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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Amy Remeikis

Labor's Belinda Hassan target of suspected arson attempt – as it happened

Belinda Hassan, Labor’s candidate for Dawson, has been the target of a suspected arson attack.
Belinda Hassan, Labor’s candidate for Dawson, has been the target of a suspected arson attack. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

And with the campaigns (mostly) down for the night, we are going to tuck the blog up for the night.

But we will be back early tomorrow morning – the pace is only going to increase, so we’ll be up at sparrows to keep an eye on where they are all off to.

Nothing like a seat blitz to get the blood pumping!

It looks like Scott Morrison will start the day in South Australia, where the Liberals are trying to hold on to Boothby.

And at this stage, we believe Labor is headed to Tasmania, where it is looking to hold on to Bass and Braddon.

So a bit of sandbagging on all sides tomorrow. At least in the morning.

Thank you for following along with us today – it is only going to get more crazy as we enter the final four days. So get some sleep. We’ll see you tomorrow morning – and take care of you.

Updated

David Crowe from the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age has reported Julia Banks is talking to lawyers about those Advance Australia flyers we pointed to you a few posts ago (in Alex Turnbull’s tweet). From Crowe’s story:

These are the dirty tricks we have come to expect from the major parties,” [Julia Banks told the paper].

“I expect nothing less from the Liberal Party, who treat women with such contempt.

“The current Liberal Party of Australia don’t want more women in Parliament. The Liberals don’t want women to have equality. The Liberals don’t want women to have choices.”

Rather than referring to claims of bullying, the Advance Australia flyer asserted the events occurred.

Updated

Two Scott Morrison press conferences in one day – bookending the day, if you will.

It may be his birthday, but obviously we get the gifts.

Aren’t we lucky.

And after a few hours in WA, which Morrison and the Liberals’ campaign flew to from Sydney, he’ll be taking off again, to, we are told, South Australia.

Nothing says final week like a seat blitz!

Updated

Question: What’s the electoral landscape looking like from your perspective? What are the Coalition’s chances in this city and how important is it?

Scott Morrison:

I am really pleased to be here ... My members, my candidates, are the ones who have been doing enough and doing the work. I mean, Steve Irons, we came into parliament together here. I know Steve probably better than most.

And Steve is a former small and family business person himself, raising his son on his own, working hard every day, bringing those values into the parliament and working hard for the people of Swan.

I mean, he has been delivering for them – $13.5bn worth of investment we are putting into infrastructure in Western Australia, that doesn’t include the extra 7bn that is on its way both now and into the future as a result of the GST fair change that we were able to deliver.

I mean, they have done that. They have done the hard work to go to Western Australians this Saturday with their record and their future plans and seek re-election.

Just as Isaac and Vince, being part of our team, are able to go forward and put these future plans and follow in the same way all of our members in Western Australia have been able to deliver for Western Australia.

I mean, if it was not for the Liberal members in parliament of Western Australia, the GST would never have been fixed for WA. The Labor members who are here were equivocal about it. Never fought for it.

The Liberal members are the ones who fought for it. They were the ones – I mean, Steve would be in my ear, because I flatted with him in Canberra, every single night about it when I was treasurer.

And he was right. But as an eastern states treasurer, I knew it would take that, not just the advocacy but a government who got Western Australia and understood Western Australia.

Bill Shorten can visit here as many times as he likes but he’ll never understand the aspiration of Western Australians.

He’ll never understand they don’t want him coming and taking money out of their pockets because he thinks it’s better off spent in Canberra than spent by Western Australians here on the ground.

Updated

Question: You said this morning the election was going to be tight on the back of a Newspoll. There is a whole bunch of independents running and challenging government MPs. Is it incumbent on the MPs who they give confidence and supply to in the event of a minority government?

Scott Morrison:

First of all, I wouldn’t advocate a vote for an independent for a start because you never know what you’re going to get, which I think is the point of your question. You never know what you are going to get.

People vote for an independent thinking they’ll respect the wishes of their local electorate, ultimately, about who should form a government and they put the Labor party in like we saw last time with Julia Gillard.

So independents, those who are standing at the election, I think it’s a very reasonable and fair question that is being put to them, not by me, but by their own electors and electorates, and I think that’s fair.

But I think the best way to ensure that you aren’t faced with the uncertainty of that situation is to vote Liberal and National this weekend.

That’s the best way to ensure that certainty and to ensure that we can continue the strong budget management which is going to pay down the debt, the 1.25 million new jobs, ensuring we are investing in new services in Western Australia, hospitals, schools and roads, we will keep investing in those things as a government because we know how to manage money.

If you can’t manage money, you can’t run the country. Labor have shown they cannot manage money.

