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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Helen Davidson and Gabrielle Chan

Australian election 2016: Albanese asked if he has leadership ambitions – as it happened

Anthony Albanese
Anthony Albanese arrives at the Australian Labor Party 2016 federal election campaign launch, at the Joan Sutherland performing arts centre, in Penrith, Western Sydney, Sunday, June 19, 2015. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Summary

And so we bring today to an end. It sure was something. If you’ve been nostalgic for campaigns past, the Daily Telegraph was here to help, with a front page about boats. The revelation? An asylum seeker vessel was intercepted three weeks ago. People smugglers are clearly readying themselves. Because Labor. I think.

Here’s a brief summary of today’s key points.

  • Peter Dutton couldn’t explain why the government was suddenly talking about on water matters, other than a new found respect for transparency coinciding with an election.
  • It was scare campaign versus scare campaign as Labor continued its line on Medicare privatisation under a Coalition government. Deputy leader Tanya Plibersek later walked back from it a little, acknowledging Turnbull’s repeated denial, but said the Coalition still wanted a user pays system.
  • The Australian Medical Association criticised the Labor Medicare campaign, and said outsourcing the payment system “in no way” amounts to privatisation.
  • Bill Shorten renewed calls for a Royal Commission on the banking industry.
  • Anthony Albanese said he doesn’t want to be Labor leader (right at this moment).
  • Scott Morrison faces bigotry and hate speech too, the treasurer said in response to Labor’s fears (shared by many in the LGBTQI community) that a plebiscite will bring awful, soul crushing, and youth endangering hate speech and attacks to the fore.
  • The Greens announced a 20% tax on sugary drinks which they claim could raise $500m a year to reinvest in health, and would reduce consumption by 12%.
  • Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce announced $83m to reduce the period students need to be employed under the self-supporting criteria from 18 months to 14 months under youth allowance and Abstudy.
  • Joyce also announced $44.7m to increase assistance for the isolated children additional boarding allowance, and $100m for upgrades to the Outback Way.
  • A Liberal candidate, Ben Willis, who said people who use the term “Invasion Day” should be hit in the face with a chair will not be disendorsed after offering an unreserved apology.

And that’s it. What a day. What a bunch of players. But, no rest for the wicked, there’s hump day drinks to be mixed.

See you all early tomorrow.

Updated

Albo for PM?

Albanese is asked if he has leadership ambitions.

“I want to win the election. I want to be a minister in Bill Shorten’s government and that is the only focus I have.”

You could think that and still say you don’t want to be leader, Epstein counters.

“People talk absolutely nonsense on those questions all the time...

“I ran for leader, I think anyone who runs for leaders has indicated the are interested in the position. That was my position in 2013.”

It has changed since then, Albanese says, but to voice the sentence that he “doesn’t want to lead the Labor party” would be a “word game”.

Anthony Albanese is on ABC Radio in Melbourne.

Prompted by a caller asking Albanese if taxpayers will have to cover “these people’s” sex-change operations under a Labor government, host Rafael Epstein asks his view on a plebiscite.

Why doesn’t Labor want one?

“Some of the debate that goes on on social media is unacceptable and it leads to hatred and it can lead to real tragic consequences. We don’t have a plebiscite on whether we go to war, on what taxes people pay, on issues that impact all Australians,” Albanese responds.

“It is a conscience issue where by the people who are opposed to marriage equality say the plebiscite won’t impact their vote. We’ll still have the same vote at the end of it.”

“It’s a plebiscite in which young people in my electorate who are coming to terms with their sexuality will prob not be aversely affected - it’s a tolerant community,” he continues.

But if you were in an “adverse situation” with vilification and the sort of comments made by Corey Bernardi “then I reckon that will have an impact on people’s mental health.”

Updated

My Canberra based colleague, Paul Karp, has taken a look at the developing stoush between Malcolm Turnbull and his conservative backbencher Corey Bernardi.

Bernardi is furious that Turnbull gave “implicit support” to claims that he and other conservative MPs are homophobic.

A questioner on Monday night’s Q&A presented “no evidence” of homophobia in the ranks, and misrepresented his “previous statements that redefining marriage to include same-sex couples will only lead to further calls for other changes* down the track.”

(*polygamy and beastiality)

Karp reports:

Q&A host Tony Jones, asked whether Turnbull had said the same to Bernardi.

He replied: “I have said – yes, I have had firm discussions with a number of colleagues. Yes.”

In his blog post, Bernardi said: “By saying he’d had firm discussions with a number of colleagues, Turnbull gave implicit support to the claim that myself and other Coalition MPs are homophobic and implied that he’d had a conversation with me about homophobia.

“For the record I have never had such a conversation with any of my colleagues because they know that any such claims cannot be backed with facts.”

Read the full report here.

The federal government sacked a vet who gave evidence of cruelty and poor conditions on live export ships to a federal government steering company after her report was inadvertently made public, the ABC has reported.

Dr Lynn Simpson was hired by the department of agriculture in 2012 after the Four Corners report on live export cruelty led to a temporary ban on the trade.

