In a nutshell
Maybe it was the Northern Territory heat. Maybe the experiment, such as it was, to stay as positive as possible, has been declared shelved after a week of unrelenting government attack. But Bill Shorten put in his strongest performance yet this campaign, officially turning up. The government had started by hoping for its third straight day of “what’s their climate policy cost” and instead ended up having to defend its own climate policy, as well as fend off details about how much its tax plan could end up benefiting high income earners.
Labor had started the campaign with the aim of improving Shorten’s personal popularity. To that end, the party leader was kept back from negative attacks, with Chris Bowen, Kristina Keneally and Tanya Plibersek stepping in to hit those notes when needed. But a stumble on super and an ill-fated attempt to bat away climate policy questions essentially lost Labor two days of messaging.
On Thursday, the last day of full campaigning before the Easter break and a laying down of arms on both sides, Shorten decided to step back up to the plate. He called the government’s attacks on the cost of Labor’s climate policy “malicious and stupid”. He labelled Morrison the spending “cutter-in-chief” and turned the question back on the government, saying Labor was using the same modelling as the government, the same numbers. He still didn’t answer all the questions, and to be honest, he probably won’t. But Labor finally found a line they could prosecute.
And that put the government back on the defence, having to defend its own climate policy, while successive government MPs struggled to answer by how much its tax plan would benefit higher income earners. The government dismissed the Australia Institute’s figure of $77bn, but refused to put their own number on it. Meanwhile, both sides are accusing the other of launching a “scare campaign”. And thus ends week one.
Elsewhere on the trail
George Christensen is still grabbing headlines, forcing government MPs to defend him as an “excellent local member” in the face of reports he missed committee work while on holiday in the Philippines. Michael McCormack was left to answer questions on his Dawson MP for the third day this campaign, relying on the line that when he took over as leader of the Nationals, he “had a chat” to Christensen, and the trips stopped. Christensen has referred some of his domestic connecting travel to the independent parliament expenses authority for its assessment, but the questions keep on keeping on, somewhat dulling the Coalition’s central Queensland campaign in the meantime.
The big picture
“How good” is Scott Morrison’s marital advice? Jenny Morrison had some thoughts at a Launceston campaign launch, as her husband delved into that topic. Or she might just be sick of eating his curry.
Required reading
Adani isn’t going away as an issue for either side just yet. But today, the questions were back in the government’s court over briefing notes released under freedom of information. Meanwhile, on climate, the Greens have not ruled out torpedoing Labor’s climate policy, if the opposition wins the election and it holds the balance of power, the leader, Richard Di Natale, saying he would expect Labor to come to the negotiating table. The Greens don’t believe Labor’s policy is ambitious enough, potentially lining up the same scenario which derailed Labor’s climate policy in 2009. And it’s a slow burner, but it’s not going to go away, so Paul Karp has delved into whether the government is planning to cut spending growth by $40bn to meet its surplus plan.
Tweet of the day
Despite telling Tasmanian radio that it was “not, not on the agenda” and nuclear power operators were welcome to put in a submission to power Australia, as long as “it can pay its way” and if nuclear power operators wanted to put forward a submission “they can”, Scott Morrison was later made to do some clean up of his own when Labor seized on whether nuclear power was now government policy:
Labor are getting desperate, and we are only 8 days in. This is not our policy and we have no plans to change that. https://t.co/A7TGkzP3ph
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) April 18, 2019
What next?
Both leaders are heading back to their respective homes for the easter weekend, with no campaigning to occur over the public holidays. But they’ll pick back up again on Sunday evening, ready for the blitz to begin again on Monday.