Updated

Asked about this story:

The Liberal party is standing by a candidate in New South Wales who previously expressed support for repealing the right of gay couples to adopt, shared posts warning against Muslim immigration, and said same-sex marriage could cause the abolishment of Mother’s and Father’s Day.

Allan Green, the Liberal candidate for Greenway in Sydney’s west, said the old posts – which were made when he was a candidate for the Christian Democratic party – did not reflect his personal views.

The posts, made by Green’s Facebook account in 2010, 2012 and 2015, shared views that Australia should limit its Muslim population, that same-sex couples should not be allowed to adopt, and that de-facto partnerships between gay couples should be repealed.”

Scott Morrison says he hasn’t seen the report and he will leave it to the party executive to sort out.

My faith is not about politics, says Morrison

Question: Are you still opposed to same-sex marriage?

Scott Morrison: It’s law. I’m happy people get on with their lives. I always support the law of the country

Question: You have spoken more about personal beliefs on this issue in the last couple of days, whether or not it is OK for a Christian to express their belief. What’s your belief? Do gay people go to hell?

Morrison:

I support the law of the country. I don’t mix my religion with politics and my faith with politics. It’s always been something that has informed how I live my life and seek to care for and support others. That’s what I seek to do.

I talked about my mum on the weekend, given you’ve raised these issues. I always saw in my mum a woman of quiet, decent faith, who translated that into action in her love and care for others and that’s the faith that I’ve been taught and, you know, none of us are perfect, none of us are saints in that respect.

We try and do what’s right and we try and do what’s best and that’s what always sought to guide me in terms of my own personal faith. As I said, my faith is not about politics.

It’s about just who I am, just like it is for everyone who holds such a deep faith.

Updated

Question: You are flying around the country, Clive Palmer is flying to Fiji. You are swapping preferences with him. Is that disappointing?

Scott Morrison: I am not talking about that.

(That’s it. That’s the whole (non)answer.)

Updated

Question: Firstly, how much is the cost of the scheme – ongoing cost or equity? Secondly, you said this morning the number of loans approved – the number accessing the scheme – would depend on the number of loans approved. What happens if there is more than 10,000 per year?

Morrison:

It’s half a billion capital goes into the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation. You need the capital backing in the organisation which enables it to enter into the arrangements with the lenders and the non-bank lenders. Here in Western Australia, there was 14,800 Western Australians able to buy their first home. There was 112,000 around the country. The estimates of take-up, given it is targeted at low and middle income – those on higher incomes, they will get access to home lenders’ insurance mortgage. The scheme will be the matter of increasing the capitalisation ...

... If there is greater demand for the scheme, we will be in a position to meet that demand based on capitalisation.

Question: First homebuyers are coming back into the market ...

Morrison: It’s great.

Question: Why do we need market intervention?

Morrison:

Because I’d like to see more of them, first homebuyers get on the property rung of the ladder and realise their aspirations.

This is why I’m in politics. Their aspirations to get a job, not having to hand all their money over to the Labor party.

I saw Rosalee today – I talked about her yesterday at the launch – she lives in Perth, in Ken Wyatt’s electorate. She has $1,800 of her $30,000 income which comes in the franking credit support that – not support, it is the pass-through of the tax that the company has already paid through to her as a shareholder – $1,800 out of a $30,000 income.

Bill Shorten calls that a gift. You know what she uses it for? She pays her private health insurance with it. She is taking care of her healthcare needs.

She is on a $30,000 income a year. I take my hat off to her. She has done an amazing job. She was a school teacher.

She is not making any complaints, except if the Labor party change the rules on her. I want to see first homeowners in the market. I want them to get a better share. We have seen owner-occupiers go from less than two-thirds of the market now to three-quarters of the market and we have seen first homeowners increase that share. More first homeowners is a great thing.

Updated

Morrison continued (I know Mark Textor has retired, but boy he has trained those who have taken over from him well. It is the same playbook.)

The green shoots of an economy that we are starting to see re-emerge and fire up again. Here in Western Australia, our government has been the government that has delivered the GST fairer deal, changing the GST formula.

Bill Shorten said the formula, and Labor said the formula shouldn’t be changed. I knew it had to be as treasurer and we set about the path of doing just that. So Western Australians can know, from me, that when I make a promise, I keep it.

I said I’d fix the GST and I did. I said I’d stop the boats and I did. Did that as part of a government and a team that takes commitments very seriously. When we make them, as people in Western Australia know, we will follow through on those commitments. One point three billion extra flowing into Western Australia even now because of the fairer GST deal we were able to pull together.

