Day 36 (pretty much) done
Both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten have wrapped up their public events for the afternoon, so we might leave the daily political grind there for now.
For a public holiday (in most states) it has been quite a big day, headlined by Labor’s long-awaited announcement on the NBN.
We’ve also seen the Coalition’s first environment announcement of the campaign, although according to my colleague Michael Slezak, the policy looks less like a way to save the Great Barrier Reef than “a rescue mission for the government’s credibility on reef policy”.
It may not even be legal to use money from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation fund in this way.
Mikey writes:
According to the CEFC Act, lending that money to water quality projects would be illegal. The CEFC can spend money only on “clean energy technologies”, which are defined in the act as energy-efficiency technologies, low-emission technologies or renewable energy technologies.
It’s not at all clear how some of the projects spruiked as part of the announcement could be spent in accordance with that law.
Mikey says that Labor’s promise of $500m over five years, as opposed to $1bn over 10 years under the Coalition, was marginally better because it was “actual funding,” not loans, but both fall far short.
Says the Australian Marine Conservation Society’s Imogen Zethovan:
Scientists and economists have said we need billions – not millions.
I’ll leave you on that cheerful note. Katharine Murphy will be back with Politics Live to cover Bill Shorten’s appearance on Q&A tonight. So we’ll see you then, politics fans.
Updated
Malcolm Turnbull is in the air now headed for Western Australia. This is what awaits him.
With @cporterwa standing shoulder to shoulder with a family business that Bill Shorten wants to take off the road pic.twitter.com/fuZVNJaD5N
— Michaelia Cash (@SenatorCash) June 13, 2016
Updated
Bill Shorten has toured a photographic studio in western Sydney which had the same strange lack of edges as a James Turrell instillation but fortunately less nudity.
Let’s take a break from the federal election for a moment to look at a candidate for the 2017 West Australia election, who is in trouble for describing a woman in a skin-care advertisement as having “a head like a half-eaten pie”.
Liberal candidate Daniel Parasiliti came within 24 votes of winning the state seat of Midland from Labor’s Michelle Roberts in 2013 and has been endorsed to run again next March. He has been pulled up twice in the past two weeks for inappropriate comments on social media.
According to a report on the ABC, the latest round referred to a critique of an advertisement, which said: “Kristina Bell on neutrogena, if you want to sell skin care don’t have a d-class celebrity with a head like a 1/2 eaten pie to sell ur product.”
Deputy premier and women’s interests minister, Liza Harvey, said the tweet was “not terribly professional”.
She told the ABC:
Once you put it out on social media it is there forever. In that context if there is more of these matters with Daniel Parasiliti, he may need to reconsider his position.
I’m going to assume Parasiliti actually meant Kristen Bell, aka Veronica Mars, who is a Nutrogena “ambassador”.
Updated
On Sky News, Ed Husic has been asked to answer the raven-writing desk riddle: how can Bill Shorten argue that he should stay out of the CFA dispute in Victoria, on the basis that it’s a state issue, and simultaneously involve himself in council amalgamations in NSW, which is also clearly a state issue?
Husic, shockingly, said Shorten was right in both cases.
He said that on the one hand, the CFA dispute is an industrial agreement between the United Firefighters Union and the state-controlled CFA, while on the other, there was “an ongoing interest by federal government in local government”.
In contrast, Malcolm Turnbull got involved in the CFA debate but not in the council amalgamation debate.
Take that with whatever measure of salt you deem appropriate.
Updated
If you are thoroughly sick of the election campaign, take heart: pre-polling opens in fewer than 20 hours. You could, theoretically, vote tomorrow and then retreat to your pillow fort until Sunday, 3 July.
I am not endorsing that course of action, but if you are so inclined here is a list of the pre-poll voting places.
Updated
The communications minister, Mitch Fifield, has just given a press conference. He says Labor is incorrect to say that it will deliver its rejigged version of the NBN at the same time as the Coalition. The Coalition, he said, was on track to complete the NBN by 2020.
Labor thinks the Coalition will take until 2022, which is also the deadline it adopted.
Fifield said the NBN was badly managed under Labor and well managed under the Coalition.
The story of the NBN under this government has been a good one, with a new board, a new management, a new attitude and a new mandate.
Under Labor the NBN would be delayed by two years and probably be more expensive to recover the extra money spent on it. (“I’m being generous in accepting Labor costings on face value ... I would hazard a guess that ... whatever Labor does will be substantially more than $8bn.”)
We’ve got the $8 billion from their own mouth for today’s proposition, but how much is their proposition to retrofit other properties that have fibre to the node going to cost? Labor need to come clean on that.
