That will do us for this evening
You’ve been great, but that’s enough I reckon.
Let’s recap Wednesday.
- The Coalition’s tangle about superannuation continued for a second day. The morning started with several ministers deployed to water-bomb the fire Julie Bishop set yesterday on the transition to retirement measures in the budget, and ended with the cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos in a brief muddle about whether the government might backtrack or not.
- The Labor leader Bill Shorten campaigned in Brisbane and then in Sydney, and was largely muddle free, except he thought the Melbourne Storm were playing in tonight’s State of Origin match.
- The economy grew more than many economists expected both in the quarter and the year. Both sides of politics thought the national accounts made a compelling case for their respective economic plans, which of course are quite different.
- The Liberal senator Cory Bernardi thought he might link to some analysis of a chap the immigration minister and fellow conservative Peter Dutton thought should not set foot in the country because of his vile attitudes to women. Why? Well, it’s a waste of time to even wonder, really.
There was more, but I reckon that’s enough. Have a delightful evening, and we’ll do it all again tomorrow.
Updated
Fairfax Media’s Andrew Meares, from the Turnbull trail.
A bit earlier today I showed you Labor’s latest election ad on superannuation. Let’s have a look at how one of the crossbenchers from the last parliament is presenting himself to voters in light of the changes to Senate voting rules.
Here’s Ricky Muir’s election ad, which is as much about the new system as it is about Muir. And the major parties? Vote for them last, if at all.
Updated
David Speers:
So they could change?
Arthur Sinodinos:
Look I’m not going to speculate on that.
Not the full exchange here, but the preamble at least.
.@A_Sinodinos plays down reports of a backbench revolt over the coalition's super changes #ausvotes https://t.co/R4R7MPRrcs
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) June 1, 2016
Put up your hand if you are a politician, and you can explain superannuation policy. Do identify yourself now, because I suspect you’ll be in very high demand.
So basically Arthur Sinodinos just said the changes went to the party room but they weren’t necessarily outlined right down to the footnotes, so the process now is get a mandate but the government will come back post-election to have a consultation period and then legislation will be finalised and go back to the party room. Initially it sounded like Sinodinos was preparing the ground for a potential change in the policy post-election, then he yanked it back and said no, this was only consultation on subsidiary matters. What were those? Well, none actually came to mind.
Updated
Sky News political editor David Speers has shown a rare moment of mercy and moved the interview on.
Joel Fitzgibbon has taken over the interview. He asks Sinodinos whether the super changes are happening or not. Sinodinos says the Coalition will implement the changes after the election.
Joel Fitzgibbon:
Glad we cleared that up mate.
So what’s the consultation for, Speers wonders?
Sinodinos says subsidiary matters. What are those, Speers wonders. Sinodinos doesn’t think there aren’t any.
The super woes roll on
The cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos is on Sky News now. He’s asked whether the super package went to the Coalition party room before the election. Sinodinos says the super changes were part of the budget, they were presented to the party room, he says the next phase will be consultation, then legislation will go to the party room.
Q: So it might change then?
Arthur Sinodinos:
I’m not going to speculate on that.
Host David Speers says hang on, what are you saying no change, or change?
Sinodinos says the government will have a period of consultation about the policy, but it will also have a mandate to implement the changes. He also acknowledges that not all of the budget super measures were outlined in fine detail to the party room pre-election.
Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon, who is on with Sinodinos:
So you’ll have a mandate for something you are consulting on after the election?
I’m glad you cleared that up!
'Dear outraged'
Back with the lob of the dead feline also known as Roosh V.
Dear outraged, the article I linked to is interesting in light of events of last week. It doesn't mean I endorse author's other views.
— Cory Bernardi (@corybernardi) June 1, 2016
Cory Bernardi would like you to know he’s only giving partial endorsement to some content from the guy the immigration minister said he didn’t want in the country.
Updated
Back in Rockdale, a brief swerve into birthday carbs. Hope somebody dished up a slice for Mike Bowers.
Bill Shorten & Linda Burney crash a birthday party in Rockdale during a street walk @murpharoo @GuardianAus pic.twitter.com/JhVBHUxI3h
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) June 1, 2016
'Malcolm Turnbull, seriously out of touch'
While Cory Bernardi (isn’t of course) lobbing dead felines for reasons best known to him, the ALP is going hard on the superannuation issue. A new campaign ad: wicked Malcolm Turnbull coming for your super.
Roosh, not beloved of all conservatives
Back to the distasteful business of Roosh V.
This is what the immigration minister Peter Dutton said about the blogger in February.
Australia doesn’t welcome people to our country who disrespect women. The department in the past has made decisions to cancel visas of people that advocate violence, particularly against women. I’ve asked for an urgent briefing in relation to the matter. Like all Australians I’m offended by the reports that I’ve seen.
A cynical person would say that Senator Bernardi is trying to create a diversion of some kind, but we all know I’m not a cynical person.
Meanwhile, in Rockdale.
Updated
Oh, Cory
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi has lobbed a small munition into the political afternoon by linking to a Roosh article, which opens thusly.
Oh, poor, maligned, white men.
This article is particularly relevant to many Twitter users. Know thyself...https://t.co/6po2O0C3o5
— Cory Bernardi (@corybernardi) June 1, 2016
Social justice warriors believe in an extreme left-wing ideology that combines feminism, progressivism, and political correctness into a totalitarian system that attempts to censor speech and promote fringe lifestyles while actively discriminating against men, particularly white men. They are the internet activist arm of Western progressivism that acts as a vigilante group to ensure compliance and homogeny of far left thought.
I don’t know what has provoked this incursion into the campaign – I must have missed something today – but presumably there has been an outbreak of leftwing feminist totalitarianism that I have missed.
If you have no idea about Roosh V (Daryush Valizadeh), this short excerpt from his online biography will doubtless be instructive.
Six years into my career, and a little over two years after I started DC Bachelor, I quit my job and finished my first book called Bang, a textbook for picking up girls and getting laid. Afterwards I spent six rough months in South America, which I detailed in my second book called A Dead Bat In Paraguay. I rested in the States for a year before returning to South America for thirteen months. Since then I’ve released over a dozen more titles while living for over four years in Europe, with the most popular book being Day Bang, my day game manual. You can view all my books at BangGuides.com. I’m currently nomadic, spending most of my time in Ukraine, Poland, and the United States.
Updated
Like an evangelical preacher sweeping in to visit the most faithful of his flock, the prime minister was a benevolent guide, sweeping into the room with his “good friend” Wyatt Roy jumping to the stage to announce him, the local candidate Trevor Evans beaming from the sidelines. Stars burn bright inside the Church of Innovation, but on Wednesday, Turnbull was the sun.
Lovely piece from Amy Remeikis of the Brisbane Times on Malcolm Turnbull’s excitement session with the startups this morning.
Updated
Enrolment to vote at 95%
The AEC has confirmed this afternoon that a total of 15,676,659 people are enrolled to vote in the 2016 federal election.
The electoral commissioner Tom Rogers said the electoral roll has increased by over 963,000 since the last federal election.
Tom Rogers:
From the day after the announcement of the election on Sunday 8 May to the 8pm close of rolls deadline on Monday 23 May, the AEC processed over 132 000 additions to the electoral roll as part of 687,000 enrolment transactions, with the remainder mostly involving the updating of residential address details.
Importantly, the number of people estimated to be missing from the electoral roll has dropped from around 1.21 million at the 2013 federal election to just over 816,000. The proportion of eligible Australians on the roll has risen from 92.4% at the 2013 election to 95%.
Updated
Speaking of football matches, the Labor leader has cleaned up his unexpected endorsement of the Melbourne Storm for tonight’s state of origin contest.
Sorry @camsmith9, got your teams mixed up. Will be backing you & the Maroons tonight & the Storm this weekend. #goQLD #goStorm
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) June 1, 2016
Both leaders have a football match to attend this evening.
