labor has already lost.
Bill Shorten:
Turnbull says he’s got this in the bag. He claims he’s already won it. I say to him - never underestimate Labor. You ain’t seen anything yet. Has he?
Bill Shorten addresses the launch
The Labor leader inverts the old Whitlamism to begin his speech.
Bill Shorten:
Women and men of Australia, we gather as one united party, ready to serve, ready to lead, ready for government!
Then, the specific warm up for Shorten.
Tanya Plibersek:
Since taking the leadership, I have watched Bill get clobbered from every angle. The media, the opposition, they have all done their worst, but he endured. He held his nerve. He doesn’t grandstand, he doesn’t preach or lecture, he’s devoted his life to the deep satisfaction of helping others. Every minute of his working life has been about that. Fighting for decent pay and conditions and for safe workplaces. Working with disabled Australians and their families for a national disability insurance scheme. Getting on with the job. Bringing us to this moment.
And every day he’s grown stronger. Two and a half years ago, it looked impossible, but Bill has united us and led us in developing a real plan for government.
Updated
Now Labor’s deputy leader is moving in against Malcolm Turnbull. She says Labor was intensely critical of Tony Abbott, for sounds reasons, but at least he believed in things.
Tanya Plibersek:
Malcolm Turnbull promised so much. He promised better economic management, but he’s tripled the deficit and added $100bn to net debt. He promised a style of leadership that respects the people’s intelligence. He’s promised optimism, but he’s reverted to the same old lies and scare campaigns, the same old three-word slogans we had from Tony Abbott. And in this campaign, he has nothing to offer, but more fear and more failure.
Tanya Plibersek:
Malcolm Turnbull’s one big idea is giving big multinational companies a $50bn tax cut and you know - even that’s not his own. It was Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher that came up with trickle down economics. Didn’t work then, won’t work now.
We don’t just have a set of talking-points to get into government. We have a plan for government. We don’t just have along list of reasons to vote against the Liberals, although goodness knows they have given us a pretty good long list, we have got a powerful case for Labor. And in 2016, this is the case that we are taking to the Australian people.
Think back almost three years ago. Imagining this day, you might have thought we would be just going through the motions. A first-term opposition struggling to cut through.
But we have led the policy debate this this country for the last three years.
Tanya Plibersek pitches voters back into the Abbott era, the 2014 budget.
Tanya Plibersek:
It’s a real treat to be introducing Bill today. Back when Bill was running for leader in 2013, he put three famous Whitlam words front and centre of his leadership - “party policy people.”
From day one, Bill began the tough job of uniting our party. He’s brought us together, but to be frank - he got more than a little help. We were galvanised by a sense of urgency by the Liberal Party’s budget of 2014 - the most unfair and the most regressive budget in living memory. And then in 2015, while we were still fighting this terrible government, Bill and I and this team before you made sure that we got on with the hard yards of policy development.
Because we knew that at a time when Australia desperately needed compassionate and strong leadership, the Liberals were offering us the exact opposite, they were divided, unfocused, policy-weak.
The worst government this country has seen in a long time ..
ICYMI: We've learned the unity lesson: Plibersek
Tanya Plibersek:
When I first became deputy leader, I set myself two main goals - first, to work with Bill to unite a party that was still pretty bruised and divided because we lost the privilege to govern. And, secondly, to develop a detailed program that told people exactly what we’d do if we won government and how we’d pay for it.
My colleagues on this stage are testament to our unity and to our solidarity, and I would put our people against theirs any day of the week.
Under Bill’s leadership, we are as tight a Labor team as every there’s been.
Bowen hands the rhetorical baton to Tanya Plibersek, Australia’s next deputy prime minister of Australia.
Tanya Plibersek:
Colleagues, friends, true believers, how good is it to be here together, allies, partners and comrades in the fight for the things that matter?
Good jobs, Medicare, education, climate change.
Such great Labor policies to fight for.
We've learned the unity lesson: Bowen
Chris Bowen, continuing.
Friends, let’s be frank with each other - in 2013, most people wouldn’t have given Labor much of a chance to be back in the ball game as a viable alternative government three years later … Last September in an act of political desperation, the Liberals did something they said they would never do and dismissed a prime minister. But Labor’s back in the game as a competitive and viable alternative. Part of the reason is we have led the debate with detailed and courageous policies.
(That was Bowen’s strategy, by the way, he’s Mr Big Target.)