Is the Coalition’s NBN a short-term fix?
No, says Fifield, but it will be delivered “sooner and faster”, and more quickly, too.
Updated
We mentioned Family First Senate candidate for Tasmania, Peter Madden, and his opinionated trailer on the blog last week.
Some in Launceston have taken offence to his decision to drive the trailer around today after LGBTI people were targeted by the worst mass shooting in US history.
Really @petermadden2u You're letting this diatribe drive around today after #Orlando? Shame on you. #auspol #politas pic.twitter.com/sbiexC11XK
— Lis Nosworthy (@Lillynix) June 13, 2016
Although he has condemned the shooting.
I thoroughly condemn the appalling shooting in the gay nightclub in Orlando. Such acts of violence are abhorrent. My prayers r 4 the victims
— Peter Madden (@petermadden2u) June 12, 2016
Updated
In Western Australia, Greens senators Larissa Waters and Rachel Siewert are touring the Women’s Health and Family Services in Northbridge, Perth.
They are there to announce funding for specialist family violence services. The promise is for $54m a year for 10 years, or $5.4bn over 10 years, just for services in WA. I understand funding announcements for other states will follow.
That’s obviously a significant amount of money. The Coalition has pledged $200m over four years, and Labor about $420m.
But, as both Labor and the Coalition would undoubtedly comment, $200m-$400m of actual money is better than a $5bn promise that will never be delivered.
Still, specialist family violence services are massively underfunded and, if we care about family violence, it’s a problem we should address.
Says Siewert:
Australia can afford to make sure women receive the support they need to escape domestic violence services by raising revenue from those who can afford to contribute their fair share, for example through reforming negative gearing.
It’s grossly unfair that women fleeing domestic violence are being left homeless, while the very wealthy get taxpayer-funded subsidies for their multiple investment homes.
A question:
.@MathiasCormann says Labor designed the #NBN on the back of a beer coaster. Is that better or worse than a napkin? #LafferCurve
— Gareth Hutchens (@grhutchens) June 13, 2016
The government’s campaign spokesman, Mathias Cormann, has been on Sky News talking about Labor’s new Medicare ad, which features former PM Bob Hawke.
Hawke says in the ad:
And now the Liberals have set up a Medicare privatisation taskforce. Everybody knows you don’t set up a Medicare privatisation task force unless you plan to privatise Medicare.
Cormann said there was no such taskforce.
There is no such taskforce. It’s a complete Labor invention ... Bill Shorten has misled Bob Hawke over that and he should hang his head in shame.
What was happening, Cormann said, was the government was reviewing the administration system to ensure the efficiency of Medicare.
Updated
I’m taking this as Ed Husic’s audition to be the next Craig Emerson, blissfully presented without sound.
.@edhusicMP showing why he was a high school musical star back in the day. @ellinghausen pictures. pic.twitter.com/OcPxp7hH1k
— Stephanie Peatling (@srpeatling) June 13, 2016
More from Mike Bowers, who snapped Ewen Jones grinning from behind the Turnbulls’ umbrella after that very quick Great Barrier Reef boat trip.
And some press conference shadow puppetry.
Updated
A final note on those two press conferences before we move on. Both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten were asked to comment on Donald Trump’s tweet on the Orlando shootings.
Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016
Shorten hadn’t seen the tweet (“I haven’t been keeping up with the Trump”) but once briefed said that he did not agree.
I do not support demonising a whole group of people, a billion people, based on faith, with the acts of stupid, random, terror events such as this.
Compared to Shorten’s previous criticisms of Trump, it was fairly weak, and framed as the essential difference between US and Australian politics.
Turnbull was even more cautious.
I would simply say that we stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States, on this day today, in solidarity, and as we do in the Middle East and as our intelligence services cooperate every hour of every day in the battle against extremism, in the battle against terrorism.
Updated
Interesting that Malcolm Turnbull received absolutely no questions on the Great Barrier Reef, which also meant that Greg Hunt’s earlier comments that the reef was healthier under the Coalition were not challenged.
That seems extraordinary, given what we know about the level of coral bleaching on the reef this year, and given that experts have said this election is the last chance to secure promises that could save the reef.
I suppose it’s possible a flurry of questioning occurred off camera. If it did, please, let me know.
A number of questions on the Coalition’s announcement of $100,000 for a new sports stadium in Townsville, which has provoked suggestions of pork-barrelling.
Is there any particular reason the PM decided to make this announcement the day before pre-poll voting opens in the electorate of Herbert, where goodwill toward incumbent Liberal MP Ewen Jones is waning?