Got to say, it’s been one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do in government to date, to ensure we could make that big change, but because of all the Western Australian members we have here, whether it is Steve Irons in Swan or Christian Porter in Pearce or Ken Wyatt in Hasluck, Mathias Cormann leading our Senate team out of Western Australia and the many members from our Cabinet of Western Australia, all of them ensured we focused on this, and we fixed it, and we did, and we legislated to give certainty to people in Western Australia. It is great to be here. Seeing more first homebuyers getting a go.

Today, we have had the finance statistics which have been released which show, again, a further climb in first homeowners getting their share of the market. We’ve seen investors in this country, as a share of that finance, fall from 36% down to 27%. So under the policies that we’ve pursued, investors in the housing market have eased off and owner-occupiers have increased.

That’s what’s been happening under our policies, what we’ve been putting in place, to ensure first homebuyers and owner-occupiers are getting a fair go. That’s the result, that’s the outcome. I’m pleased with the outcome but we must do more. That’s why I’m ensuring first homeowners will get a lower tax on their home savings and support on the new scheme which will firm up the residential market not just here in Western Australia but all around the country.

Updated

Scott Morrison is also extending his birthday out to about 27 hours.

Standing in Perth, Morrison says:

This is one of the many reasons why it’s important we continue on with the positive plan that we have to lower taxes, to support small and family businesses, to open up export markets, so important to the Western Australian economy.

Getting to the point of 90% of our trade being covered by our export agreements.

That’s a result of the work over the last five and a half years and continuing it to the future will only be positive for the WA economy. When we stand here on a residential building site, where the homes are going up and this one is almost ready to hand over for another young couple, we reflect on the importance of the residential building industry for jobs here, for tradies, for those whose livelihoods depend on the markets.

The announcements we’ve made are all about ensuring we firm up these markets, that we see more investment, we see more people looking to buy homes and build homes and see greater strength in the markets.

The Western Australian housing market, particularly here in Perth, has had a rough road over five years. In the eastern states we’re seeing double-digit growth, up around 18% in Sydney, and here in Perth things were struggling out of the back of the mining investment boom. Ensuring we get more first homeowners able to buy their first home, saving for their first deposit and not get taxed higher. As I said earlier, Labor is increasing the taxes on first-home savings – $373m in higher taxes over just the next four years on homeowners, prospective first homebuyers, just saving for their first home.

This is why it’s such a problem. The answer to every question, Bill, is not a higher tax. The answer is Australians and fulfilling and supporting their aspirations to own their home like they are here.

Our policies are designed to support those aspirations – the aspirations of a state like Western Australia, who just get on and do things. They get on and get about it. That’s why Western Australia has been so successful and that’s why they don’t need Canberra taxes from Bill Shorten reaching across here to Western Australia and snuffing out the green shoots of an economy we’re starting to see re-emerge and fire up again.

Updated

It looks like Scott Morrison and the Liberals will be leaving WA very soon and are headed to Adelaide.

Why the stop in WA? Well, it lets Morrison get on the WA news, with locals, and then get to SA, where other seats are in trouble.

And then it ends with this:

PK: Finally, you want to remove Josh Frydenberg, who fought hard for the national energy guarantee and for a compromise to move forward on climate change and energy. Is that a smart move?

Isn’t it about keeping people who are working on market mechanisms or who are making the argument inside the party? Aren’t there other people you could have targeted – Kevin Andrews?

OY:

He was in my seat. He was the environment minister when carbon levels rose. That was going to affect the reef. As environment minister, he did absolutely nothing. All he has done is use his position to go up the Liberal tree, poke his way through, be nice to everybody, stood around but he’s never stood for, never said, “No, we have to do this.” He has never done that.

This example of the Liberal party believing they have a statutory right to be mission leading and deceptive to voters, I don’t think your viewers know that the Liberal party actually believe they have the right to mislead voters.

PK: Do you have this in writing?

OY: That is the law.

PK: You said this is the Liberal party law...

OY:

No, that is the law. Like the Labor party with Mediscare, they could have changed the law, and make sure we don’t engage in activities which are misleading and deceptive.

But these parties chose, “We want to keep in our kitty that at election time we can deceive voters knowingly and have no remedy for it.” There is no retribution other than at the ballot box you have when these parties lie and deceive you. They say there is no law against lying and deceiving a voter. That’s just fair game.

Updated

Patricia Karvelas: One of the critiques of you is past involvement in Link Energy’s purchase of fossil fuel assets in 2010. Do you regret that?

Oliver Yates: I think the question is you need to see it was a company who bought them before I was even on the board. This is part of the Liberal dirt sheet. It’s round to everybody...

PK: I’ve read it.

OY: All they’ve said is I sat on the board of a company which historically before I was involved sold assets. That’s really useful. I wasn’t involved on the board at the same time...

PK: Do you think it’s damaged you?