Part of the reason is the unity of our great Labor team, unity of purpose. We watched as Tony Abbott narrowly beat an empty chair in the leadership challenge and then we observed as Malcolm Turnbull hopped into the chair and beat him. We remained unified. Focused on our task, serving the Australian people by providing a better alternative.
Updated
The Coalition’s campaign spokesman, Mathias Cormann, calling in, like Eurovision.
Labor's negative gearing change will drive down value of existing properties and push up cost of rents across Western Sydney. #laborlaunch
— Mathias Cormann (@MathiasCormann) June 19, 2016
Chris Bowen’s speech is heavy on the campaign values. The election is about choices, the business tax cut versus the investment in schools.
Chris Bowen:
Australia can’t afford to do both. We choose schools. And as shadow treasurer I’m very proud of our investment in schools. It’s worth every single dollar.
Housing affordability next. Chris Bowen talks about reforming negative gearing: keeping it, but putting it to work supplying new housing.
Friends we’re fast becoming a nation which can’t house our own children.
Emma Lusar, Labor’s candidate in Lindsay, is opening proceedings. She’s giving her log cabin story, which neatly aligns with Labor’s campaign messages. This is significant exposure for the candidate in this marginal seat, where name recognition is everything.
On now to the second warm up act, the shadow treasurer Chris Bowen.
And some delightful little kiddies are leading the singing of the national anthem. Let’s all be upstanding.
The launch begins with a welcome to country.
Oh, and Hawkie, who gives a jaunty wave of his walking stick. Bob Hawke is even sitting next to Paul Keating. Who says there’s no prospect of progress?
Updated
Here comes Paul Keating.
Onto the main event now. Julia Gillard is arriving in the hall to big cheers.
Piercing the media fog
If there’s been entirely too much forced “humanising” during this campaign for your liking, you can skip the video while we pause on this final thought before we hit the main event.
The other battle Labor faces over the coming fortnight, apart from the obvious one of picking up about 20 or so seats for victory on 2 July, is piercing the low lying media fog – many commentators are already declaring the ALP has already lost the election. The basis for these early declarations (largely) is the Coalition is looking supremely confident that they are ahead in the marginals that matter. This may well be true. It also may well not be true, which is why I’m making no judgment on this matter at all in advance of the result.
If we look through what various people are spinning and look at what’s happening, the Coalition is sandbagging key marginals like there’s no tomorrow, moving to neutralise Labor’s attack messages, matching key commitments where they judge it necessary to do so, and trying to keep themselves as risk-free and small target as possible in order to keep the contest calm and quiet, which is an atmosphere that benefits the incumbents.
I’ve thought all along this is a very hard election for Labor to win on the basis they are a long way behind, the progressive vote is split, and there’s not an obvious national mood for change. But only a mug would think their reasoned gut feeling is anything other than a reasoned gut feeling. I have no idea who will win on 2 July. I’ve thought all along this is the most interesting election we’ve seen in Australia since 2004, and I for one am making no predictions.
Updated
I loved being a rifleman
While we wait for kick-off, during this hard-hitting interview you can watch Chloe Shorten interview Bill Shorten about his history in the army reserve and about the rigours of the weekend ballet run.
Watch: @BillShortenmp's wife Chloe interviewed him in Darwin and it’s kind of adorable. #AusVotes #Auspolhttps://t.co/RWhI8gZ0BL
— Australian Labor (@AustralianLabor) June 18, 2016
Updated
One of Labor’s campaign spokespeople, Tony Burke, has been challenged in the pre-launch warm up interviews about the Medicare privatisation, which I addressed a couple of posts ago. The ABC reporter says to Burke: the Coalition has now explicitly ruled out privatisation – isn’t that the end of it?
Tony Burke says we have a prime minister who says one thing and does another.
[Malcolm Turnbull] explicitly said that he would vote for marriage equality, that he believed in climate change ... There is a difference with this man between what he says and what he does as prime minister.
For readers wondering when we are going to hit the sharp end of proceedings – the launch is scheduled to commence at 11.30am, so in about 30 minutes. You’ve got time to butter the crumpets.
Looking elsewhere on the hustings, the Coalition has announced it will provide $49.2m for new machinery at two mines to help Arrium, the troubled South Australian steel maker, remove waste materials from the ore to produce a higher grade ore.
Labor last week promised $100m: $50m in direct grants and another $50m in conditional loans.
Both the major parties have a very close eye on the NXT, which is polling very well in the electorate in which Arrium is located. Innovation minister Christopher Pyne has addressed the media on the funding this morning.
Q: Nick Xenophon is saying there is a menu of five items, he was of the view that list of five items ought to be addressed? How do you feel about that proposition?