The ABC reports claims it has documents which show her report - which found cruel conditions and treatment of the animals on board ships as well as poor processes - was supposed to be internal but was accidentally published online. She then became “persona non grata” and was removed from her role.

Updated

A short time ago Malcolm Turnbull was addressing media on the Gold Coast, with an incredibly loud group of protesters on the other side of the road, and the press conference came to an abrupt end with just one question.

He was asked if he would disendorse the Liberal candidate in the safe Labor seat of Gellibrand, Ben Willis.

Willis had posted on social media that people who said “Invasion Day” instead of Australia Day deserved “a high five. In the face. With a chair.”

Turnbull said he understood Willis had made “a comprehensive apology”.

Updated

Bill Shorten will appear on ABC’s 7.30 program tomorrow.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott will be on the Bolt Report this evening with former Labor leader Mark Latham.

My colleague Ben Doherty has some details and context on the 21 Vietnamese asylum seekers at the centre of much of today’s campaign debate. The boat was intercepted earlier this month and its passengers processed at sea and returned to their country.

There have rightly been questions today about why we are finding out about it now, and why – if the government now appears to talk about on-water matters – we didn’t when it happened.

From Doherty:

Asylum seekers previously forcibly returned to Vietnam have been jailed despite assurances from the Australian and Vietnamese governments that they would not be prosecuted, persecuted or punished for attempting to reach Australia.

At least eight people have been jailed for organising boat journeys and trying to reach Australia.

The immigration and border protection department has not commented on whether assurances were sought or received that people returned to Vietnam from the latest boat would not face persecution or prosecution.

The boat is the 28th known to have been turned back since the Coalition took office in 2013, and the first to arrive since the start of this election campaign. A boat of Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers reached the Cocos Islands, Australian territory, on 2 May, just days before the election was called.

That was the last boat to make landfall in Australia. The prime minister’s claim that his government had “had over 600 days without any unauthorised arrivals” is not correct.

But the announcement of another intercept immediately became an election issue.

Updated

ABC News reckons it has caught Labor and Liberal campaign trucks chasing each other through inner Sydney. We can at least say that the banner truck promoting Liberal MP for Reid, Craig Laundy, was indeed driving very closely behind that spruiking his Labor challenger, Angelo Tsirekas.

Updated

Guardian photographer-at-large, Mike Bowers, has been travelling with Bill Shorten in Sydney today, where the opposition leader sat down at the commonwealth parliament offices with some of the people who fell victim to dodgy financial advice.

He’s pictured here with Teghan Couper and her child, Hype.

AAP was also there, and it reports one victim, Mark Hadley, a tradie from Sydney’s Blacktown, invested $200,000 through his tax agent who was also a financial adviser.

He lost the lot, which left him unable to pay his mortgage and created marriage difficulties and trouble with alcohol.

“It all come up stump,” Hadley told Shorten.

Shorten again pushed for a royal commission into the banking industry.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, at the commonwealth parliament offices in Sydney this afternoon with Teghan Couper and Hype.
The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, at the commonwealth parliament offices in Sydney this afternoon with Teghan Couper and Hype. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

Updated

The Coalition has released a little more detail about that regional investment corporation, announced by the deputy PM, Barnaby Joyce, at the Canberra Press Club today.

Commonwealth financing and the processing of concessional loans will be streamlined under the proposed scheme. It would, the release says, enable new dams to be financed quickly and ensure fast approval of drought loans.

The corporation will administer funds relating to existing loans under the drought, drought recovery and farm finance concessional loan schemes, as well as the $2bn water infrastructure loan facility.

It will be fully funded through interested payments on commonwealth loan schemes, Joyce said.

He said the government has in the past had to “barter” with states to process drought and dairy concessional loans, and this would bring that to an end.


Updated

My colleague, Paul Karp, has been well and truly shouted down on this by people who really, really love Questacon and want it to be cheaper.

To be fair it is a very niche demographic, and I don’t think he’s off the mark for people who don’t regularly visit Canberra.

The deputy opposition leader, Tanya Plibersek, has just spoken in Sydney.

Plibersek acknowledges that Turnbull has said (frequently, for many days) the Coalition will not privatise Medicare, but says he won’t deny they are seeking a user-pays model. She points to moves on co-payments, prescription price increases, and funding cuts as evidence.

She has also addressed comments made by various Coalition members today about a marriage equality plebiscite.

On Turnbull v Bernardi (the latter accused the former of supporting claims he and some other conservative MPs are homophobes):

I think, it’s very clear that the prime minister is not able to control elements of his own party, and that we can expect elements of the Liberal party to be extreme in their language, and extreme in their campaigning against marriage equality, if this plebiscite should go ahead. There is no need for Australia to go through his wasteful and divisive process.

On Scott Morrison saying he and other opponents of marriage equality have faced “hate speech and bigotry” too:

Well, no Australian should ever be verbally attacked for the beliefs they hold. Yes, every debate should be held in a way that is respectful and particularly respectful of different views. But I will say this to Mr Morrison: it’s pretty different being a cabinet minister in a federal government, the power you have in a role like that, from being a young teenager somewhere, worried about coming out, worried that your family, our community, won’t be comfortable with their sexual orientation.