Bill Shorten is now in Rockdale and it looks like the campaigns are in lock step. Both in Brisbane this morning, now in Sydney. Malcolm Turnbull’s plane touched down at Sydney airport just after the Shorten media plane emptied.
In Brisbane, the shadow superannuation minister Jim Chalmers is in a park declaring the wheels are falling off the government’s budget. This is a reference to the super controversy today. Chalmers declares various ministers have been unable to explain or defend the changes they are making. The Labor man says the government is citing a number of 115,000 people affected by the transition to retirement changes, he says the industry tells him the figure is closer to half a million.
Not even government members support the government’s changes.
Back to super, one Coalition MP has, very tentatively, put his head above the barricades.
.@IanGoodenoughMP re super: "I have received a volume of correspondence from constituents objecting to the changes.." 1/2 @abcnews #ausvotes
— Eliza Borrello (@ElizaBorrello) June 1, 2016
"...it is a significant issue in this election, however the dilemma is to identify another area of revenue to target" given budget @abcnews
— Eliza Borrello (@ElizaBorrello) June 1, 2016
You know that Goldman Sachs report that's been mentioned about 10 times today?
The investment bank once chaired by Malcolm Turnbull has backed the view that much of the benefit from the Coalition’s company tax cuts could flow to offshore investors, as the prime minister insisted his plan was the best way to ensure continued economic growth. Responding to figures released Wednesday showing a stronger-than-expected annual growth rate of 3.1%, Turnbull said the result was “so far so good” but had not “happened by accident” and required the incentive of his company tax cut plan to be maintained.
But in an economic research note, Goldman Sachs found that if companies distributed the value of the tax cut as profits or dividends to investors then 60% of the benefit would flow to offshore investors, 10% to domestic investors and around 30% to the Australian economy. The domestic benefits would be far bigger if companies used the tax cut to grow their business, but according to Goldman Sachs “survey evidence suggests that companies are less likely to voluntarily lower the dividend payment ratio”, in other words the real-world impact was likely to be closer to the scenario where 60% of the benefit flowed offshore.
Goldman Sachs’ calculations of the impact of Australia’s system of dividend imputation on the tax cut plan comes after thinktanks the Grattan Institute and the Australia Institute also highlighted the likelihood that companies would pay out a large proportion of higher profits rather than increase their domestic investment, and the particular benefits this afforded foreign investors.
Updated
A question from the thread that I’ll deal with up here, from jclucas.
- Katharine, yesterday after you hung up the keyboard for the night, in a discussion about who would succeed Turnbull as leader if the government lost the election this comment appeared:
carnbeyleavitt
31 May 2016 08:50
In response to jclucasEven if they win the election, they will lose a shed load of seats. All the losses nominated in the 12 the journos concede are likely to go, are Turnbull supporters.He will be surrounded by Neo-cons with Abbott smirking in the wings. He’s your next Coalition leader/PM. (bold mine)
- The question is is that correct? Would it be possible to get a fact check on whether the Coalition losses would be in seats where the MP is a Turnbull supporter?If that is true the implications seem significant since Turnbull won the leadership by eleven votes.
Thanks for the question. Let me work through this bit by bit.
I have seen the various stories around predicting various outcomes in various seats, but fact is these predictions are both speculative, and, obvious, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. Obviously if there’s an anti-government swing on then a bunch of marginal seats will fall to Labor. It also makes sense that Coalition members in marginal seats would have been central to the effort to unseat Tony Abbott from the party leadership. Fact of the matter Abbott was so unpopular he was a drag on the Coalition’s marginal seats members, people inside the government tell me that marginal seats members would not have held out against the anti-Abbott swing, so moves against party leaders do tend to happen when significant groups of people fear they will lose their jobs. Marginal seats members swung for Turnbull. Ever thus. A similar dynamic was in evidence on the Labor side during the Rudd/Gillard civil war.
So we can say this as an obvious analytical point: if there’s a swing against the government when people roll round to voting on 2 July, it is highly likely that a handful of Turnbull supporters will be tipped out. If the swing is big enough, then it’s possible Malcolm Turnbull could emerge on the other side of the election not with the mandate he wants, but in a more parlous position, not only because various people have lost their jobs so he’s lost specific numbers in his own column, but because the Coalition will find a near-death experience unsettling. You really can’t assume that people are rusted on to the prime minister just because they supported him in the past. In politics most allegiances are subject to change without notice.
So while I’m really saying the situation is not as simple as the question that you’ve posed, the broad set of ideas sitting behind the question is not silly. Not at all. The prime minister, for a range of reasons, needs to perform well at this election. If he doesn’t perform well then there is no guarantee he’ll be safe post election. The Coalition is running a very presidential campaign in 2016, it really is all about the leader, so if it doesn’t work, the retribution won’t be pretty.
But it is way, way, way, way WAY too early to make any sort of predictions.
Updated
Interesting things to read and think about. My colleague Gareth Hutchens has produced a campaign essay on the Greens and their leader Richard Di Natale which contains some interesting insight into their campaign operation. It’s all about data, building it, utilising it to assist the campaign. I’ll let Gareth pick up the story.
They’ve had young supporters campaigning on the ground for six months in some electorates. Di Natale says the key is field organising, “based a little bit on the Obama strategy”.
Their model works this way. They’ve divided their electorates into segments, and each segment has a door-knocking team and a “phone-banking” team. The door-knocking teams talk to as many people as possible, and keep records of what they talk about; the phone-banking teams then use those records to call back everyone on the list who showed an interest in Greens policies or who needed help with a local issue.
There are four or five phone-banking teams in each electorate, so that means there could be 50 Greens supporters on the phones in any electorate, keeping in touch with voters on the ground.
The Greens say they don’t do robo-calls.
It’s a time-consuming way to gather detailed data on each electorate. But it pays dividends. It gives the party a rich understanding of the tapestry of each seat, allowing it to keep tabs on all the potential voters it has identified.
The Greens have used such a system for about seven months in the Victorian seat of Higgins, held by the Liberal party’s assistant treasurer, Kelly O’Dwyer.
It’s a similar system to the one they used in Melbourne in 2010 to get Adam Bandt elected the first time, and to get Scott Ludlam re-elected to the Senate in 2014. But this time it’s on a much bigger scale.
Updated
Updated
On Sky News, the Liberal MP Alex Hawke is telling his hosts concern about the super changes is a “very niche issue”. He says the transition to retirement scheme is about 1% of superannuants.
Updated
Sticking with super, I missed this earlier, but gather Green senator Sarah Hanson-Young couldn’t explain her party’s superannuation policy either. She was asked by reporters later whether she could have expressed herself more clearly?
Sarah Hanson-Young:
I think probably I should have been clearer and I – it’s a difficult area of course. We saw the deputy leader of the Liberal party not be able to explain their position yesterday. I think that the truth is here though that we need to have an honest conversation with the Australian people that the current superannuation contribution scheme is not fair.
Updated
'It's certainly an opportunity for us to explain our superannuation changes'
The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, has been campaigning in the seat of Lindsay, where the prime minister was yesterday. Reporters have asked about her being bailed up by a lady during a street walk, who apparently had concerns about a loss of benefits. Bishop says she wasn’t bailed up at all, they had a chat, and she completely understands why the lady would be unhappy with Bill Shorten as he’s not bringing back the Schoolkids bonus.
After that tidy deflection it’s time to deal with yesterday’s stuff-up. Was the Neil Mitchell interview a “gotcha moment” as she termed it yesterday?
Julie Bishop smiles in a way you could characterise as fierce if you were a close observer of the human condition.
It’s certainly an opportunity for us to explain our superannuation changes.
Updated
Where the campaign sits, this Wednesday lunchtime
Brisk. Let’s take stock.