Christopher Pyne:
Nick Xenophon has done nothing for Arrium or the workers at Whyalla. He can’t deliver anything because can never be in government. Nick Xenophon can talk as much as he likes but he can’t actually do. He is good at talking, and he will keep doing so in promising everybody everything they want to hear, but at the end of the day, a vote for the Xenophon team is a vote for instability, we need a stable term government into the future focused on jobs and the economy, a stable Turnbull government can actually deliver what we announced today, a Labor government can deliver for Arrium, a Xenophon party candidate can do nothing to help Arrium.
More visitors have arrived.
Some more visitors to the Labor campaign launch pic.twitter.com/BKauv9kqvC
— James Jeffrey (@James_Jeffrey) June 19, 2016
Here’s a double side of our NXT guest, courtesy of Gabrielle Chan.
Rain will not deter him. Lone sandwich board and NXT candidate Stephen Lynch at Labor launch. @murpharoo pic.twitter.com/nsH8Ux5IxO
— Gabrielle Chan (@gabriellechan) June 19, 2016
Labor has briefed some news outlets about the centrepiece of today’s launch – a new $257m jobs plan, where small businesses will be offered a tax break of up to a $20,000 if they hire a mature-age job seeker, someone under 25 or a mother returning to work.
We also expect Labor to confirm today that it will not go ahead with the government’s proposed cuts to pathology services, which is a commitment worth several hundreds of millions. This decision is predicated on Labor’s rolling save Medicare campaign, which is doing the Coalition some damage.
The prime minister over the past few days has had to come out with unequivocal statements that the government will never sell Medicare because Labor (with a guest appearance by Bob Hawke in campaign advertisements) has been telling voters the Coalition wants to flog off universal healthcare during this campaign. That message is biting with voters. I suspect Labor will double down on this message during the closing fortnight.
To be clear, the Coalition has not flagged privatising Medicare, it has flagged privatising Medicare’s payments system. Labor saying the government wants to privatise Medicare isn’t a factual statement, it’s an over reach, but obviously a resonant one. Possibly it’s resonating because the Coalition has taken a number of decisions to wind back Medicare benefits over this current term in government in an effort to constrain health expenditures. One of those is bulk billing incentives for radiation and pathology.
Good morning good people
Hello everyone and welcome to Sunday morning. We are gathering together this morning because today is Labor’s official campaign launch. Labor plus a couple of friends. This NXT candidate has evidently absorbed the lesson of the micro party’s founder and leader, Nick Xenophon: opportunity waits for no man or woman.
Nick Xenophon Team candidate at @AustralianLabor campaign launch in Penrith @2GBNews @3AW693 @NewsTalk4BC @6PR pic.twitter.com/s9JqEw0syp
— Michael Pachi (@michaelpachi) June 18, 2016
Speaking of visitors, this time of the more welcome variety, I gather Bob Hawke, Julia Gillard and Paul Keating will be in attendance for the festivities today. Not Kevin. He’s busy. But tweeting, naturally.
Proud to be a member of the Australian Labor Party for 35 years now. Wishing @BillShortenMP all the best for the campaign launch today KRudd
— Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) June 18, 2016
Mike Bowers is out in position at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre in Penrith and reports that all is in readiness.
A couple of quick thoughts about campaign launches before we get under way. Obviously it’s a ridiculous convention to pretend you are launching a campaign when you are almost at the finish line but, in this particular campaign, the two launches coming so close to the end do present the opportunity of a focal point.
By all accounts, voters haven’t been particularly engaged over the past few weeks. Pre-poll voting is now open and twice as many people have voted over the past few days as voted in the 2013 poll. The length of the campaign has been like a rocking motion, sending the country to sleep. But Labor is planning an intensification of campaign activity (as opposed to new policy announcements, which after today, will be largely over) over the coming closing fortnight – so in a way, this really is a campaign launch, a pitch to voters to look up, take notice and compare the respective offerings. It’s a safe prediction to say Bill Shorten will try and use today as springboard into the final sprint: things will get noticeably more intense over the closing fortnight.
Let’s crack on. A reminder today’s comments thread is open for your business. If the thread’s too bracing for you, Mike Bowers and I are up and about on the twits – he’s @mpbowers and I’m @murpharoo. If you only speak Facebook you can join my daily forum here. And if you want a behind-the-scenes look at the day and the campaign as a whole, give Mike a follow on Instagram. You can find him here.
Depress the coffee plunger. Here comes Sunday.
Updated