Turnbull says the funding will be delivered under the cities policy, and: “Townsville is a city. It’s a great city.”
And with that, the press conference is over. Team Turnbull is set to fly to Perth this afternoon.
Updated
A question on preferences, specifically the announcement that the Greens would preference Labor in every seat except for the 11 with empty how-to-vote cards.
Turnbull couldn’t help but interrupt that question.
You’re surprised by this? They are both left-wing parties. They sail together. Sorry, please ...
Labor is set to preference the Greens across the country and run an open ticket in South Australia. What does that say about its concern for the national interest?
Turnbull says he won’t run a commentary on the Labor party before offering the following commentary:
[The alternative to the Coalition is a] return to the Labor/Greens/independent minority government steering further and further to the left.
So that’s why we are putting the Greens last or certainly behind Labor, because we want Australians to understand there’s a very clear choice: the government I lead with a clear plan, stable government, forging ahead; on the other hand, the chaos of the Labor party and of course Shortenomics getting shorter and shorter on economics every day.
(He seems quite pleased with Shortenomics. Expect to see it on T-shirts soon.)
Updated
Shortenomics
First question goes to the NBN, allowing Turnbull to use the rather Shorten-esque expression Shortenomics.
I noticed that we’ve seen another example today of Shortenomics, which is distinguished by being very short on economics.
I see that Labor has said that they are going to extend more fibre to the premises but it’s not going to cost any more. This is what one might call in political terms an oldie but not so goodie. Remember Kevin Rudd said in the last election that only Kevin Rudd can deliver broadband to your home for free? That was one of Labor’s policies.
The truth is that Labor completely mismanaged and bungled the NBN. It was a hopelessly failed project.
Turnbull says the NBN connected more premises last month than Labor did in six years.
They have no credibility on this issue. They hopelessly mismanaged the project. They wasted billions, and what they are talking about today will have only one consequence: that it will cost a lot more, and it will take a lot longer.
Updated
'This was a murderous attack on gay people in a nightclub'
Speaking in Townsville, Malcolm Turnbull said he had spoken to John Berry, the United States ambassador to Australia, and conveyed Australia’s condolences.
Turnbull described the shooting as a “murderous attack, an attack of hate and an act of terror”.
As expected, he addressed his earlier failure to acknowledge the impact on LGBTI people by making repeated reference now.
This was a murderous attack on gay people in a nightclub.
Other people, of course, could be the victim of an attack like that. We don’t have all the details. But it was clearly directed by a murderous hatred of gay people exercising their freedom to gather together.
John Berry, the ambassador, and his partner, Curtis, feel this attack personally as well as in his capacity as ambassador to the United States.
And John told me how he has many friends in Florida. He does not know whether they were caught up in this attack.
This is a vile attack on freedom but as I said earlier, it is an attack on freedom of all of us. On every single one of us.
This is an attack by somebody who hates the freedoms that we enjoy in our free societies and that’s why we stand in solidarity with the people of the United States.
We know that Daesh or ISIL have claimed credit for this attack. And there is some evidence that the killer was linked with Islamist extremism. That is not yet settled, so as I said, further will be known as the facts become clear but what is clear is that this is a shocking assault on freedom, in this case on assault on people gathering together in a gay nightclub exercising their legal right to gather together just as we all exercise our legal rights to do so and should be entitled to do so without fear of being gunned down.
Let’s go to Townsville, where Malcolm Turnbull is speaking about the Orlando shooting.
Shorten rejects a question about Labor’s NBN costings being “wildly different” to those used by the Coalition.
Instead, we get an analogy.
Many of you drive on our roads. You know what it’s like when you see a new road being built, a new freeway or a new highway, and you know a one-lane off-ramp being built. You get that a forehead-slapping moment. You know that that one-lane off-ramp will be obsolete even before it’s opened. That’s what Malcolm Turnbull has done for the NBN.
Jason Clare steps in, with a zinger that gets quite the grin from Bill.
If there were gold medals handed out for stuff-ups and blow-out, Malcolm Turnbull would be on his way to Rio right now.
Updated
Back to the NBN, then.
Labor originally promised to bring fibre-to-the-premises broadband to 93% of Australians. This revised policy will deliver just shy of 40%. By Labor’s own definition, asks a reporter, isn’t that delivering a second-rate NBN?
Shorten skips past an actual response to that question and says the project has changed because of Malcolm’s maladministration.