-
Julie Bishop’s stumble on superannuation on the Neil Mitchell program yesterday has triggered a new brushfire on the budget changes to superannuation. The government is doing everything it can to put out the fire but, in the process, it has confirmed that people in the transition to retirement scheme will be paying a 15% tax on that they don’t currently pay. Malcolm Turnbull is standing by the changes, saying they are fair and overdue.
- Economic growth figures came in stronger than expected, a development that prompted both sides to argue that they had the better plan for the economy going forward. The government said the critical thing in the future was investment, and Labor was risking that by declaring war on business, and the casualty of the war was jobs. Labor said the government had presided over a huge decline in living standards, and the Coalition had no plan to address any of the pressure points.
- Malcolm Turnbull campaigned in Brisbane, brimming with excitement with a bunch of startup people and venture capital people, while Bill Shorten fielded calls from the public struggling in the old economy with issues like access to the pension, with health insurance costs and other challenges.
- The Coalition is trying to reposition slightly on the company tax cuts, presenting the policy as beneficial to small business, with the relief for big companies light years away. This started at the leaders’ debate this past weekend, and the effort is continuing. Bill Shorten couldn’t nail a question about who he was barracking for in the state of origin. Go the Melbourne Storm.
On we go, relentlessly, into the afternoon.
Updated
Quite a lot to sift through this campaign morning. I’ll be back shortly with a summary.
Let’s look through the politics briefly just to capture the picture painted by the latest national accounts, uncluttered by the election contest.
Australia’s economy is growing at an annual rate of 3.1%. The figure is much stronger than expected, and is a crucial part of the economic jigsaw puzzle that will feed into the election pitches of the Coalition, Labor, and Greens over the next few weeks.
The majority of economists had been expecting a growth rate of between 2.75% - 3%, but this figure is higher because net exports grew by much more than expected in the March quarter, by 1.1% (the consensus had been 0.7%).
The 3.1% gross domestic product (GDP) figure is crucial because the economy needs to grow around this speed to stop the unemployment rate rising.
However, the news is not all good. The GDP figure is only one measure of economic activity - it’s not a measure of the income Australians receive for that activity.
An alternative measure of Australia’s national well-being is real net national disposable income, which shows how much disposable income we have to pay for our day-to-day living expenses. That figure fell 1.1% over the last 12 months, compared to the increase of 3.1% in GDP. It means we’re being paid less for what we’re producing.
On Sky News now, David Speers says unrest is growing in government ranks about the super changes. Coalition MPs have been very disciplined about this to date, but inevitable people will break cover if the current level of intensity persists.
Several questions on the transition to retirement scheme. Will the government admit this hits lower income earners, not just high income earners?
Scott Morrison says the transition to retirement stream is 115,000 people. He stands behind his figure that 96% of people are either better off or unaffected as a consequence of the super changes.
Scott Morrison:
Now it’s important that we make sure that our superannuation system is sustainable. And the changes we have made ensure that it’s there for people in the future, not just those who have had the benefit of what have been very generous arrangements over the last 10 years or so. So they’re important changes. They’re integrity changes.
Malcolm Turnbull says funds in transition to retirement will now be taxed at 15% “rather than being tax free.”
So yes it is an increase in taxation but it is still a very concessional rate of tax and that is - it is very important – so super and transition to retirement still remains very concessional, but what we are doing is making the system fairer.
We’re proud of these changes. They’re important. They’re overdue.
Many of them have been called on - governments have been called on – to to do them for many years. They’ve been kicked into the long grass for a long time and we’ve taken them out, we’re a reforming government. We’re determined to make the super system fair and work for all Australians.
The prime minister is asked about the Goldman Sachs report which has been mentioned several times this morning. Most of the benefits of a company tax cut go to foreign investors, don’t they?
Malcolm Turnbull says he hasn’t read the report but “you have to bear in mind that the bigger companies don’t get any tax cut under our plan until eight years out. And eight years and three elections from where we are today.”
The second time he’s said this. The tax cuts for big companies are clearly going down like a lead balloon in voter land.
Q: Can I just ask on your superannuation reforms did you take those to the Liberal or the Coalition party room and if not will you and are you now facing pressure from within the party?
Malcolm Turnbull:
The budget which comprises obviously the superannuation changes is has been presented by the treasurer and has the full support naturally of the government, the Cabinet and the party room.
Q: On your company tax cut, you’ve been campaigning a lot on jobs and growth, particularly jobs. Treasury modelling suggests the employment growth benefit over the long term is only 0.01 to 0.04%. Can you stimulate the economy with a company tax cut?
Scott Morrison:
In this tough economy you take every inch of growth you can get. You take every job you can get. As a government, we’re not going to be dismissive of the ability to increase investment and the jobs and the growth that comes from that. I get the sense from Bill Shorten that somehow there’s some growth he is not happy to have. Every inch of growth matters as small or as large as it can be. We will fight for every inch of growth, every job that can be created as a result of our tax plan and our broader national economic plan.
Malcolm Turnbull is asked why companies can’t afford weekend penalty rates given the strength in the GDP numbers. Turnbull says “you know where we stand, there is a tribunal, they are conducting a review into penalty rates in some industries, not all, in retail and hospitality. They will come to a conclusion and we will respect it.”
Scott Morrison says conditions aren’t rosy, global head winds remain strong.
Scott Morrison:
The fact we have achieved these results as an economy - and that is employees, businesses, investors, everybody working together to get these numbers. They don’t happen by accident, they happen through the investment and hard work of Australians around the country. The head winds remain strong. It reinforces again why you need to stick to the national plan that is going to underpin incentives for investment in our economy.
The two men have a new formulation: Bill Shorten is waging a war on business and the casualty of the war is jobs.
The prime minister is speaking about the importance of investment and the glide path on the company tax cuts. Malcolm Turnbull says the biggest companies won’t get a tax cut for eight years.
There will be three elections between now and then.
The treasurer Scott Morrison says driving the economy through the next phase is about stimulating investment.
While the numbers are welcome, we are conscious of the fragilities that exist in these numbers and our economic plan is designed to address those fragilities.
Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison address reporters about the GDP numbers
Chris Bowen thinks the GDP figures show people should vote Labor. Naturally, the prime minister thinks the GDP numbers show people should vote for the Coalition.
Malcolm Turnbull:
You cannot succeed without a clear economic plan. Everything we have is encouraging companies to invest, to employ. The Labor party on the other hand wants to take economic growth for granted, just assume that everything will hum along without any intervention from government and at the same time, they seek to raise taxes on investment which will have the obvious consequences of less investment and fewer jobs.
So far so good.
This confirms the direction we are leading the country in, in terms of our economic plan, but there is much more work to do. We are seeking the support of Australians to complete that work on July 2.
The most sustained decline in living standards since records began: Bowen
Chris Bowen, continuing:
Beneath the headline figures, we know there is an economy struggling with falling demand and falling income growth. In these figures today we see the eighth consecutive decline in nominal income: living standards. The most sustained decline in our history since records began.
We have a government that promised to manage the economic transition but the fact of the matter is the transition could be going a whole lot better. For Australians who are trying to get into the labour market, who are wondering whether they can keep their jobs into the future, Australians aspiring for a better future for their children to make sure they have good, well-paying jobs, they have the chance to get into the housing market, Labor has plans to deal with these things. We have a plan which is the result of two years hard work.
The shadow treasurer Chris Bowen is speaking to reporters in Sydney about the GDP numbers.
Any headline figure like this is welcome. But let’s be very clear - this figure is driven entirely by net exports. Without net exports we would have had a flat quarter of economic growth. We welcome the boost in LNG exports which are a result of the facilities coming online and some government action in China as well in relation to iron ore.
But this is not a plan for Australia’s future. We can’t rely on the government of China to be stimulating - we can’t rely on Australia’s LNG exports to drive our growth going forward.
Economist Chris Richardson is speaking to the ABC about the national accounts.