... Having a national plebiscite where some people are given a licence to say there is something wrong with being gay or lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, my real concern that people growing up just coming to terms with their sexuality, will be damaged by this type of debate.

Updated

Q: Given your support for the $400m White Rock wind farm project in your electorate, does that mean you support wind farm projects across the country?

Joyce lists some of the benefits of the White Rock project, and says the government wants to push renewable energy and the Nationals will always support order and discipline in the Coalition.

You are saying did you support it everywhere. That is like saying I support coalmining in central Queensland, and I do. I do. Adani should be going forward. Do I support coalmining everywhere? No, I don’t. There is coal under Sydney. I can run it past Malcolm and Tony and see if they want me to start a coalmine but I don’t think we will get far. There are appropriate and inappropriate places to do things. Where it is appropriate, sure, and where there is a huge community pushback, you have to take that into account.

Updated

"If it walks, if it isn't human, somebody around the world wants to eat it."

Joyce hits out at super funds for not investing in Australian agriculture and cattle stations such as Kidman & Co.

Not one fund has more than 1% of its portfolio – the major ones – 1% of the portfolio invested in agriculture.

Let’s not say we don’t have access to capital. We do. We are not asking for much. To invest in one of the fastest-growing industries in Australia, with record prices. We are never going to run out of foreign investors. We have them lined up ... I understand that. It is a great investment. We have a protein deficit in the world. The world is looking for protein. Their standard of living is increasing, buying capacity is increasing and they are searching for protein. One of the greatest venues for the production of that protein – here. Our nation. You can see it. If it walks, if it isn’t human, somebody around the world wants to eat it.”

He then adds this would also include protein grains.

Updated

“I was waiting for it to come up,” says Joyce after being asked about Medicare.

I’ve seen some amazing things in politics but the discussion about the privatisation of Medicare just takes the cake. Why don’t we say that the Labor party will cut the Sydney Harbour Bridge in two and move it to Tamworth and we will stop it?

It is a load of garbage. It is just made up. If their campaign has got to the point now where they are making up stories, then fighting against them, then we should all just get a packet of chips and watch them. Get to the end as quickly as possible.

Updated

Q: Will you stay in your current portfolio if elected, and why isn’t the National party gunning for one of its own as trade minister?

A: A lot of the times with trade, you spend outside the country. The trade minister is a rarely seen thing. It is important. As the leader of the party, I have a lot of work to do within the nation.

Updated

Q: How aware are you of Pauline Hanson’s policies, and where do they coincide or clash with your own?

The one thing Queenslanders will not take is us lecturing them,” says Joyce.

Now, Ms Hanson will run her race. The others will run their race, too. I think that after the fury and the colour, people may quietly just assess what is truly not only in Queensland’s interests but, most importantly, what truly is in our nation’s interests, because, remember, so often you are not just voting for your electorate. You are not just voting for your senator, you are voting for the nation of Australia.

Updated

A re-elected Coalition government will establish a regional investment corporation to administer $4.5bn in agriculture and water resources loan initiatives, says Joyce.

The corporation will administer funds for the loan facility and the loans delivered under drought and drought recovery and farm finance concessional schemes. The corporation will administer new financing and concessional loan schemes in my portfolio. There is a clear need for such an entity.

Joyce points to what he calls the “sorry potential for states to delay and play politics” with federal loans, and says with the establishment of this corporation the commonwealth “shouldn’t” have to distribute drought and other support through the states.

Updated

Funding commitment for education support

Joyce has announced some education-related commitments. They include:

$83 million to reduce the period students need to be employed under the self-supporting criteria from 18 months to 14 months under youth allowance and Abstudy.

This will mean a student is able to meet the earnings criteria to prove independence with one gap year as opposed to having to work for longer and delay their university commencement. The longer a student is not engaged in further studies after university, the less likely it is that they will re-engage.

$44.7 million to increase assistance for the isolated children additional boarding allowance.

“A re-elected Coalition government will increase by 50% the rate of additional boarding allowance to bring the assistance more in line with the costs of the – of education for the isolated families.

Scholarships of up to $20,000 for students living in rural and regional Australia to study and develop new skills in STEM.

Updated

“The band is back together,” says Joyce about *some* independents (*cough* Windsor*cough*).

Offering us the same chaos that was brought to us at the last concert: Julia Gillard, Bob Brown. The memories are still recent. Of course, people understand I’m fighting this in New England. My good colleague Luke is now challenged in Cowper. We will deal with this and play by the rules and we will show to people we are the best future, not only for their electorate but for their nation. A similar battle is being waged in the Senate against chaotic independents and micro parties that feed off the celebrity of an election campaign but once elected are unaccountable, obstructionist and do nothing for their communities.

Updated

$100m to the Outback Way

Joyce has announced $100m to the Outback Way, a road stretching across the top end of Australia.