The truth of the matter is that we cannot pretend that the last three years hasn’t happened, so we are not going to do what right-wing Liberal governments always do if and when they get elected and try and unpick everything that the previous government’s done.
Australians are sick of political parties resetting the clock at zero. The truth of the matter is we wouldn’t have done what Mr Turnbull’s done. We wouldn’t have had obsolete copper technology at the central point of his technology.
He’s already tied it up in copper, so we’re not going to go back and re-dig out every fibre to the node merely because we think that fibre to the premises is superior ,but what we can do, because this is a choice in 2016 between Mr Turnbull and myself, is we will get back to having fibre to the premises in the future
What that will look like, Clare said, is fibre from this point on. He said the cost of the fibre-to-the-node-plus-copper model had gone up to $1,600 a house and the cost of fibre-to-the-premises, about $2,600 each premises, according to the questioner, is coming down.
Updated
A question on preferences: will Labor preference the Greens above the Liberal party across the country?
Shorten says it is “running to come first” in all House of Reps seats, which is no kind of answer.
In the Senate, he said:
... It is hardly stop-the-press news that we are likely to preference progressive parties above the Liberal party. I know Mr Turnbull wants to just talk about preference arrangements because, let’s face it, he can’t talk about his NBN.
Updated
Labor to Turnbull: you had one job
To the NBN now, which Bill Shorten says is all Malcolm Turnbull’s fault. Turnbull had carriage of the project as Tony Abbott’s communications minister and oversaw the change in the model from fibre-to-the-premises to fibre-to-the-node.
Shorten says Turnbull “has made a complete mess of the job”.
He has simultaneously blown out the cost of the project and not delivering the sort of high performing, quality product which Australians reasonably expect of our NBN.
Shorten says Australia needs a world-class service but, regretfully, misses the opportunity to say it needs said service to be agile and innovative.
Instead, he says:
Mr Turnbull made promises before the last election to roll out the NBN to all Australians in this term of government. NBN Co has failed to meet the promises made by Mr Turnbull before the last election.
Instead, Australia has dropped backwards in our rankings in terms of internet speed. The cost has ballooned from $29bn to $56bn. Only Labor can be trusted to clean up the mess.
Its communication spokesman, Jason Clare, jumps in with a few observations about how second-rate the Coalition’s NBN rollout has been.
... We’ve gone, as Bill just mentioned, from 30th in the world to 60th in the world for internet speeds. Behind most of Asia, behind most of Europe, behind America, behind Canada, behind New Zealand, behind Russia, behind Slovakia.
Updated
‘An attack on the right to be proud of who you are and who you love’
Bill Shorten has begun speaking in western Sydney.
He opened by extending his sympathy to the victims of the Orlando shooting, in slightly stronger, more terrorist-y terms than his earlier written statement.
Shorten:
This is a brutal terror attack reflecting a deep-seated fear of freedom.
And because this attack took place in a gay nightclub, I particularly want to extend my sympathy to people in the LGBTI community who might be feeling additional pain.
It was an attack on our humanity; it was an attack on all of us. It was an attack on the right to be proud of who you are and who you love.
I extend the deepest sympathy and sorrow to people of the United States for this brutal terror attack.
And I think it does speak volumes about the strength of our democracy that all Australians, regardless of their political views, are united in our sympathy for the citizens of the United States of America.
Updated
While we wait for the promised press conferences, it would be remiss of me not to share this tweet from Bass MP Andrew Nikolic.
It's been nearly 30 years since Bob Hawke delivered Labor's last budget surplus. Don't risk Labor's economic chaos. pic.twitter.com/AmYyHLpW27
— Andrew Nikolic (@andrewnikolic) June 12, 2016
I only took one unit of semiotics in university, but the message seems to be that if Labor delivers a surplus, Young Talent Time will be back on the air. Could be a vote changer, that.
In other Nikolic news, the Daily Telegraph today confused him with the Tasmanian premier, Will Hodgman.
Not sure how @andrewnikolic or @WillHodgman would feel about this in today's @dailytelegraph pic.twitter.com/h6SeNbOcxx
— Andrew Greene (@AndrewBGreene) June 12, 2016
Updated
The Greens have cancelled a planned Queen’s birthday event out of respect for the victims of the Orlando shooting. They were going to eat cake and campaign for a republic. After the tragedy, no cake.
Greens abandon plans to eat birthday cake for the Queen out of respect for Orlando victims. pic.twitter.com/cKTwAOEoLR
— Katina Curtis (@katinacurtis) June 13, 2016
I’m seeing increasing criticism of Malcolm Turnbull’s comments on the Orlando shooting, which some have accused of erasing the impact on LGBTI people. It will be interesting to see if he addresses that criticism, or just corrects the omission, in that press conference he promised to give after the boat trip.