Q: In the middle of an election campaign, are there any particular implications out of this for the budget bottom line?
Chris Richardson:
You will see in today’s figures that the income growth in Australia remains pressured. Why is that important? Not only because that drives living standards but because it is the one that drives the budget. The budget is effectively financed by a series of income tax, company income tax, personal income tax. The pressure you are seeing on profits in today’s figures are a reminder that the pressures on the budget haven’t gone away.
GDP: stronger than expected
And ... growth is good.
1.1% for the quarter. 3.1% for the year.
GDP coming up, followed by the prime minister and the treasurer, who will address reporters after the national accounts data is released.
Just back on the diesel fuel rebate issue that Bill Shorten was asked about during that press conference.
Divisions have erupted within Bill Shorten’s inner circle over the future of the mining industry, with Labor frontbencher Lisa Singh signing a green group’s pledge to abolish the diesel fuel rebate for mining companies.
Senator Singh, the opposition parliamentary secretary for the environment, today announced she had followed the lead of NSW north coast MP Justine Elliot and candidate Janelle Saffin in signing the pledge for environmental group 350.org.
Tasmanian Labor Senator, Lisa Singh has signed the Pollution Free Politics Pledge, calling for an end to taxpayer funded subsidies for fossil fuel companies.
Senator Singh signed the pledge that calls on all politicians to support a ban on donations from fossil fuel companies, and a ban on subsidies to fossil fuel companies. She is the fifth sitting Labor MP to sign the pledge. No Liberal MPs have yet signed.
“I support Labor’s policy on 50% of electricity coming from renewable power sources by 2030. To achieve this we need to transition away from fossil fuels and support solar, wind and other renewables,” Senator Singh said.
“It is for this reason I have signed the pledge. If we are really serious about combatting climate change we need to end our reliance on fossil fuels; that starts by ending subsidies that incentivise polluting behaviours. Labor will support investment in renewable technology and create an Emissions Trading Scheme providing a market based mechanism to reduce emissions and encourage businesses to produce electricity in a cleaner way.”
Bill Shorten backs everyone in the Origin clash, including the Melbourne Storm, who aren't playing
A couple more questions on the shoppies letting down the workers.
Then the state of origin question.
Q: You need to win seats in Queensland and in NSW, so who do you barrack for tonight?
Bill Shorten:
The Maroons. My wife is a Queenslander. I also have to say Cam Smith is Melbourne Storm boy. They are well respected in the Queensland team. I also have to say the Storm, I think, are the underdogs slightly under the bookies market and I am partial to backing the underdogs.
(Good grief, in delivering the zinger, and walking all sides of the street, you manage to screw up the Origin question. Five stars.)
Q: Another $100m spent or committed today, when it comes to paying for this, are you considering a measure in the last Labor government, the bank levy that raised half a billion dollars. Is that on the table?
Bill Shorten:
It is not on our radar.
Shorten is asked a question about the Coles deal rejected by the FWC yesterday – doesn’t that show the penalty rates system is not working?
The Labor leader says he thinks the parties need to “go back and rectify this arrangement.”
Bill Shorten:
I am not supporting the arrangement. When we talk about the role of the Fair Work Commission, it vindicates Labor’s principled position. In America, there would be no way to check this agreement. When Tony Abbott was supporting work choices, there was no way to check agreements. Labor put in the better off overall test.
Bill Shorten, continuing:
The assumption of your question is not well-founded. I am not going to feed a question which the assumptions of which are not well founded. I did you the courtesy of taking you through the history of it and it is something which I am passionate about my whole life.
I don’t accept the argument that the Fair Work Commission is going to dismantle our penalty rates system. The evidence doesn’t support it. It is not going to happen.
'What if alien life makes contact with earth'
Bill Shorten is asked whether he will support the Fair Work Commission if it reduces Sunday penalty rates. The Labor leader says when he was last in government, “I put in as a specific legislative parameter for the Fair Work Commission when it came to penalty rates that they had to acknowledge the value and impact of working unsociable hours.” He says the FWC won’t cut penalty rates.
Q: Will you accept -
Bill Shorten:
They aren’t going to [cut penalty rates].
Q: What if it does -
Bill Shorten:
What if alien life makes contact with earth?
Bill Shorten is asked about the GDP numbers. He says he hopes they’ll be positive, but for the last three years, the Coalition has called the economy wrongly.
Q: You have five MPs who have signed a petition against the diesel fuel rebate for mining companies. Given Labor is divided on this issue, can you clear up for us today do you support the rebate for mining companies and can you guarantee there will be no changes to that rebate if you win government?
Bill Shorten:
We will keep the diesel fuel rebate for mining companies.
(There’s a story around on the petition which I’ll chase up once we are through the current crush.)
Q: Given there are MPs speaking out about it, how will you manage dissent within the party room on this issue?
Bill Shorten:
Let’s not overcook this one or exaggerate it. The truth of the matter is our party has a range of views. As I said on Sunday, I lead our party and I won’t have some sort of giant witch hunt that every individual has to agree with me. The truth is when it comes to diesel rule rebate, our policy is the one I articulated. If we are talking about five MPs signing a petition, let’s talk about the 61 Liberal MPs and candidates who don’t support and want to slash penalty rates.
First question is about keeping the deficit levy. Bill Shorten says yes, we are keeping it in the medium term, because Labor thinks budget repair should be fair.
Q: Mr Bowen said yesterday Labor would make the top marginal tax rate a permanent tax rate. You just said medium [term]. Which one is it?
Bill Shorten:
It is 10 years. I am on the same page as Chris.
Q: Will the revenue from that deficit levy go to paying down or improving the deficit?
Bill Shorten:
It will going into consolidated revenue and we will have a number of priorities. We will have rigid budget discipline. We also have a real economic growth strategy for real jobs which will prioritise funding our education system. TAFE, universities, schools, child care. We will make sure we invest in nation building infrastructure from our roads to public transport and rail, right through to the NBN.
Shorten is asked about the Goldman Sachs report that was put to him on radio this morning, it shows the company tax cuts won’t cost $50bn, doesn’t that leave Labor short on funding its commitments?
Bill Shorten:
If Mr Turnbull is repudiating his own treasury numbers let me know. His own treasury department, the department of the government when it comes to framing their budget, has analysed the cost to the bottom line of the budget.
Bill Shorten is accompanied by his climate spokesman, Mark Butler.
Mark Butler:
Today, we are particularly pointing to one element of our climate change action plan that will see the solar revolution be given access to those people who simply don’t own their own house.
Time and time again we find people who are in rental properties in living arrangements like big apartment buildings or in public housing complain they don’t have access to the solar revolution. This policy announcement today of $98m into community power hubs will start to give access for those people who don’t own their own roofs to the enormous benefits of solar power.
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Bill Shorten addresses reporters in Brisbane
The Labor leader is out of his event now talking renewable energy and community hubs with the travelling reporters.
Bill Shorten:
Renewable energy is the wave of the future.
BuzzFeed says it has done some interwebs-based research on some on the innovation disciples who met the prime minister this morning in Brisbane. Some have associations with the Liberal party. I have not checked this independently.
The poster boys for Malcolm Turnbull's start up policy are... all... young Liberals pic.twitter.com/SyKFgRih6h
— BuzzFeedOz Politics (@BuzzFeedOzPol) June 1, 2016
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Updated
Mel did mention this early but in case you’ve tuned in to the live coverage only recently, there’s lots of focus on the national accounts figures, due later this morning.
The Coalition’s campaign spokesman Mathias Cormann, from earlier today, on super.
Q: Will you go back to the drawing board on your superannuation changes or find a better way to sell it?