$28m was already announced for this upgrade project the other day, which brought the Coalition funding commitment to $70m. I’ll seek confirmation if Joyce’s announcement is an extra $30m (on top of the total), $78m (on top of the first promise), or $100m (on top of everything).

It is a 2,800km route linking WA to Winton in Queensland. In 2012, approximately 1,100km of the road was sealed, with the remaining 1,700km unsealed or gravel road. We do these things for the people in remote areas. Not for the votes, because there are not many there. We do it for the wealth and the produce that comes from these areas. And we do it as a vision for our nation.

Updated

Joyce opens by talking up the Nats as a party for the underdogs, and touches on the theme of today: border protection.

As a government, we stopped the people smugglers, the Labor-Green alliance’s chaotic border policy. Not only was it chaotic, it was responsible for the death of 1,200 men, women and children. Men, women and children who had escaped the clutches of criminals, but have paid for it with their lives. We are not an ungenerous country. We are not inhumane. We pride ourselves on compassion, but it must be compassion on the premise of order and under the necessity of strict controls.

Updated

The deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce ,is addressing the National Press Club. Gabrielle Chan is there.

Updated

Remember the ABCC?

It certainly is hard for young people to buy their first home, but that’s not the fault of negative gearing. And construction costs for public roads, schools and hospitals are inflated, thanks to union thuggery.

That’s the message from the Master Builders of Australia, which has released two campaign ads today.

In one (below) the MBA calls for “an overhaul on ways to help Australians buy their first home”, specifically suggesting we keep negative gearing and lower stamp duty.

In the other we see a rare mention of the reason for this campaign season: the double-dissolution-triggering ABCC.

“Illegal strikes and construction union thuggery mean it costs up to 30% more to build the things we need,” it says.

“The solution is a special industry regulator, the Australian Building and Construction Commission.”

Updated

A quick visit by your usual Politics Live host, Katharine Murphy.

Murphy was listening to the Peter Dutton interview on ABC a short time ago, and has homed in on a bit of contradiction.

From Murphy on Twitter:

Dutton’s currently telling ABC Labor has a caveat on turnbacks. This is why Labor can’t be trusted. What’s the caveat, Dutton’s asked.

Dutton won’t say. There is a caveat in Labor’s policy: turnbacks: when it is safe to do so. Apparently this is a sign of weakness.

Hi @PeterDutton_MP – are you seriously suggesting turn backs when it’s safe to do so is a sign of weakness?

Updated

Warren Entsch will fix your internet.

Or so Malcolm Turnbull has told Cairns radio listeners this morning if their connection is so slow they have to wait until late in the night to send an email.

The PM was discussing the NBN and the increasing number of people signing up to the new Sky Muster satellite for broadband in regional areas.

The announcer cited residents of Karumba in the Gulf of Carpentaria, where the NBN is not on offer yet and Telstra isn’t expanding its services.

“So they’ve reached that point where they naturally have to wait until late at night to send an email. Is there any short-term solution for them?”

Turnbull said issues are location specific, but the satellite service reaches everywhere not connected to the NBN. He concedes its not as fast as a fixed line in the city “but it’s still very fast broadband and it will be available in the most remote areas in Australia”.

A quarter of premises are available for services now, and all will be by 2019-20, he assured.

You can’t build a national broadband network immediately and obviously it takes a while. When we looked at it, when we inherited this failed project from Labor, we examined it. We took a different approach. We’ve got a new board and new management and they’re taking a much more businesslike approach and they are saving six to eight years in time, time to complete and $30bn in cost. That’s just the facts and we are, in terms of the family in Karumba: you send Warren Entsch the details and we’ll find out what the right solution is.

Updated

You may remember earlier in this campaign when Labor senator for the Northern Territory Nova Peris resigned after reports she was in talks for a top job at the AFL as general manager of inclusion and social policy.

That job has been filled by Tanya Hosch, the joint campaign director of Recognise.

Hosch’s appointment comes just days after the AFL was criticised for its poor response to comments made by Collingwood boss, Eddie McGuire, about drowning a female journalist.

Updated

Good almost-afternoon everyone. Helen Davidson here stepping in to take us through the rest of today.

This morning has been ... political. Boats are back on deck, so to speak, as the government and Daily Telegraph bring us breaking news from three weeks ago.

Labor is still all about Medicare and the apparent certain threat of its privatisation.

And Scott Morrison tells LGBTI Australians “me too” when it comes to being targeted by bigotry and hatred.

Grab your lunch and let’s tuck in.

Updated

Ok, that’s me over and out. I am off to do other things but I will leave you in the capable hands of Helen Davidson. Thanks for your time this morning.

Thanks Sabra.

Naked politics, by Peter Dutton.

Peter Dutton is on ABC 24 with Greg Jennett. He is squirming, as much as PDuddy squirms over the timing of the boat revelation.

Q: This is an on-water activity, and as you’re suggesting to me right now, you won’t normally comment and yet you are within days, if not weeks of an incident occurring. Did you seek commander Bottrell’s advice on the necessity of broadcasting this information today?