This sentence, from the official statement on the Liberal party website, has particularly prompted consternation:
An attack like this is not simply an assault on the people that have been killed and injured, it’s an assault on every one of us.
Here is a snippet of the Australian Prime Minister making my community invisible. No mention of LGBTI people at all. pic.twitter.com/zVPS94k1hg
— Brendan Maclean (@macleanbrendan) June 13, 2016
it was a gay club. it is important. https://t.co/jmAHRC28Gt
— Bec Shaw (@Brocklesnitch) June 12, 2016
Updated
Bill Shorten and co have arrived at Western Sydney University. NBN announcement coming shortly.
OL @billshortenmp arrives @westernsydneyu w @emmahusar, @JasonClareMP & @edhusicMP #ausvotes @australian pic.twitter.com/L7sepcAjIj
— Rachel Baxendale (@rachelbaxendale) June 13, 2016
Well, that was quick. Malcolm Turnbull has already wrapped up his speedy trip around Magnetic Island, which seemed rather too short to offer his travelling press pack anything other than seasickness. But anyway.
Turnbull is apparently very good at balancing on unsteady surfaces, but we already knew that.
Pictures from photographer extraordinaire, Mike Bowers.
Updated
The NBN is a very big issue in Barnaby Joyce’s seat of New England. He has responded to Labor’s policy in his typical measured style.
Barnaby on Labor's NBN plan "Why dont they just go and promise an Eiffel Tower in every town, because they dont have the $ for that either"
— Frank Keany (@FJKeany) June 13, 2016
Bill Shorten is due to begin his NBN press conference shortly.
Before he does, Fairfax’s Paul Smith, writing in the Australian Financial Review, has outlined what we might expect.
Labor’s new policy is a compromise between what it originally promised, back in 2010, and what the Coalition is building. That target of connecting 93% of Australia through fibre to the premises has been abandoned – it’ll now be closer to 39%.
Smith writes that it hits the government, and particularly Malcolm Turnbull, who you’ll recall “virtually invented the internet in this country”, in a “notable weak spot”.
Labor is boldly claiming that this policy shift will not cost Australian taxpayers any more than the Coalition’s FTTN-based network, but even with its claimed savings on electricity costs and copper maintenance, it would be a brave politician that would not expect future problems with deploying FTTP.
The last metres of deploying fibre to a premise are by far the most complex, and can involve the ugly process of digging up residents’ front gardens to lay the final bits. The so-called “skinny fibre” that Labor is planning reduces the civil works required in a street, but does not get it to homes.
Updated
‘This is spin and political desperation on a grand scale’
Labor’s environment minister, Mark Butler, has dismissed the Coalition’s Great Barrier Reef announcement it as a con job.
He’s put out this statement:
This is spin and political desperation on a grand scale.
For three years we have seen the Abbott-Turnbull government duck, weave and avoid doing anything meaningful to address climate change.
Yet all experts say climate change is the greatest threat to the health of the Great Barrier Reef.
Just days ago, we found out that the Turnbull government intervened to stop Australia being mentioned in a UNESCO report on the impact of global warming on world heritage areas.
All we see from this government is them trying to hide the truth, avoid the science and disrespect Australians and the 70,000 people who rely on the reef for their jobs.
Labor has promised increased monitoring of the reef and stronger action on climate change. There’s not much difference in direct spend on the reef between the two parties – remember, that $1bn from the Coalition is over 10 years – so it comes down to which policy is most effective.
And that, really, comes down to climate change.
Updated
More from Bowers who is, metaphorically speaking, wearing a nautical-themed pashmina afghan (he’s on a boat).
Updated
Speaking of the Greens, senators Larissa Waters and Rachel Siewert are in Perth this morning and scheduled to announce a local domestic violence initiative. By local, I mean it’s focused on Western Australia. Will provide more details when I have them.
Updated
The Liberal party’s Victorian state president, Michael Kroger, has just been on Sky News talking about that preference deal with Labor to keep the Greens from picking up any more inner-city seats.
Kroger openly canvassed doing a preference deal with the Greens before that option was nixed by Malcolm Turnbull and the party’s national director, Tony Nutt.
He said the overwhelming reason for preferencing Labor above the Greens was to avoid a hung parliament, adding:
To put David Feeney back into parliament is a cross we will have to bear.
The Liberal and Labor parties have done a deal to preference each other to protect their hold on certain seats from the National Party and the Greens.