OY: Of course it has. They wouldn’t send it to be anybody. When I confronted them about it they said, “We assert our rights as the Liberal Party to be misleading and deceptive because we are allowed to.” There is no protection to the voters, zero, to be misleading and deceptive.

Updated

But what is happening in Kooyong – how could the vote play out?

PK: If you rely on this polling commissioned by the Greens, why aren’t you getting as much traction as those other independents?

OY: The big scenario here is when I went into the competition, we had a different Greens candidate who we had worked out how we were going to manage this arrangement a bit better. They decide...

PK: How had you worked it out?

OY: Again, there was a fair commonality of view that the best way to change Liberal leadership is to do it in a structured way. If you want to replace someone with a 26% margin, this is not something you take up lightly, you actually have to have a coordinated, organised process to do it. We had that...

PK: So did the Greens stuff that up for you?

OY: They changed their candidate later in the process. As an independent you start with zero votes. If you’re Labor or Greens you start off with at least 10-15% because people vote the same way. It is always harder for an independent.

PK: Are you saying the Greens, by changing their strategy and their candidate, getting this very high-profile candidate, may have damaged the chances of defeating Josh Frydenberg?

OY: That would be the analytical assessment of it because if I come fourth, Josh wins. I came third, Josh loses.

PK: Should Greens take responsibility for that...

OY: I think you’ll have to ask the Greens...

PK: I will. I’m thinking about you.

OY: Were they thinking about strategy or thinking about having a high-profile candidate? We won’t know until the night. I’m not picking on the Greens. But we’ll have a real intellectual analysis on how these preferences are rolled up. You can look at me or Julian and vote accordingly. There is no loss in either Labor or Green putting me number one and then Labor or Green two.

That’s the way to assure themselves if they want the Liberal Party removed, put me one, or Julian, or two, or Jana. Even with 58% of the vote, we could fail because of the way that the vote stacks, which would be terribly disappointing for everybody.

Updated

The interview continues: does he think he would be a better choice than Julian Burnside?

Oliver Yates: Yes, in relation to climate change. Julian is an experienced lawyer. From the point of view of the core criteria for me, which is actually on climate change, the Liberals need to be replaced. It’s even more ...

PK: Don’t you damage your case when you essentially say the person or the candidate for the seat would be a better person than the sitting member?

OY: Absolutely, I think he is better than Josh Frydenberg, that’s who they should choose.

... My own view is I think I would represent the seat better than Julian Burnside. That’s fine. The electors need to make that decision for themselves.

Updated

PK: That’s what I’m asking you. How are you differentiating yourself from the Greens, other than saying I’m not in a party. Are you going after their economic policies? Are you likely to vote against Labor’s reforms?

OY:

On the type of reforms, I’ve actually made it very clear, I don’t consider that Labor’s negative gearing reform makes a lot of sense. It doesn’t stop people from negative gearing 15 properties. In Kooyong, it encourages the destruction of older houses for new houses.

Remember we have a close here, where the members of parliament are meant to represent what is in the best interests of constituents. I don’t think having a tax system which encourages people to tear down our beautiful old houses...

PK: OK. On franking credits?

OY:

I’ve spoken to my electorate and genuinely the majority feel the change is OK. But I would like to see them consider some form of grandfathering for a period of time to enable people to adjust their income to this change. That’s the advantage of being independent. I don’t have to say black or white. I can actually say...

PK: You can say whatever you like. I’ll ask the question...

OY: No, I can say I believe what the electorate wants. I’ll have a committee of 20 to 25 people, they’ll be my board, I’ll be the CEO. I’ll be representing the people of Kooyong.

Updated

PK: In that sense, is there any substantial difference between electing you in the seat of Kooyong or the Greens candidate, Julian Burnside?

OY: There is a key difference...

PK: In terms of what you do in the parliament?

OY: There’s an enormous difference. Julian’s a lawyer. I’m a business person. I’ve been the CEO of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

PK: In terms of the key policies you have to vote on in the parliament, franking credits, negative gearing, would you vote for those or against them?

OY:

I think what you’re coming around to the very narrow scenario. What you have to see is whether the member of parliament appointed for that seat is appropriate over the term for he or she is going to be there.

In relation to the biggest challenge we face at the moment is the transition of the economy from a high-carbon economy to a low carbon in a way that we maintain our core industries and our competitive position.

I look at it at the moment and say we have real fundamental problems. The Liberals kind of think you ignore the environment and only worry about the economy. The Greens seem to think you ignore the economy and worry about the environment only. People want both.

Updated

Question: Labor is preferencing you and the Greens.

Oliver Yates: That’s correct.

PK: And you’re preferencing them?

OY: Correct.

PK: Are you just helping each other?