It has always been the case that we have provided information to the public through the media in relation to these matters once operationally it is safe to do so. Once all of the matters have been finalised and people have been returned safely and we have received undertakings from the country involved, in this case Vietnam, and we have dealt with all those issues, providing we are not going to impact in a negative way on any operational matters [if we release] that information publicly. You have been to the press conferences in Canberra before where we have stood up and provided that detail. That is what I did today. It wasn’t appropriate to have General Bottrell [the head of operation sovereign borders] there today because we are in caretaker mode. I have provided that information in the past both in the company of the general and without. That is how it has operated in the past and it has been no different today.

Q: There is something nakedly political about this. It just has to be, doesn’t there, being a week and a half out from an election, your embedded message is that they are testing a would-be Labor government out, aren’t you?

It is clear that there are a couple of big lies in this campaign perpetrated by Labor.

Q: I might have suggested it in my last question, but are you explicitly saying that this turn-back, the 28th you’re talking about today, was specifically sent as a test of a would-be Labor government. Are you making that claim?

No, the point I am making is in relation – you’re asking about the broader election issues and this issue in particular that I have responsibility for. There is a clear difference.

Updated

Bill Shorten is asked about Dutton’s press conference about a boat turn-back.

Q: Dutton has said Indonesia is also watching closely and they believe if there is a change of government in 10 days, the people smugglers will be back in business and people will be back on boats coming to our country.

You have to love the Liberal party central headquarters. It is the break glass issue. Spread concern and say somehow Labor has a different policy to the Liberals when it comes to deterring boats.

(Though Labor does have a different TPV policy.)

Updated

Shorten: why does Morrison need to inject himself into Penny Wong's speech?

Bill Shorten:

I think it is regrettable that Scott Morrison felt the need or the deprivation to include himself in Penny Wong’s remarkable speech. I do accept that people of faith sometimes get a hard time. People are entitled to their views in this country and people of religious faith are entitled to respect, just like people who hold other views. What I don’t understand is why the treasurer of Australia feels the need to drive across two paddocks, cross three rivers and get to a bridge to talk about Penny Wong’s remarkable speech. When Penny Wong speaks about her experiences, Scott Morrison feels the need to inject himself into that speech. How is that?

Updated

Both leaders have been asked about the NSW government’s claim that NSW’s share of the GST has dropped to 81 cents in the dollar.

Both leaders say it is an independent process – that is, the states have to agree to any change in the GST formula.

But Bill Shorten has a final dig.

I accept that premier Baird may have challenges in terms of his funding structure but he needs to ring Malcolm Turnbull to sort out those problems.

Updated

Bill Shorten bats off AMA criticism of his harem scarem on Medicare.

I don’t accept that characterisation at all. People are entitled to their opinion about the importance of keeping the payments system in government hands. Labor is committed to keeping the payments system in government hands.

He says Labor is committed to updating the Medicare payments system.

Updated

Turnbull is asked about Scott Morrison’s comments and the plebiscite.

We do have debates on big issues and we don’t have a lot of plebiscites in Australia. We have had a few. But we have regularly had referendums and we manage to conduct them without hateful activities of the kind that he foreshadows. The truth is that we will – if we win the election, we will have the plebiscite. It will be conducted in a respectful manner. People do have different views on the issue. They are entitled to those views. It will be conducted in a respectful manner and the Australian people will make a decision.

Updated

Malcolm Turnbull re Medicare: I am not an unalloyed fan of outsourcing

Q: The point the AMA seems to be making today is that privatising the payments system isn’t actually privatising Medicare. You are saying you won’t do either – privatise the payments system or Medicare. It seems these issues are being conflated in the heat of this political debate and privatising the payment system may be good policy. Aren’t taxpayers missing out because of this political debate during a campaign?

What the AMA president was talking about, and what has been canvassed, is outsourcing the payments system, as indeed the payments system for private health insurance is managed by a private company – by Hicaps. A case can be made for outsourcing services like that. It wouldn’t amount to privatising Medicare or even privatising the service but my decision is that this payments system will be upgraded and it will be upgraded within government. I dealt with this at some length in that very long session of Q&A on Monday night but I will try to summarise it. I am not an unalloyed fan of outsourcing. There is a risk that if you outsource too much of government services, you run the risk that you end up with very little talent or capability within government.

Updated

Q: What is the importance of having Mr Abbott and Mr Howard at the launch on Sunday?

It is important that our launch is well attended and our former prime ministers will be in attendance, as will many other leading figures in the Liberal party.

Updated

Malcolm Turnbull says the Medicare payment system will still go ahead, within government.

My decision and my commitment is that as the payment services are upgraded and modernised, that will be done within government, full stop.

Updated

Why are you releasing on-water matters now PM?

Q: For the past three years, we have asked about them and been told it is “on-water matters and we wouldn’t get the information we wanted”. What has changed now that you are now forthcoming with this information?

It is very important that the people smugglers know, and their would-be customers know, that boats have been turned back and they are being turned back. This is a critical part of our communication.

Updated

Malcolm Turnbull says the removal of TPVS will send signals to people smugglers.