Mathias Cormann:
Our changes in the budget to our superannuation tax arrangements are designed to make the system fairer and more sustainable. It was not sustainable to have a growing proportion of income generated in Australia entirely outside the tax system. If you have a growing proportion of income generated in Australia attracting zero per cent income tax, that means that everybody else in Australia has to pay more tax in order to make up the difference. These changes are very carefully calibrated to ensure that superannuation is more sustainable, is fairer. The purpose of tax concessions in superannuation is to encourage people to save more, in order to provide an income in retirement to replace or supplement the age pension. The purpose of these tax concessions is not to provide a vehicle to tax effectively accumulate wealth and to tax effectively transfer wealth between generations.
Q: Do you accept that if the government was doing a good job selling the superannuation changes to the voting public that there wouldn’t be this level of hysteria and fear expressed on talkback radio?
Mathias Cormann:
We have made some changes which mean that a number of people who were able to generate income tax free will now have to pay 15% tax on some of those earnings, some of that income. We understand that is not something that is necessarily popular. But we believe that the changes that we have made are fair. We believe that they are important changes that make the superannuation system more sustainable and we will continue to explain what it is that we have done and why we have done it. Over time we would like to think that the majority of people will come to accept that what we are doing here is the right thing.
Sky News grabbed the prime minister on his way out of the Brisbane event. How is he travelling?
Malcolm Turnbull:
I’m good, I’m great I’m pumped up, I’m so inspired.
Unions aren’t the only group cranky with the Coalition. The Institute of Public Affairs, normally a Coalition ally, is on the field again today about the super changes. The IPA has been hot to trot against the changes from the beginning. This excerpt is from the ABC.
John Roskam, from the Institute for Public Affairs, said it was “clear that many Australians who are not classed as rich are affected”.
“So for example, one particular superannuationfund estimates that up to 90 per cent of their members who use these pension programs earn less than $100,000 a year,” he said.
“There are many people who earn less than $60,000 who are affected by these changes. So for the Government to claim it’s simply affecting high net worth individuals is simply not correct.”
And Roskam said anger among many the conservative voters was building.
“What occurred in Julie Bishop’s interview on Melbourne radio is a manifestation of a problem that the entire Government has which is it can’t explain its policy,” he said.
“And the Coalition has to listen and understand the very grave concerns that are being created in the community by these changes.”
Union protesters are giving Malcolm Turnbull a rousing send off in Brisbane.
Union protesters giving the PM some free advice in Brisbane #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/Lw1CLGsieH
— Adam Todd (@_AdamTodd) June 1, 2016
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Malcolm Turnbull full of ebullience with the tech disciples – Bill Shorten and a bloke on Brisbane talkback whose body has been burned out at 55 by a lifetime of factory work. Two Australias. Two campaigns.
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That last 30 minutes really was a tale of two campaigns.
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A lady in Brisbane is asking Bill Shorten about lifetime health cover penalties. Shorten says Labor hasn’t yet announced its health insurance policies.
He’s then asked about a Goldman Sachs report which suggests the cost of the company tax cut is less than treasury thinks.
Bill Shorten:
Mr Turnbull’s old bank that he worked for has come out with this report. I am going to take the Treasury department of Australia, that is the organisation who Mr Turnbull relies upon for his budget numbers.
A final question about what Shorten will do to reduce debt.
What we will do is we will prioritise that we will have more savings to the bottom line of the budget than spending, and that we’ve got plans to improve our overall surplus position in the medium term, and when we’ve released all of our policies at the end of that, we will be in a position to explain how we are improving the budget both in the four year period and the next 10 years.
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Yeah!
This is the prime minister, in the cloud.
Bill Shorten has been asked about offshore processing.
Q: How you can justify the continuation of these torture camps for any reason other than virulent racism and Islamophobia?
Bill Shorten:
We are not racist and we’re not Islamaphobes at all. But let’s all be straight here ...
Shorten says Labor wants to stop the drownings at sea.
The point you make about semi or indefinite detention, if we get elected I will send my immigration minister as soon as we are sworn in to sit down with the high commissioner on refugees and make resettlement a reality.
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Back at the Turnbull event, Pablo from River City Labs is telling the prime minister there is very little red tape in Australia compared to his home country.
Malcolm Turnbull wants to talk about the start-up eco-system.
Back on the ABC, Bill Shorten is pressed on the NBN.
Bill Shorten:
Not everything can be done in a 15-second sound bite which the media like. I am going to answer Eugene’s question. What we will do is have a greater proportion of fibre in our solution on the NBN. We are not going to rip up everything that the Liberal party has done. If I came in here and said that we will start again from scratch, that doesn’t help anyone. But what I can promise, Eugene, is there will be much more fibre our NBN propositions and we are not satisfied that just sending it to the node is a sufficient solution. We will have more to say in the next couple of weeks.
My background is actually science.
Malcolm Turnbull is talking now to a man in a jacket who is growing his team after meeting a financier at a barbecue. He’s in the health sector and entirely cloud hosted.
Malcolm Turnbull:
So that was a barbecue starter, not a barbecue stopper!
Updated
On ABC in Brisbane, Bill Shorten is facing questions about the Fair Work Commission’s decision to reject a workplace deal between right-wing union the SDA and Coles, which it found left many workers worse off relative to the award. Shorten told his host “I am not here to defend the SDA ... in terms of the union you have to the union about concerns their members have with them.”
The ABC host plays a clip from Duncan Hart, who brought the case against Coles and he describes as a “poor little Marxist from Brisbane”. Hart blasts Labor for not promising to legislate against cuts to penalty ratesand for the “pathetic” response from Labor figures to his David and Goliath case against Coles.
Shorten said FWC would rework the agreement. “What’s happened in the last couple of days is proof positive that the system actually does work. Now, I can share frustration if an agreement has got passed which upon subsequent review doesn’t meet standard but that’s why we have a no disadvantage test.”
On the radio, Bill Shorten is dealing with talkback callers. One former factory worker wants to know about raising the pension age to 70.
Q: I used to work in a factory for 30 years. I am burnt out. There’s a lot of people burnt out. We aren’t even near 65 let alone 70, Bill.
Bill Shorten:
I get. Labor is opposing is increasing the retirement age from 67 to 70. We are opposing that.
Over at the prime minister’s event, Malcolm Turnbull is harnessing the capacity of the cloud. A lady with glasses is talking about building things into the workflow.
Malcolm Turnbull:
Yeah, Six Pivot!
(I’m struck by the parallel universes here.)
The prime minister is accompanied by Wyatt Roy, also minus tie.
Malcolm Turnbull:
Sarah, what about fashion?
It’s kind of like an investment seminar. People in T-shirts with logos, iPhones aloft, recording. Turnbull wants to know who is in the cloud. A young man in a blue T-shirt with a logo, “Go” is in the cloud. The prime minister is delighted.
(Too early in the campaign to call peak Malcolm. But this event comes close.)
Malcolm Turnbull:
Hey! Jake! Talking about the cloud …
Updated
Elsewhere in Brisbane, Malcolm Turnbull has thrown off the tie and is talking innovation in Brisbane. He appears to be interviewing the owner of a startup. “It’s really about building an ecosystem, not about building a company,” the startup bloke tells him.
Malcolm Turnbull:
That’s awesome!
Turnbull is working through a small crowd. Awesome, fantastic.
Updated
Q: I ask that because you say you support coal mining or the Labor party supports coal mining but Terri Butler, your member in Brisbane, does not support coal mining?
Terri Butler:
I don’t support the Adani coal mining. Our state parliament didn’t have much discretion, they were using laws amended by the Newman government.
Q: Can you clarify for me, does the Labor party support or not support coal mines like Adani?
Bill Shorten:
If the Labor party is elected to the government on July 2, there will still be coal mining on the July 3. A Commonwealth government I lead will not be investing any money in the Adani coal mine.
The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, is in Brisbane this morning and speaking to the ABC now.
Q: Does the Australian Labor party support coalmining?