Asked whether he expected to see a similar deal done to prevent the Nick Xenophon team from getting a lower-house seat, Kroger said no.
I can’t see the Liberal and Labor parties getting together on something specific like that.
Our natural enemy is Labor. We have pretty much preferenced Labor last all the way from the Menzies to the Howard era.
Adam Bandt spoke about this deal on Radio National earlier this morning. He was, as you might expect, highly critical of the arrangement, which has all but ended the Greens’ hope of gaining the Melbourne seats of Batman and Wills.
Asked if it was sour grapes from the Greens that they missed out on Liberal preferences, Bandt said he had not spoken to anyone in the Liberal party about preferences but expected that someone in his party had “because that’s their job”.
So why, if they think Labor has sold its soul in this deal, have the Greens still preferenced Labor in 90% of seats?
Because the Greens want to see a change of government ... We think the best result is a change of government with the Greens in the balance of power.
Updated
Guardian Australia photographer-at-large Mike Bowers is following the PM. He filed these photos from this morning’s press conference before jumping on a boat.
Updated
One more thought on Orlando, before we return to your regularly scheduled campaign coverage.
It's as if some people are having a hard time acknowledging the possible coexistence of homophobia, radical religion and terrorism.
— Chip Rolley (@ChipRolley) June 12, 2016
Heartache for those lost, prayers for the injured and all who grieve, solidarity with the LGBTI community everywhere. #Orlando
— Senator Penny Wong (@SenatorWong) June 12, 2016
Malcolm Turnbull is copping a bit of criticism on social media for failing to mention that the Orlando shootings took place in a gay club and targeted the LBGTI community.
To make sure the Orlando shooting slotted into the terrorism narrative, Malcom Turnbull ignored that it was an attack on gays. Hell’s bells.
— Richard Chirgwin (@R_Chirgwin) June 12, 2016
“too early to know what motivated gunman, but obviously it was because he hates freedom” Turnbull pinkwashes Orlando https://t.co/162KBZZf8g
— Paul Kidd (@paulkidd) June 12, 2016
It’s a fair point, but in the interests of balance I also note there are some tweets criticising Turnbull for neglecting to explicitly mention Islam.
Turnbull said it was too early to say exactly what motivated the attacks.
Another consideration, via Mark Di Stefano:
For those pointing out Turnbull didn't say Orlando was an attack on a gay community... Di Natale hasn't either. pic.twitter.com/j6P7P2ruz6
— Mark Di Stefano (@MarkDiStef) June 12, 2016
Updated
‘Terrorist, violent, hate-filled attack’
Here’s a bit more of Malcolm Turnbull’s statement on the Orlando shootings:
We stand in solidarity with the people of the US as they stand up to this terrorist, violent, hate-filled attack.
There are people outside our country, and some within it, who hate the freedoms that we enjoy and would seek to threaten them and undermine them with violence.
Our security and police forces are vigilant in ensuring that we are protected against this type of extremism, this type of violence ...
I want to say to Australians that we convey our deepest sympathies and condolences to the families of those who were injured and I’ll be conveying those more formally to the president in due course.
Updated
‘We stand with you in solidarity’
Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek have also released a statement condemning the Orlando shootings:
We are shocked and saddened by reports that so many innocent people have been brutally murdered at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Australia grieves with the loved ones of the dead.
Our thoughts too are with the injured.
These murders are despicable, and cowardly. We condemn them, utterly.
Many in the LGBTI community will feel an added layer of pain and a sharper sense of loss in the wake of this tragedy. We stand with you in solidarity.
This was a horrific and senseless attack on our common humanity.
Australians offer every support to our American friends.
An interesting difference in language between their statement and the earlier comment by Malcolm Turnbull. While Turnbull framed it as terrorism, Labor has called it mass murder. Not mutually exclusive terms, of course.
Updated
It’s majestic, it’s extraordinary, it’s all Labor’s fault
That was a very brief, rather odd, press conference, with no time for questions. Let’s unpack.
Malcolm Turnbull opened by saying the Coalition was committed to protecting the reef from the dual threats of climate change and nutrient runoff, but the funding today was all about the latter. As with Greg Hunt’s earlier Radio National interview, action on climate change is confined to the Paris agreement.
Said Turnbull:
This is a very important time to continue our protection of the Great Barrier Reef. As I said, it’s the largest coral reef in the world, it is unique, it’s gigantic, it’s an enormous economic driver here in north Queensland and it’s one that we are committed to protect for our children, our grandchildren and many generations to come.