The Labor party has announced that they are going to abolish temporary protection visas. This will mean that the 30,000 asylum seekers who came by boat under the Labor government, who are in Australia, will get permanent residence. This will send an absolutely unequivocal signal to the people smugglers that under a Labor government, anyone who manages to get to Australia on a boat will be able to stay here permanently.

Updated

Malcolm Turnbull is speaking in Queensland:

Recently the 28th people-smuggling expedition has been turned back, that is to say we have turned back 28 boats. This is total 734 passengers have been turned back in their people-smuggling ventures. There were 21 on this vessel and they have been returned to Vietnam.

As you know, there is also a vessel in Aceh that is attempting to come to Australia. Let me be quite clear about this. The people smugglers will continue to test our resolve. They have a very, very lucrative business model. We have put them out of business but they keep on trying to get back into business.

Updated

The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop ,is campaigning in Hindmarsh, in the western suburbs of Adelaide. It has a margin of 1.9%. Labor’s candidate is a former MP, Steve Georganas.

Bishop wanted to remind voters Georganas was a member of the Labor government that did not commission one Australian ship in six years from an Australian shipyard.

So he’s part of a government that actually destroyed jobs in the defence industry, whereas Matt Williams is part of a team that is creating jobs.

Williams is asked what about the Xenophon factor?

It is hard to know because it’s a complete unknown. I’m just getting on with engaging with the people and working hard for them and we’ll see what the people decide.

Bishop accuses Nick Xenophon of opposing trade deals.

These trade deals mean that more South Australian businesses will be able to export their goods and services into the massive consumer markets to our north. In particular, South Australian wine-growers are now seeing record sales into China, South Australian horticulture, seafood, a whole range of goods and services, and I remind South Australians that Nick Xenophon is against these trade deals. That would mean less jobs, less economic growth, whereas Matt Williams is part of a team that is promoting jobs and growth through our strong economic plan for the future.

This is what Xenophon wrote earlier this month in the Fin.

That’s what I’ve been about – arguing for greater parliamentary scrutiny of our trade negotiations, urging assessments of the costs and benefits by independent bodies such as the Productivity Commission, seeking an overhaul of government procurement laws to ensure the Australian, state and local governments take into account the social and economic benefits of local procurement, and pushing the Australian government to look at the wider national interest in supporting a diverse economy in our trade negotiations.

BTW, Peta Credlin last night described Xenophon as one of the most cunning politicians she knows.

Updated

The Cairns job package to be announced by the PM in Cairns shortly.

The Coalition will deliver a $30m jobs and investment package that will open opportunities for local enterprise and employment pathways for local workers.

The Coalition’s jobs and investment package will provide $10m towards a new $50m Cairns innovation centre.

Updated

Part 3.

Part 2.

There are some things that are not worth election to the highest office.

Peter Dutton: boat interception has nothing to do with the election

Peter Dutton is fronting up to talk about the interception of a boat of 20 asylum seekers. This is the story on the front of the Tele. Dutton says the asylum seekers, from Vietnam, wanted protection but did not warrant it. They were processed at sea – which sounds like language for canned goods – and sent home.

Isn’t it convenient that this has been announced in the second last week of the campaign,? asks a reporter.

No, nothing to do with it, says Dutton. It was simply when things were ready to roll. (Not in so many words.) He is just trying to keep us posted.

If you’ve got a government that is sending out mixed messages ... then people will take advantage of that.

The abolition of temporary protection visas – as is Labor policy – is a sign.

I think the people smugglers are looking at Bill Shorten and seeing someone who is weak.

Updated

Phil Coorey at the Fin has reported on an Australia Institute analysis – supported by a separate assessment from ABC election expert Antony Green – and based largely on voting intention in published polls.

The most likely scenario at this stage is that after the election, there will be nine Senate crossbenchers, of which up to six, and a minimum four, will belong to the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT). This would be one more than the old eight-member crossbench.

The Coalition is on track to lose one senator and drop to 32 spots. Labor, which now has 23 senators, could end up with 26, while the Greens will lose one in South Australia to reduce their total to 10.

To pass legislation through the Senate, a government needs 39 votes. If the Coalition wins the election, it will need the support of either Labor, the Greens or seven members of the crossbench. Senator Xenophon will become a key player because his bloc of votes will be critical to delivering the third option.

He quotes the Australia Institute executive director Ben Oquist, who worked for Bob Brown. Oquist reckons Pauline Hanson and Jacqui Lambie are likely to get up. He thinks Xenophon will get four – read four – spots in South Australia alone and perhaps two more in other states. For example, he thinks David Leyonhjelm will fight it out with a NXT senator for the last spot in NSW.

So this whole strategy to “clean out” the Senate of non-major infiltrators is working really well. Not.

Updated

There really is no way to describe the lack of awareness in Scott Morrison’s comments – conflating his experience of fear and bigotry with a gay Asian woman. For someone who has never felt prejudice based on the way they look, for someone who has never felt hatred based on the way they or their family members were born, it is hard to describe the visceral feeling in the pit of your gut. It runs deep and it causes fear and anger in equal measure.