OY:

If you look at the core fundamental policies, all of us are deeply concerned about the government’s failure to act with integrity to deal with climate change.

So there is a core common policy here in relation to that. I have left-leaning policies so generally my policies are more on the social side than the idea that the capitalists always wean.

You will find, between Labor, the Greens and myself there are many common policies here and we are fundamentally acting as citizens to try to change the government’s behaviour to climate change. Together that’s our core priority and I’m delighted to be working with them.

Updated

'We're working well together,' Kooyong independent Oliver Yates says

Oliver Yates is Patricia Karvelas’s guest on Afternoon Briefing today. He’s the independent candidate for Kooyong who could, potentially, cause an upset in that seat, which is held by Josh Frydenberg. How does he think it could happen? Here’s how he talks about the primary vote:

If Josh has, say, 40, there’s 60% around. Labor has never gone below 20%.

If Labor has rusted-on 30, there’s likely to be that 40 which is the subject of competition.

That’s the reason why, when we talked about his entry into it, when they replaced their candidate, we talked about splitting the primary, which made it more difficult.

It is really interesting. All the candidates are working really well together. The only one throwing dirt is Josh Frydenberg. Everyone is working very productively. We want climate action and the Liberal party doesn’t.

PK: ... I’m going to talk about that, that only Josh Frydenberg is throwing dirt. I don’t know what the evidence is...

OY:

If you went into your seat and looked at your mailbox there is no one who has sent out hit cards on other candidates.

If you look in the [mailouts], he is bagging Julian Burnside, myself, and none of the other candidates are doing it...

PK: You’ve spent a lot of time criticising Josh Frydenberg. You can’t say you’re any different.

OY:

What Josh is saying is I’m untrustworthy and corrupt. We’re not doing that. It is just negative politics. It is interesting to see this because in that safe seat, Josh has never been under challenge. In an environment where he is under challenge, his behaviour has become exactly the same as many other Liberals actually hate. It is just poor behaviour. I don’t know how he thinks he’ll have the creditability to be our Liberal leader or our prime minister because he has descended into the same problem area that all the Liberals have – negative political attack.

Updated

And Scott Morrison and the Liberal campaign have just arrived in Perth.

Updated

Speaking of Flinders:

Updated

The member for Dawson, George Christensen, has responded to the suspected arson attack on Facebook:

There is no room for cowardly attacks against public figures – in or out of politics – in Australia. Anyone who supports a free and democratic society should join me in condemning this disgraceful act and calling for those involved to be punished to the full extent of the law.

Updated

Totally normal election campaign. From Christopher Knaus:

James Cook University says one of Clive Palmer’s prominent Senate candidates does not work there despite her claiming to be an “adjunct lecturer” at its Cairns campus.

“Yodie Batzke has delivered guest lectures at JCU but is not an adjunct lecturer at JCU,” a university spokesman said.

Batzke, who is running alongside Palmer on the United Australia party’s Queensland ticket, has claimed in campaign material that she is an academic working at the university’s Centre for Tropical Urban and Regional Planning.

But JCU says it has no record of her holding such a role. It is now attempting to contact Batzke and the UAP to have them “correct her website and other election materials”.

Palmer himself has form on this – he referred to himself as ‘Professor Clive Palmer’ for yonks after he was awarded two honorary adjunct professorships at Deakin University, which from memory expired in 2011. He was also an honorary adjunct professor at Bond University in about 2008, but the university asked him to stop using the title in 2013.

I too have guest lectured at universities, so feel free to call me her Royal Sereneness, Professor Amy Remeikis Consuela Banana-hammock.

Updated

The health minister, Greg Hunt, holds a narrow lead against both Labor and the independent Julia Banks, according to a Lonergan poll for progressive campaign group GetUp.

The poll finds Hunt has a primary vote of 43%, compared with 22% for Labor’s Josh Sinclair, 16% for Banks, 7% for the Greens and 7% for another candidate, 5% undecided and 1% who would vote informally.

In two-party preferred terms the poll suggests Hunt would beat Banks 52% to 48% or Sinclair by 53% to 47%.

However, in addition to the patchy record of single-seat polls this is a robo-poll of 439 voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.7%. It was conducted from 4 to 6 May. Data was weighted to age, gender and historic vote in the 2016 federal election.

The poll found Hunt’s vote is higher among men (45%) than women (40%), while Banks’s is lower among men (12%) than women (20%).

Updated

Paul Karp has done a wonderful explainer on the first homeowners’ deposit guarantee:

Updated

Labor Dawson candidate target of suspected arson attack

Labor’s candidate in Dawson, Belinda Hassan, has this afternoon confirmed what’s been described as a “scary incident” where the fuel tank of her car was broken into, and a plastic bag was stuffed into the tank and set alight. Queensland police are investigating.