Bill Shorten:
Ah, yes, we think coalmining is part of the energy mix going forward but we also support putting greater investment into renewable energy. The truth of the matter is the world is reaching a tipping point in terms of climate change. We have to act to be able to restrain the increases in temperature which are under way and leading to extreme weather events and the very harmful effect that has on our economy. So we need to focus a lot more on renewable energy.
Q: Do you fully support the Adani coalmine here in Queensland, which will be the biggest coalmine, and export very clean Queensland coal to India?
Bill Shorten:
Whether or not the Adani coalmine goes ahead will be up to the investors of Adani.
Q: But does the Australian Labor party support it?
Bill Shorten:
You ask do I support it? It’s not up to me to support a particular business enterprise. What I do say is that, under a Labor government, coalmining will still go on. What I also say is that we won’t be expending any commonwealth resources on the Adani mine.
Updated
Meanwhile, in Como. Campaigning in a tunnel. Morning Como.
Day 24 - Back to Como Railway Station this morning and getting a fantastic response. pic.twitter.com/VjcNGT8hs4
— Craig Kelly MP (@CraigKellyMP) May 31, 2016
I imagine the prime minister went into his conversation with Alan Jones earlier this morning immaculately prepped on super, but Alan didn’t want to talk about super this morning, he wanted to talk about that next week. Alan wanted to talk about windfarms – why are they being subsidised by someone or other – and whether Malcolm Turnbull was Liberal or Labor, and whether he was stuffing things up by failing to go in hard on Bill Shorten about his manifest wickedness. Thus far Alan Jones has been Malcolm Turnbull’s only major interview during the campaign. I’m sure talking about Alan’s various preoccupations to Alan’s fairly modest audience is a brilliant media strategy. You can see that, right?
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Water bombing
Thanks, Mel, good morning everyone and welcome to Wednesday, it’s delightful to be with you. The Coalition campaign will be sending a collective thank you card to Julie Bishop this morning because the foreign minister’s stumble yesterday has projected superannuation to the front of the agenda in the early morning electronic news cycle. Yes the thank you card reference is irony. Because Bishop couldn’t explain the transition to retirement scheme yesterday on the Neil Mitchell program, breakfast radio hosts have taken advantage of the few hours heads up to get across the scheme. Michaelia Cash, Kelly O’Dwyer and Mathias Cormann have all taken their turn in various studios to try to fend off questions about the budget changes impacting lower income earners, in contrast to the government’s arguments at budget time that the changes only hit the top-shelf income earners.
Cormann’s formulation this morning is the budget changes “predominantly” affect high income earners. Predominantly is the more accurate description, given if you are taking advantage of the transition to retirement scheme, you will now pay 15% tax. Let’s take the cameo from the budget papers to illustrate. Let’s meet Sebastian. “Sebastian is 57 years old, earns $80,000 and has $500,000 in his superannuation account. He pays income tax on his salary and his fund pays $4,500 tax on his $30,000 earnings. Sebastian decides to reduce his work hours to spend more time with his grandchildren. He reduces his working hours by 25% and has a corresponding reduction in his earnings to $60,000. He commences a transition to retirement income stream worth $20,000 per year so that he can maintain his lifestyle while working reduced hours. Currently, Sebastian pays income tax but his fund pays nothing on the earnings from his pool of superannuation savings. Under the government’s changes, while the earnings on Sebastian’s superannuation assets will no longer be tax free they will still be taxed concessionally (at 15%). He will still have more disposable income than without a transition to retirement income stream. This ensures he has sufficient money to maintain his lifestyle, even with reduced work hours.”
This was Neil Mitchell’s point yesterday: the changes also hit comparatively less wealthy superannuants involved in the transition to retirement scheme. Kelly O’Dwyer told Radio National this morning the size of the group affected by the 15% tax was just over 115,000 people. The firepower the Coalition campaign threw at the early morning news cycle today indicates they know they have a political problem with super, and they are trying to contain the outrage to the segment of the Coalition base that has been outraged about the changes since the moment they were announced. We’ll see if the water bombing succeeds.
Let’s crack on. 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.
No transition to retirement in evidence here, onwards, Wednesday.
Updated
ABC News 24 wrapped up their interview with Mathias Cormann with this question:
Finally, picking up on Peta Credlin last night, do you see a return of Tony Abbott to the prime ministership?
No.”
Melissa Davey signing off now and handing over to Katharine Murphy in Canberra. I’ll see the early birds here again tomorrow from about 6am.
Updated
While I was listening in to other interviews, the assistant treasurer, Kelly O’Dwyer, was on ABC radio talking superannuation.
From AAP:
Australians taking advantage of transition-to-retirement rules are still getting a good deal despite losing a tax-free status on earnings, the federal government insists.
About 115,000 people – aged between 60 and 65 – are working and receiving a pension from their superannuation fund as they approach full retirement, O’Dwyer says.
Paying 15% on earnings, rather than the marginal tax rate, meant they would have more money in their pocket at the end of the day, she told ABC radio.”
Updated
Brendan O’Connor, the shadow minister for employment and workplace relations, is on the ABC’s Radio National program. He’s asked what Labor will do if the Fair Work Commission cuts Sunday penalty rates.
We will respect the decision of the commission, but we believe we can argue it will be unfair to many workers if the commission tried to unfairly affect them by way of this decision.”
On the Fair Work Commission decision to lift the minimum wage by 2.4%, O’Connor says:
It’s not a large amount of money, but every bit counts for people on very low wages. The commission pointed out even people receiving this wage are in households below the poverty line, so there’s still more work to be done. But look, I’d say the decision was welcomed.
However, the government is proposing family tax benefits cuts, any tax relief was not there for people on the minimum wage, so you have to take those things into account in terms of how people will go because of other decisions made by the government.”
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Meanwhile, Bill Shorten has begun the day with a 8km run in Brisbane.
The Bill Shorten run. Time would have been better if he was able to jaywalk #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/0lLlgSlTiN
— Emma Reynolds (@emmareyn) May 31, 2016
Bill Shorten running in Brisbane with a QUT robotics doctor #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/0fROnxFmwm
— Emma Reynolds (@emmareyn) May 31, 2016
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You might remember that on Monday I mentioned on this blog reports that the former treasurer Joe Hockey, who delivered his infamous “age of entitlement” speech in 2012, was allegedly at around the same time using his taxpayer-funded Cabcharge card for “phantom journeys” amounting to thousands of dollars.
Fairfax Media has more on this story, reporting:
Hockey tried to block the release of five-year-old hire car travel details by arguing it could put him at risk by allowing prediction of his movements in a heightened terrorism environment.
The argument was made during a freedom of information battle with Fairfax Media, which on Monday revealed the rules for MPs using privately chauffeured hire cars were repeatedly broken in relation to Mr Hockey’s Cabcharge account as shadow treasurer.
It revealed drivers from a favoured hire car company – Ecotaxi, owned by former policemen Russell Howarth – had filled out and signed on Mr Hockey’s behalf Cabcharge dockets worth at least $10,000 from as early as 2009.”
Updated
More from the Cormann interview. He’s asked about the foreign minister Julie Bishop’s struggle yesterday to explain the transition to retirement component of Australia’s superannuation system.
How does that work, minister?
Well I mean as the prime minister said yesterday, you know, superannuation tax arrangements can be complex. When it comes to the transition to retirement, I mean this relates to people who essentially have reached an age where they can access their superannuation, called the preservation age, but those people are not yet retired so they’re both accessing an income stream through their superannuation while still also drawing a salary because they’re still working.”
And that income stream, excuse me for interrupting, has been tax free at the moment. After the budget there will will be a 15% tax on it so people will be hurt?
This is an integrity measure so it’s essentially putting the tax arrangements in relation to earnings for people who still make contributions to their superannuation because they’re still working, in line with those that apply to everybody else.
I mean what was happening here is, this was meant to help people prepare for retirement by reducing their working hours and supplementing their income through this transition to retirement income stream, and what’s been happening increasingly is that people have been working continuing to work full time and as well as drawing a tax-free income stream and, you know, obviously that wasn’t the original intent of this arrangement.”