I have watched the evolution of Penny Wong as a politician. When she first hit the public stage, she was loth to talk about her private life, most likely because she didn’t want to be known as the that “lesbian Chinese” politician before she was known for anything else. She established herself in difficult portfolios such as finance and water and, little by little, she increased her interventions on issues around marriage equality.

She established a formidable reputation, and even Coalition MPs regard her as one of Labor’s best performers. With the birth of her two children with her partner, Sophie, I sensed both an increase in confidence and an increase in trepidation – it that’s possible. When you experience prejudice as a child, protective stance becomes a reflex. It is no surprise that she is in the Senate, for example, where her constituent interactions can be more managed.

In the past few months, she has become more and more public, speaking out for the LGBTI community. The Orlando massacre ratcheted that intervention up again. But this latest debate must be getting under her skin. At a doorstop on Monday when asked about the Coalition argument in which white men in power are trusting the debate to proceed in an orderly fashion, she visibly flushed.

Wong is at the intersection of a number of prejudices. For Morrison, a straight white man with a fortunate life cocooned in the Sutherland shire, to claim equivalence of hatred and bigotry really must take the cake.

Updated

A choice selection of front pages.

Greens announce sugar tax

The Greens have announced a 20% tax on sugary drinks which they claim could reduce uptake by at least 12%. Richard Di Natale:

Every cent of the expected $500m per year raised by the tax on sweetened drinks will be reinvested back into positive health initiatives for Australians. Over four years $2bn could be raised by ensuring that sugary sweetened drink manufacturers contribute to the harms their product causes.

Updated

Scott Morrison feels Wong's fear: I have experienced hatred and bigotry

Scott Morrison is asked about Wong’s fears that a plebiscite will give licence to hate speech against the LGBTI community.

I respect Penny’s fears that she has raised. Equally, there are many who have a different view to Penny and to others over what should happen to same-sex marriage. I have a different view to that and people have strong religious views, they have also been subject to quite strong hate speech as well. It is not confined to one side of the debate. That said, I have a bigger view of the Australian people more broadly which says we can once and for all deal with this issue where everybody gets their say.

Morrison says he can’t represent the view of everyone in his electorate – most are against marriage equality – but he thinks others should have their say.

Morrison says he understands Wong’s fears because he has experienced hatred and bigotry for his own views.

I know it from personal experience. I have been exposed to that sort of hatred and bigotry for the views I have taken from others who have a different view to me but I think the best way is for all of us to have a say on this, deal with it and move on.

Updated

Another day, another negative gearing report.

The treasurer, Scott Morrison, is speaking to Fran Kelly.

He is fired up about a SQM Research report and Labor’s negative gearing policy which limits negative gearing to new, rather than existing properties. It would also halve the tax break on capital gains made from property sales.

SQM found house prices could fall up to 15% during the four years it would take for the market to absorb the Labor party’s planned negative gearing changes.

But this is the worst-case scenario, the Fin reports, and the average loss could be as little as 4% over the same period if the Reserve Bank lowered rates by 50 basis points from the current level.

Morrison is on message with his harum-scarum language:

This is a very sensitive time when Labor wants to take a sledgehammer to the property market.

Kelly also asks about the business community, which is peeved at Malcolm Turnbull’s latest language about the tax cuts. That is, if you don’t like my 10-year plan, you can chuck me out after three years. What did #FakeTradie say: “Stick with the current mob for a while.”

The prime minister was making a statement of the obvious. If the Labor-Greens government was ever elected in the future, then they would seek to reverse that legislation, I assume.

He says he is totally committed to implementing the enterprise tax plan.

We are a government who has put our entire budget to the people, Fran. That has not happened before.

Updated

Porter on plebiscite: 'We can trust those organs of civil society'

My colleagues Lenore Taylor and Katharine Murphy held a Guardian Live event in Melbourne last night. One of the guests was Christian Porter, the social services minister. The conversation got around to marriage equality and the potential for a polarising debate which would give licence to hate speech.

Porter said Australians should not be denied the opportunity to vote in a plebiscite because of a “concern about risk” to the LGBTI community.

He has faith in the “organs of civil society” to keep the debate in line.

He was answering what he called a “leading question”. Someone asked if Porter shared prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s “naive optimism” that campaigns around the proposed plebiscite would be well-behaved. He was also asked about the government’s risk management strategy to ensure “that kids don’t suicide based on the hatred that’s about to come”.

I think we can trust those organs of civil society to do the job that they have done for years.

Updated

Penny Wong has given a speech at the Australian National University stating the bleeding obvious. Heterosexual politicians calling for a plebiscite don’t understand the fear and animosity faced by LGBTI Australians.

I know that a plebiscite designed to deny me and many other Australians a marriage certificate will instead license hate speech to those who need little encouragement. Mr Turnbull – and many commentators on this subject – don’t understand that for gay and lesbian Australians hate speech is not abstract.

Wong said if anyone needs to know the sort of abuse that LGBTI community will face in the midst of a plebiscite, they only need check her Twitter feed.