Over to Hunt, who began by saying that the Great Barrier Reef was much healthier now, under the Coalition, than it was under the previous Labor government.
Hunt:
It is majestic, it’s extraordinary, and of course when we came to government we inherited a reef that Labor and the Greens had left on the world heritage watch list ...
On climate change, Hunt said:
Climate change is a challenge for every reef everywhere and the Paris agreement is fundamental and Australia played a critical role in helping to secure 90bn tonnes of emissions reduction through the Montreal protocol process between now and 2050 ... In addition to that, though, we can and must take steps to improve water quality.
No mention by either Turnbull or Hunt on the mass bleaching event, which has affected 93% of the reef and killed 22% this year.
And no time for questions. Journos bundled on to boats to head out to Magnetic Island, where as yet unidentified reef experts will be on hand. There will be an opportunity for questions after that.
Updated
Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt have just spoken in Townsville about the $1bn reef funding.
Turnbull began by commenting on the shooting in Orlando, saying: “It’s an assault on every one of us, it’s an assault on freedom.”
.@TurnbullMalcolm responds to Florida shootings which have claimed the lives of more than 50 people @2GBNews pic.twitter.com/MZn5AixCkw
— Michael Pachi (@michaelpachi) June 12, 2016
Updated
Labor’s communications spokesman, Jason Clare, followed Greg Hunt on Radio National to talk up Labor’s plan for the NBN.
He said the gap between what the Coalition has delivered on the NBN and what it has promised to deliver “looks like a ramp that Evel Knievel couldn’t jump”, whatever that means.
Clare said Labor’s proposed rejigging of the NBN would not be able to deliver on all the expectations set by Labor in 2010, because of what had already been built.
If we win the election on the 2nd of July I can’t just click my fingers and expect that all those nodes Malcolm Turnbull has built will suddenly disappear.
Basically, what Clare would like Australians to remember as they download Game of Thrones, is:
If you’re still buffering, blame Malcolm Turnbull.
Updated
Just keep swimming
Greg Hunt would like you to know that both he and Malcolm Turnbull are passionate about the Great Barrier Reef.
That passion has apparently manifested as $1bn investment fund to provide low-interest grants to improve irrigation and water filtration systems to reduce the amount of water pollution in the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, and of course in the signing of the Paris agreement.
Hunt told ABC Radio National this morning that the Coalition was protecting the reef on two fronts.
But doesn’t the $1bn spend fall far short of the $10bn to $16bn that scientists have said would be necessary to save the reef?
Hunt says no. It’s not the size of the investment, it’s how you use it.
These are actions that make a real and genuine difference so they are very significant, the largest investment ever.
Turnbull’s statement today acknowledges that climate change is the greatest long-term threat to the reef, and yet both the federal government and the Queensland Labor government support the development of the Adani coalmine. How can you hold both positions, host Fran Kelly asked
Hunt would like Kelly to think globally. Climate change is “a fundamental issue for every reef all around the world”, he said, and we have licked climate change with the Paris agreement.
I think the point is this: we want to see each country set caps for themselves. We will meet and beat our 2020 target, we will meet and beat our 2030 target, which is so much more ambitious than people would have expected a few years ago … The world made huge progress in Paris.
Hunt is passionate about the reef.
It’s something that I’m passionate about and frankly it’s something as prime minister that Malcolm Turnbull is deeply passionate about.
I’ll let you, dear reader, reconcile that passion with decisions like the removal of all mention of Australia from a UN climate change report.
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In other campaign news, Labor has pledged $20m to hold a plebiscite on council amalgamations in NSW. The story was dropped to the Daily Tele overnight and leads the paper today.
Opposition to the plan by the NSW premier, Mike Baird, to force council amalgamations has been fierce, as opposition to council amalgamations always is.
It’s also created some strange bedfellows, such as Alan Jones campaigning with the NSW opposition leader, Luke Foley.
In a statement this morning, Labor said the funding would be provided to the Australian Electoral Commission to offset the cost of council-specific plebiscites, which would be run at the request of councils.
This will give the people of NSW the power to stand up to the Baird Liberal government, and their plan to unilaterally dispense with democracy and force councils to merge and sack councillors.
The plebiscites will be available for all councils.
Under Labor’s plan, even those councils that have been spared amalgamation would be able to request a plebiscite to affirm community support, sending a clear message to the Liberals to keep their hands off the council.
If you’re outside NSW and confused by this issue, I recommend reading this piece by Ben Raue.
As a child of Kennett’s Victoria, it’s probably best I don’t comment on this issue, except to say that I think we got through it fine.