Hassan has characterised it as a “dangerous attempt at intimidation”.

Belinda Hassan:

This has been a scary incident – and it’s extremely concerning behaviour in the context of a campaign. Politics should be better than these dirty tactics. I’d like to thank the police for their prompt and professional response, and the community for their support. I’m pretty disgusted that instead of fighting on policy, someone has resorted to a dangerous attempt at intimidation.

I’ll keep fighting for a fair go for our region because I know the local community deserves better than the hand they’ve been dealt under the Liberals.

Updated

This reception in Gosford:

Is leading to this comparison:

Updated

Just two mates, going for a stroll:

Updated

Just an update on how many people have used the government’s super saver deposit scheme, the ATO have provided this update:

For the period 1 July 2018 to 30 April 2019 the ATO received and approved 3,337 First Home Super Saver (FHSS) scheme release requests from individuals totalling over $41 million.

For the same period, 1 July 2018 to 30 April 2019, first home super saver scheme amounts were paid to 2,803 individuals totalling $33 million*.

*The difference between the requested amount of $41 million and the released amount of $33 million largely relates to cases still in progress.

Speaking of Josh Frydenberg, he spoke to Shalom Australia radio this morning as well, where he was asked about the vandalism of his posters:

Frydenberg:

Well, I think those swastikas and moustaches, you know, Hitler-like moustaches that were painted on to my billboards were really an insult to not only the victims of the Holocaust, but to every Australian serviceman and woman who served in our armed forces, fighting Nazi tyranny. It just shows you that some people are ignorant of the lessons of history and the horrors of history – and I will continue to promote tolerance in our community, but more importantly also to ensure that people remember those traumatic events in world history and how unacceptable it is for those memories to be revived and for those Nazi signs to be daubed on election material or indeed any public space.

The Morrison government is also providing $10m to Melbourne’s Jewish Holocaust Centre, which will expand the size of the museum, as its educational activities reach even more Victorians. I’m very proud of what the Holocaust Centre has been able to achieve and with this contribution of $10m it will continue to do outstanding work.

Question: And I believe there is a contribution to secure schools, Jewish day schools and Jewish institutions around Australia.

Frydenberg: Absolutely. Absolutely. We all recognise some of the security challenges that these organisations face and therefore our financial contributions will help mitigate that.

Updated

Oliver Yates is not overly pleased with the Kooyong polling – mostly because they seem to point to his preferences electing Josh Frydenberg. From his statement:

People are being urged to be highly sceptical of polling numbers released today for the seat of Kooyong and to remember to vote strategically in this election.

The polling numbers are wildly out of step with other polls that have been seen by a number of the candidates, and the methodology is odd and potentially misleading, given that polls usually ask follow up questions to determine the voting intentions of undecided voters.

Oliver Yates said that if these numbers were repeated on election day, Josh Frydenberg would be most likely to win.

“If voters in Kooyong want to get rid of Josh Frydenberg, if you want a candidate who takes climate change seriously, they need to vote 1 Yates and vote 2 for either Julian Burnside or Jana Stewart.

“What is consistent in this poll with other polling we have seen, is the low vote for Frydenberg.

“Voters need to understand that they don’t lose the power of their vote by putting Yates 1 and the party they may have traditionally voted for, second. It just increases the chance we have of removing Josh.

“And, by voting this way, it gives all three candidates seeking to knock off Josh the best chance of consigning him to history,” said Mr Yates.

“If the numbers in the Greens poll are right, and they’re questionable given the failure to distribute the “undecided voters”, Josh Frydenberg will be re-elected.

“Frydenberg’s polling is consistently down at 42%, so let’s make sure we get him out by voting strategically. Preference flows will be key. It’s important to protect the Yates preference votes from spilling back to the Liberals.

“If traditional Greens and Labor voters don’t vote 1 Yates and 2 Burnside, in a coordinated effort to remove Josh Frydenberg, then the likelihood is that Josh will win. This electorate doesn’t want that. We mustn’t squander this opportunity.

“If you want an experienced business person who understands how the economy can prosper in a transition to a cleaner environment, Vote 1 Yates. I am the only candidate in Kooyong with the passion, vision and business track record to properly address climate change.

Updated

Question: If I could quickly, property prices in almost all capital cities are already coming down, they’ve been coming down under your government for a few years now. Is it a good time to buy into the market? My understanding is that only 10,000 [inaudible]. Are you creating quick demand, driving up house prices and [inaudible] as well?

Morrison:

No, this is a long-term scheme. It’s enabling ...