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While I was tuning in to Turnbull on 2GB, the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, has been on ABC News 24. He was asked:
A lot of economists are now saying that Australia’s relatively strong trade performance is masking a weak domestic economy. Do you agree with that assessment?
Well, the Australian economy continues to transition from record resource investment and construction-driven growth to broader drivers of growth and that’s why we’ve been saying that Australia needs this government to continue to implement our national economic plan for jobs and growth.
We’ve benefited from the period of very strong demand and high global prices for our key commodity exports, that’s come off. And now we need to transition the economy to broader drivers of growth and that has, you know, inevitably some challenges along the way and we are navigating our way through that with our plan for jobs and growth.”
So the economy is still fairly fragile?
Obviously the global economy continues to slow. There are global economic headwinds. There are also opportunities but that is why we’ve been pursuing things like our export trade deals to help our businesses in Australia get better access to key markets overseas.
And you can see in our export performance how obviously exports are very important for our overall economic performance. That’s why we’re doing things like pursue our ambitious innovation agenda, our ambitious defence industry plan to help local manufacturing and that’s why we’re focusing on a more competitive tax rate for business, to attract more investment here domestically and to boost growth, productivity and overtime real wages.”
He is then asked about Australia’s official growth figures due to be released later this morning. What will he consider a good result?
Look, the numbers will be what they are. The point is that whatever the number is that is revealed today we need to continue to press ahead to implement our plan for jobs and growth, to put our economy on the strongest possible foundation for the future, to be as competitive and as productive as possible and that is what the government is focused on.”
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Turnbull has turned to the need to revive the Australian Building and Construction Commission, in an interview plagued by a bad phone line ... I’m struggling to catch it all, I’m sorry.
[It’s] the only way we can get the rule of law restored in the construction sector and the building code re-established to ensure you don’t get shocking agreements between the CFMEU and builders … you talk to builders here [in Brisbane], developers here, they will tell you on union jobs there are only three tilers here that are allowed on site. And no one else will get a look-in.
The CFMEU stand over the builders and stand over developers and because the rule of law does not apply they get away with it. The Labor party took it away, as they acted at the behest of the unions.”
Reception suggests the PM may be speaking to Jones from a steel lined cupboard #ausvotes
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) May 31, 2016
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Now Jones is referring to calls he’s had to his show from people concerned that Turnbull doesn’t have a clear plan. Turnbull responds:
The plan is an economic plan that will deliver stronger economic growth and will deliver more jobs. It will deliver tax cuts to hard working families and to small and medium businesses.”
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Jones is asking Turnbull about why he’s set up a fund to spur investment in renewable energy. Everyday Australians are saying to themselves, ‘Hang on, [the government doesn’t] subsidise my business,’ Jones says. So why do renewable energy industries need tax payer money?
They’re not getting taxpayers’ money, Alan, the renewable energy target has an expense to electricity consumers overall but its a commitment that’s been there ... the disruption you would cause if you tried to remove the ...
Jones interjects: “We’ll talk about that on another day.” On to the next topic...
Updated
Turnbull is on the Alan Jones program, and Jones opens by asking him about the budget deficit.
How do you turn this around?
Well Alan, the only way you turn it around is by containing expenditure, keeping it under control and living within your means and above all growing the economy. The faster the economy grows the stronger revenues grow.
That’s where Shorten’s war against business is self-defeating. It is business that provides the jobs that generate employment and the tax revenues that pay for everything.”
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Last night Labor’s Tanya Plibersek, the party’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, was asked to weigh in on comments made by Bill Shorten that the US Republican candidate Donald Trump is “barking mad”. She was questioned by ABC 7.30 host, Leigh Sales:
If the future Australian prime minister considers, you know, the potential future US president “barking mad”, how could Australia in good faith continue to rely on the United States’ judgment and leadership and, indeed, follow it into conflict?
Look, I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that some of Mr Trump’s ideas are a little bit out there. I think there’s plenty of people in the United States saying the same thing.
But our relationship is – our relationship between our nations is about more than the relationship between the president and the prime minister. It depends on many decades of relationships between individuals, between our institutions, between our militaries, between our cultural institutions. It’s a big and wide and deep relationship.”
Of course. But nonetheless, if you consider the person at the helm of it to be mad, can you give an assurance to Australians that a future Australian Labor government wouldn’t follow that person’s leadership into conflicts; into other foreign policy areas?
Well, I think that’s a very important point to make: not just at the time of a presidential election in the United States, but more generally. We’ve always said that we want alliance and not compliance: that it’s vital for Australia to make its own judgments about the conflicts that we enter into.”
Full transcript here.
Shorten - Trump 'barking mad.' Plibersek says the alliance will withstand such a President. https://t.co/IXiGo4xSLF pic.twitter.com/7iBl5MvKti
— Latika M Bourke (@latikambourke) May 31, 2016
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Expect a lot more talk of “jobs and growth” today. Australia’s official growth figures are due out today and many economists expect the GDP will have picked up during the March quarter.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release the figures at about 11.30am. Business Insider has this handy guide to the state of play.
Our photographer Mike Bowers posted this just after we closed off the blog yesterday. So much awkward.
Bill Shorten "collecting kisses" while campaigning at Carindale in Brisbane @murpharoo @GuardianAus #politicslive pic.twitter.com/vpH0T8zQxW
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) May 31, 2016
There’s political disengagement, then there’s this.
Keeping on the theme of former leaders coming back to haunt us, in the minds of some of the people in the electorate of Griffith, it seems the former Labor PM Kevin Rudd never really went away.
According to the Courier-Mail, voters in the marginal seat “still believe Rudd is their local MP, despite ‘Kevin 07’ relaunching his political ambitions overseas almost three years ago”:
Labor door knockers have highlighted a problem for [Labor member for Griffith] Terri Butler, who yesterday said she was not surprised some voters believed Mr Rudd represented their interests.
Held by a margin of just 3%, Ms Butler’s seat is considered marginal, and in the past three weeks it has been visited by opposition leader Bill Shorten twice.
Ms Butler was not surprised some people still thought Mr Rudd was still the local member.
‘If people are mistaking me for Kevin Rudd I’ll take that as a compliment,’ she said.
‘He was a popular local member for almost 20 years and he was so much a part of people’s lives I’m not surprised that people still feel very fondly towards him.’
Mr Rudd lost office in 2013. He had rolled prime minister Julia Gillard, who had replaced him when he was in his first term.”
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Guardian Australia’s political editor, Lenore Taylor, writes that “only about 40,000 of the 870,000 small businesses getting a tax cut under the Coalition’s ‘jobs and growth’ plan are likely to use the bonus to expand their operations”.
This is according to the chief executive of the Council of Small Business of Australia. Lenore explains:
Cosboa strongly supports the tax cuts and investment incentives offered by the Turnbull government in its May budget’s ‘jobs and growth package’, but its chief executive, Peter Strong, said the extension of the instant asset write-off for investments would give the government much more ‘bang for its buck’ in terms of economic growth than the additional tax cuts.
And he said the tax cut would benefit only the minority of businesses that left the extra money in their company to pay for expansion. Strong estimates that would be around 40,000 businesses over the next few years, which he says was ‘still a very good figure’.
The economic benefit of the $48bn tax cut package is at the heart of Malcolm Turnbull’s election campaign. The first tranche of the tax cuts flow to businesses with a turnover of up to $10m. The prime minister says those companies employ 5 million Australians and it is ‘self-evident’ that ‘they will all benefit from that support because they will see more investment in their business’.
The tax cuts are also central to the Coalition’s negative campaign, with Turnbull accusing Bill Shorten of waging a ‘war on business’ because Labor opposes most of the tax cut plan.”