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Good morning
Well, that’s not true. The news coming out of Orlando makes this a thoroughly terrible morning.
But we must press on. There are now only three weeks to go until election day and we’re starting to get to the meaty issues of the campaign.
Let’s start today with a game: how would you rather spend $1bn?
Labor has announced it will spend an extra $1bn on the national broadband network, which will apparently double the number of homes connected as fibre-to-the-home, rather than fibre-to-the-node, and meet the Coalition’s timeline of finishing the project by 2022.
Meanwhile the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is in Townsville and will promise $1bn of the $10bn Clean Energy Finance Corporation account to protect the Great Barrier Reef.
You can join the debate in the comments below or reach me on Twitter at @callapilla.
The big picture
The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, is expected to announce a plan today to connect 2m more houses and businesses to the NBN through fibre-to-the-premises connections, rather than fibre-to-the-node.
The promise appears to be to MacGyver a faster NBN out of the work already done under the Coalition. It will bring the cost up from $56bn, which is the Coalition’s current projected spend, to $57bn, but rely on the same public equity contribution and deliver the project on the same timeline.
Gareth Hutchens has more:
Labor would scale up the rollout of fibre-to-the-premises, Shorten said, and phase out the rollout of the Coalition’s favoured fibre-to-the-node technology.
Construction of fibre-to-the-node will stop when the current pipeline of construction work is completed and construction of fibre-to-the-premises is scaled back up, Shorten said.
Labor would also commission Infrastructure Australia to manage the development of a plan that helps parts of Australia “left with Mr Turnbull’s second-rate NBN” to transition to fibre-to-the-premises.
While Shorten talks NBN, Turnbull and Greg Hunt will promise to dedicate $1bn of the $10bn Clean Energy Finance Corporation Fund towards protecting the Great Barrier Reef. That funding will be spent over 10 years.
Up to 93% of the reef has been affected by a mass coral bleaching event this year, and 22% of it has been killed. (You can see the scale of the damage in this report by my colleague, Michael Slezak.)
This is what Turnbull had to say:
Climate change is the greatest long-term threat to the Great Barrier Reef and to all coral reefs around the world.
Australia is playing its part in the global climate change effort through signing the Paris agreement and implementing policies to reduce Australia’s emission.
According to Mikey’s report, that’s not enough.
On the campaign trail
Malcolm Turnbull is with the environment minister, Greg Hunt, and the MP for Herbert, Ewen Jones, in Townsville this morning. They will jump in a boat and head out to the Great Barrier Reef this morning, before Turnbull flies to Perth.
Bill Shorten is in Sydney.
The campaign you should be watching
A push by the Greens to pick up two additional inner-city Melbourne electorates has reportedly been stymied by a preference deal between Labor and the Liberal party, which I’ll explain a bit more below.
But there is still a fierce battle in the seats of Batman, held by Labor’s David Feeney, and Wills, now held by the retiring Labor MP Kelvin Thomson. Labor has apparently peppered both electorates with anti-Greens campaign material. If you have spotted any, do send it in.
And another thing(s)
There has been a bit of wheeling and dealing on preferences at the weekend. Labor has pledged to preference the Liberal party over the Nationals in the rural seats of O’Connor and Durack in Western Australia, and Murray in Victoria, in exchange for Liberal preferences in inner-city seats.
The Greens have accused Labor of selling out its principles by making the deal, but it fits the narrative from the two major parties that the only valid vote is a vote for one of them.
From the report by Lenore Taylor and Gareth Hutchens:
On Sunday Turnbull promised to preference Labor ahead of the Greens in every House of Representatives seat, making the decision part of his pitch to voters that they should avoid voting for minor parties in the interests of political stability.
“This is a call that I have made in the national interest,” he said. “Let us be quite clear about this. The big risk at this election is that we would end up with an unstable, chaotic, minority Labor-Green-independent government as we have seen before.”
Meanwhile, Gareth reports that the Greens will preference Labor over the Coalition in 139 of 150 seats. The remaining 11 will issue an open ticket.
Fairfax Media’s James Massola described the Greens leader Richard Di Natale’s response to the preference deal as an “unedifying” and “hypocritical” dummy spit.
He writes:
In reality, Senator Di Natale’s sad Sunday jeremiad was an exercise in hypocrisy; the Greens leader condemned a deal that just days earlier his party had hoped to break their way, not Labor’s.
Looking west, the Canning MP, Andrew Hastie, has merited his fourth (or is it fifth?) Politics Live mention for neglecting to declare his $870,000 house on the register of parliamentary interests.
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