... Well, they’re current estimates, but the scheme will ultimately be determined by the number of loans approved by the lenders and the arrangements with the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation. Let’s not forget this program is targeted towards low- and middle-income earners. It’s not designed for those on high incomes, they access lenders and mortgage insurance now. They can reduce how much they have to borrow by paying for that lenders mortgage insurance and they can do that. But if you’re on a low or middle income you can’t afford that. You just get locked out of the market.

I don’t want to see young families who want to get into the market get locked out. I want to see ...

Question: But if you can’t guarantee that it’s not going to drive the market up, are you not risking locking people out by doing that?

Morrison:

I’ll tell you what’s locking people out of the market at the moment; they can’t save quick enough for the deposit. They’re trying, they’re working so hard to do it, but the mountain just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

I’ve heard these arguments people have been making to me today. ‘Oh,’ you know, ‘why do you really want to help first homebuyers? Why do you want to do that?’ I’ll tell you why I want to do it – because they’re getting locked out of their opportunity and their aspiration. I’m unlocking that for them with this program. It’s a responsible program, our government only ever introduces responsible programs. That’s how we’ve been able to strengthen our economy, get people into jobs, ensure that we balance the budget and start paying down the debt that was growing at 30% a year when we came to government back in 2015. Thirty per cent a year growth in debt is what we inherited from Labor.

Now, we’re paying down the debt, because we’ve got the budget back into surplus.

Australians know they can trust us with money. They know they can trust us with money and that’s why they know they can trust us to run the country and to keep the promise of Australia to all Australians. Particularly those who want to realise that most Australian of aspirations; that is to buy their first home.

Updated

Oh, and the “promise of Australia” (that old Bob Hawke chestnut) made another appearance:

Question: Scott Morrison can I ask, if the Coalition had its time again, would it have delivered the 2014 budget? Would you have been so aggressive in pursuing the savings measures that you did those years ago?

Morrison:

Our government has brought the budget back into balance. Labor hasn’t had a budget surplus since 1989.

You know what you get from Labor? Back in 2007 the country decided to change government and we’ve paid for that decision ever since. You vote Labor once, you pay for it for more than a decade. Labor left behind financial wreckage last time they were in. We’ve spent the last five and a half years cleaning up Labor’s mess on our finances, on the economy, on the borders. You know, Labor were given that chance. They went out there and Kevin Rudd said he’d be a fiscal conservative, for goodness sake. He said he’d turn boats back.

He made all the same sort of promises that Bill Shorten was promising today. We all know what happened.

So at this election it is a choice between a government and prime minister that has proven in these areas – whether it’s on borders, whether it’s on our financial management, whether it’s investing in our essential services, 60% increases in funding for public hospitals, 60% increases in funding for our public state schools, Medicare at record levels, 2,000 medicines listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. But more than all of that, a prime minister and a government that understands the decent hard-working, honest aspirations of Australians. I want to back those in.

Bill Shorten wants to tax them more.

Question: Prime minister, if you are re-elected Saturday, what do you want to change about the country? What is it that needs changing, if anything?

Morrison:

I want to make the country more prosperous and more secure. I want to make sure that the environment is cleaner and greener for future generations. Australia is the best country in the world and the only thing we can do is make it even better than it is today. That’s what I’m focused on and the people who make that change the most, are the people of Australia themselves.

I don’t share Labor’s reckless spending agenda. Reckless spending is not a vision. Bill Shorten is trying to sell your pup on that. Reckless spending is not a vision, it’s a burden on both current and future generations. This idea of politicians coming along and saying, ‘Give me all your money and I’ll solve all your problems’. That’s what Bill Shorten is saying. It’s what I heard Kevin Rudd saying all those years ago. We’ve heard it from Labor time and again.

No. I want you to keep your money, because you’re going to continue to change Australia for the better. I back Australians to make Australia the stronger country in can be in the future and that’s by empowering them. Whether it’s empowering these first homeowners here to realise their dream or the 250,000 new businesses that will be opened over the next five years. The 1,250,000 new jobs, one in five of them being for young people. That’s how Australia gets stronger. That’s how Australia is able then to support and resource the important services and hospitals, schools and roads that Australians need. That’s how you continue to make Australia the wonderful country it is and keep the promise of Australia to all Australians.

Updated

Question: You spoke for more than an hour yesterday.

Morrison: It wasn’t quite that long.

Question: I won’t comment. You didn’t mention foreign policy once during your speech. In the last week North Korea has fired a second missile, the US/China trade war has ramped up. Can you articulate for the Australian people your vision for Australia’s role in the world beyond the domestic debate in this election?

Morrison:

I’m happy to and I appreciate the question and Marise may want to add to this if she wishes.