Updated
Turnbull will be interviewed by Alan Jones on 2GB in about an hour, I’ll bring you that exchange as it happens.
Updated
Good morning, and welcome to Wednesday and politics live. When our deputy political editor, Katharine Murphy, closed this blog off yesterday evening she left us with the latest Essential poll results, which found the Coalition just ahead of Labor on the two-party-preferred measure, 51% to 49%.
Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating is still ahead as preferred prime minister at 40%, though this is down 3%. It’s still a close race and I’m sure there’ll be poll pondering and responses to it this morning.
Perhaps more importantly, the poll also gave us insight into which leader Australians would most trust to look after their pet.
Guess which leader people would most trust to look after their pet? Hint: he likes unions #Essential Poll #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/A4rmSwGHqV
— Joanna Mather (@JoannaMather) May 31, 2016
But enough about yesterday’s polls and on to today. Melissa Davey with you here, taking you through until 8.30am, before Murph takes the reins.
The big picture
The prime minister has jumped to the deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop’s defence after her train-wreck interview with Neil Mitchell yesterday. The usually well-informed, cool and collected Bishop struggled while facing questioning about the government’s superannuation policy.
Neil asked her: How does the transition to retirement scheme work?
Well Neil, this is obviously a gotcha moment, you want me to go through … it’s not my portfolio and –
Mitchell: “No, no. This is the hole in your whole logic. You’re saying it’s only 4% of taxpayers. You, Josh Frydenberg, neither of you understand the transition to retirement. That’s clear and this is where you’re hitting average people. Not the fat cats, the average people.”
But asked about Bishop’s less-than-convincing answers about a topic which was, to be fair, outside of her portfolio, Turnbull said superannuation was a “notoriously complex” topic:
But I’d say this to you — it’s not very complex to know whether you own a $2.3m negatively geared house, most people can work that out.”
That was, of course, a stab at the embattled Labor MP David Feeney, who failed to declare one of his properties.
But Labor’s spokesman for financial services and superannuation, Jim Chalmers, said Bishop’s failure to adequately answer raised questions about the policy. He told the ABC:
The government likes to pretend thats it’s only a very small proportion of people at the top who have been affected, but the evidence we’ve received is that people on various incomes are impacted by that change.”
And the former chief of staff to Tony Abbott, Peta Credlin, who had a frosty relationship with Bishop, also weighed in, accusing the government of failing to explain its policy. She told Sky News viewers:
The government, if it’s got a policy, has got to defend it or it has to fix it. It can’t be in this limbo land where it’s not able to explain it. It is going to bite the Coalition if it is not able to deal with it properly.”
Meanwhile, News Corp Australia reports that the Queensland senator Glenn Lazarus copied his party’s central document from Senator Nick Xenophon, lifting his political rival’s constitution almost verbatim. The pair are fighting for one of the state’s Senate seats.
News reports:
The copy-and-paste job of the constitution, which sets out what the party stands for and how it is run, includes some typos which have been carried across.
One of the only noticeable differences in the 22-page document is replacing the words “Nick Xenophon Team” with “Glenn Lazarus Team” and “South Australia” with “Queensland” throughout.
But even the lifting of the document is imperfect, with one section on “delegates” leaping straight into unrelated dot points. It seems a portion of the original has been missed out.
The Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) is running two Senate candidates in Queensland.
Senator Lazarus said a number of the micro parties, including the Jacqui Lambie Network, had developed their constitutions together, working with Senator Xenophon.”
Finally, an Australian Population Research Institute analysis has cast doubt on Labor’s claims that the Coalition’s plan to freeze the Medicare Benefits Scheme for a further two years until 2020 to save $925m would hit bulk-billing rates.
The Australian reported on the findings, writing:
A growing glut of doctors has forced GPs to “chase patients” and pushed bulk-billing rates to record highs, leaving Medicare vulnerable to overuse that will add to its projected cost blowout of more than $35 billion within a decade.
Growth in GP numbers of almost 50 per cent over the past decade — 2.5 times population growth — has undermined doctors’ ability to charge fees above the Medicare Benefits Schedule.
‘There are so many GPs seeking patients that few could risk charging a co-payment because patients would go around the corner to a competitor who bulk bills,’ said report author Bob Birrell. ‘Oversupply is the cause of escalation of GP costs that the Coalition is trying to curtail. But freezing the rebate is just a Band-Aid.’
Mr Birrell called for a lowering of the intake of overseas-trained doctors and new limits on where doctors funded by Medicare were able to practise.”
On the campaign trail
Today Bill Shorten will announce $98.7m towards the creation of up to 10 community power hubs in the areas of most need to deal with the challenges of implementing renewable energy solutions.
The hubs will work with local communities to support the development of renewable projects, providing legal and technical expertise and startup funding. Examples of projects that could be eligible include shared arrays of solar panels for groups of renters, known as “solar gardens” and retrofitting of social housing to promote energy efficiency.
Turnbull will be in Brisbane focusing on innovation. He’ll announce $15m to increase support to Australia’s startup businesses by expanding the incubator support program.
It will add to the $8m already allocated to the program to increase the number of startup incubators and accelerators in Australia, support the expansion of existing high-performing incubators and attract “experts in residence’ to provide specialist advice to startup businesses.
The campaign you should be watching
Today, Page will be in focus as the Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce, campaigns in the seat held by his colleague Kevin Hogan by a margin of 3.1%.
Page is the scene of a Labor resurgence led by Janelle Saffin, who held the seat from 2007 to 2013. Joyce is facing a similar fight in his electorate of New England with the return of the independent Tony Windsor. He acknowledged this week that the fight for his own seat would be a tough one. But, according to AAP:
Joyce has rallied supporters – dubbed the ‘killer canaries’ due to their bright yellow T-shirts – to do their best to keep both seats in the hands of the country party.
The deputy prime minister conceded while the Nationals may not have the best social media campaign or the ability to nab newspaper front pages, the party did have old-school tricks.
‘The most powerful thing you ever have in politics is your people,’ Mr Joyce told a group of volunteers in Casino, near Lismore, NSW.
‘Every one of you knows five, six, seven people – you change votes.’”
Joyce will make a sports funding announcement in Lismore before travelling to Bundaberg for a street walk and then on to Gympie.
And another thing(s)
From AAP, Senator Nick Xenophon has posed for the men’s magazine GQ Australia, dressed by Target. AAP reports:
Standing in front of posters emblazoned with ‘make ship happen’ Xenophon’s Target suit would likely be the first of its kind to be photographed for men’s magazine GQ Australia.
In a press release Mr Xenophon reveals he refused to be styled by the magazine, sticking to his rigid $100 clothes cap for the shoot which he says includes Lowes shoes and Kmart undies.
The June/July issue of the magazine, which has Liam Hemsworth on the cover, features a Q&A with the senator who talks about his dislike of being called a politician and his respect for ‘charming’ prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
‘In state parliament, I had the title The Honourable and after 10 years they told me I could apply to have the title for life, to put it on my letterhead. I loathe that crap,’ he tells the magazine.
The magazine will hit newsstands on Monday.”
Because it’s been too long since we had some comment on an Abbott comeback ...
Asked about whether Tony Abbott still has his eye on a comeback, the deputy PM Barnaby Joyce replied:
He will want to, but he’ll realise he can’t. To say that he doesn’t have a desire is ridiculous – to say that he can’t overcome that desire by the reality that’s just not going to happen [is another].”
Thi sprompted a scathing response from Abbott’s former chief of staff, Peta Credlin, who did not mince her words on Sky News last night:
I think that’s absolute rubbish. I was going to say horse shit but I don’t know if I can say that on TV. Honestly, Barnaby, get back on the wombat trail – please leave this alone. Tony’s made absolutely clear that the Abbott years are over, and no one can look at his performance during this campaign and see that he’s anything other than a team player.”
The “wombat trail” is a nickname for the Nationals campaign through regional Australia.
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