Labor, the Greens and Nick Xenophon are all opposed to a plebiscite though on Monday Nick told me that if it was the only option to get marriage equality, he could wear it.

He has strengthened his language against a plebiscite this morning, however. While Turnbull has said he would have a mandate for a plebiscite, Xenophon says he has a mandate to review it.

My view is the government has a mandate to put legislation up and the senate has a mandate to review it.

Updated

Our colleagues at the ABC report that Ben Willis, the Liberal candidate for Gellibrand, has suggested people who use the term invasion day instead of Australia Day need a

high five. In the face. With a chair.

The candidate wrote the comment on his Facebook page on 22 January.

Willis put out a statement through the Victorian Liberal party branch.

I unreservedly apologise for this comment.

Updated

I have some more details of Bill Shorten’s day.

The Labor leader will be visiting a GP clinic in Burwood to discuss Labor’s plans for Medicare.

Later in the day Shorten will meet with victims of financial services scandals to discuss the banks need a royal commission.

Updated

Good morning blogsters,

Today is Wednesday all day and thanks for joining us.

We have news at last regarding the Liberal campaign launch. Labor launched last weekend, the second last weekend of the actual campaign. The Liberal party will launch this weekend, the last weekend of the actual campaign. The reason parties wait so long is because the party organisation has to pay for the campaign once they ring the bell. Such is politics.

The big picture

So where will it be, this grand Liberal party?

It will be in the Sydney seat of Reid in the inner west, now held by Craig Laundy on a margin of 3.3% after redistribution. Laundy is an ally of Malcolm Turnbull, on the small L end of the party. The Australian reports that Tony Abbott will be “front and centre”, along with his fellow former PM John Howard. Labor wheeled out Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Julia Gillard so Howard and Abbott are waiting in the wings for the Liberal event.

It tells us something that Sydney is the chosen launch address for both parties, after Brisbane was the favoured city in 2013. Sydney seats are the focus.

With those details under our belt, we can now step back and look at the final weeks. Labor is continuing to push the Medicare issue while the Coalition are hammering the economy and … drum roll … boats.

BREAKING NEWS: Navy intercepts asylum seeker boat in first test of borders during campaign

The Daily Telegraph reports that:

The navy has intercepted an asylum seeker boat off Australian waters in the first serious attempt by people smugglers to test our borders during the election campaign.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal a boat was seized in the Timor Sea, trying to make a run for Australia, after what is believed to have been a joint operation between an Australian Navy frigate and an Australian Border Force cutter. It is understood the boat was set on fire and scuttled by the navy after it was deemed unseaworthy.

On cue. Not to mention:

Mr Turnbull said the prospect of a Labor government had also been used as a tool by the people smugglers over the past year: “They are marketing that there could be a change of government in Australia.’’

We were waiting.

Elsewhere, the new president of the Australian Medical Association, Michael Gannon, has suggested Labor’s Medicare privatisation claims are wrong. He told the Oz that while the AMA backed Labor on the end of the rebate freeze, Bill Shorten was not correct when he says the Coalition’s plans amounted to privatisation.

The idea that you might outsource the payment system to the private sector is in no way the privatisation of Medicare. The current system is old and many elements of it date well back to the early 1980s. They’re antiquated, they’re rusty and the system needs substantial investment.

It should be noted that Gannon told News on his elevation that he wanted to work more closely with the government and he thought the previous leadership – headed by Brian Owler – was too “lefty”.

But Labor is not taking a backward step, planning further campaigning on Medicare today. Labor has dug up a quote from Turnbull in 2009.

In an ideal world, every Australian would have private health insurance.

On the campaign trail

Malcolm Turnbull is in the seat of Leichhardt in Queensland. It is held by the Liberal MP and marriage equality campaigner Warren Entsch with a 5.7% margin. Labor started its campaign in this seat, all those weeks ago. Today Turnbull will announces funding for innovation and jobs, to the tune of $30m. Cha-ching.

Bill Shorten is campaigning in marginal seats in Sydney. He will be continuing on the Medicare privatisation theme.

The campaign you should be watching

Barker is a South Australian seat, which sits on the eastern coast of the state, right up against the Victorian border. As Ben Raue notes, it has consistently voted for conservative parties. The seat has been held by the Liberals or its predecessor party since its creation in 1903– apart from two terms of the Country party.

Which makes it even more surprising that a Reachtel poll has Nick Xenophon’s candidate James Stacey ahead of the Liberal MP, Tony Pasin, who should be kicking back with a margin of 16.5%. The 2PP result is 52-48.

And another thing

Former Abbott chief of staff turned Sky commentator Peta Credlin is continuing to cause heartburn for the Turnbull leadership group. She has some more free advice.

I think you’d want to see, out of the prime minister’s team, more effort. Because, to date, what 12, 13 interviews for the entire campaign – I don’t think that’s credible. He looks a bit patrician, that he’s standing back – everybody else can campaign and I just expect you to vote for me.

Stick with us. I will be here until midday and Helen Davidson will drive the bus for the afternoon. Catch me on the Twits @gabriellechan

Updated

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