I see Australia as an independent, sovereign nation in the Indo Pacific. I see Australia being part of an independent, sovereign Indo Pacific and particularly in the south-west Pacific. I see Australia working with our family, particularly in the south-west Pacific and our partners in countries, whether they be Indonesia or throughout south-east Asia, the ASEAN group of countries, ensuring that together we can ensure a secure and prosperous Indo Pacific, working closely with President Widodo who was also been articulating his vision around the Indo Pacific family of nations.

There are the great world tensions between the United States and China. My view has always been, you don’t have to pick sides in that. You don’t have to walk away from the relationships that you have, that you stand by your friends and you stand by your customers as well. China is an incredibly important country for Australia’s future – our relationship with China is of course different to our relationship with the United States but they are both critical to Australia’s future. We manage that relationship in a very pragmatic way, but one based on the values that we share and the aspirations that we have for Australia to pursue its own national interests.

Now, in terms of defence and pursuing our strategic interests, they are ensured by our investment in the capability of our defence forces. We’ve got 1,600 people serving overseas at the moment around the world, part of many different types of operations and missions from peacekeeping to whether it’s deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places. We need to make sure they have the best capability and the best strategic intent to support them. That’s why we’re lifting our defence spending to 2% of GDP. Labor let it dwindle down to 1.56%. We’re taking it back, three years ahead of our promise, to 2% of GDP. When it comes to security issues, beyond the strategic security issues, organised crime, ensuring that we work against the rackets of people smuggling and people trafficking, we have big programs that have been invested in improving the security of the region and working on cybersecurity within the region.

So we have a big plan which we’re continuing to roll out. But it’s all about ensuring that Australia is an independent, sovereign nation. We know who our friends are, we know where our place in the world is. We pursue that honestly and openly with our neighbours and our friends, supporting their independence and their sovereignty and respecting that and ensuring that we can have stability and peace in our region because that’s the basis for our prosperity.

Updated

Question: Prime minister, on your housing scheme, have you done any modelling on the impacts on housing prices?

Morrison: This scheme will continue on the basis of people being able to access loans on the same basis they can now.

Question: But could it raise house prices by putting more people in the market?

Morrison: We want to see more first homebuyers in the market, absolutely, we don’t want to see people’s house prices go down.

Question: And what will you do if they default [inaudible] negative equity?

Morrison: Well, the loan is managed by the bank, not the government ... The loan is managed by the bank or the lender and those arrangements are worked out directly between the lender and the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation.

Question: ... house prices would potentially go up?

Morrison: I don’t want them to go down. I want to see people when they buy their first home, to be able to stay in the market and keep the value of the home that they’ve bought. It’s difficult to say. It’s difficult to say, but I do know this; Labor’s housing tax will force the value of your home down.

Updated

On Newspoll, Scott Morrison had this to say:

Question: Prime minister [inaudible] within the past week, Newspoll still has Labor on track for victory, what are you doing wrong?

Morrison:

We’re standing here in Lindsay, I’d refer you to the poll on Lindsay this morning. Look, this is going to be a very close election. I’m very happy for this election to be about who you want to be prime minister, me or Bill Shorten. The bill you can’t afford or the prime minister, in me, who backs decent, hardworking, honest aspirations of Australians.

I want to see people pay less tax because I want to them to keep more of what they earn. I believe their money is better in their pocket than it is, certainly in Bill Shorten’s pocket, and in the government’s pocket.

I want to make sure that we keep the budget in surplus, we’ve worked so hard to get it back into surplus. If you can’t manage money, as Labor can’t, you can’t manage the country. When you can’t manage money you can’t pay for hospitals and schools. We saw what happened last time under Labor; they ran out of money and they stopped listing medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. They raided the defence budget and took our defence spending down to the lowest levels since prior to the Second World War.

When you can’t manage money, as Labor couldn’t, you can’t run the country.

Updated

Question: One of the big issues for first-time buyers too is stamp duty. Across all the states some are doing some sort of exemptions, others aren’t. Do you still see that as a fairly big burden on people?

Morrison:

Well it is, but that’s something that I commend state governments for taking some action on. What I announced yesterday was intended to work hand-in-glove with the various schemes and programs like here in New South Wales and, to be fair, in Victoria and other states that have put in place. They’re meant to work hand-in-glove and that’s why the First Home Deposit Super Saver arrangement, which means you could pay less tax while you’re saving for your first home, goes hand-in-glove with the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme.

Now Labor wants to abolish the tax cut for first home deposits. That’s a matter for them, but these things are all designed to work together. I do note though that the treasurers of New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia have made it very clear that Labor’s housing tax will have a real impact on state government stamp duty revenues. Now, state governments pay for police, they pay for hospitals, they pay for schools. What they’ve been seeking is a guarantee from Bill Shorten that he’ll top up their stamp duty revenues from the impact of their capital gains tax changes and their negative gearing changes.

He won’t give them a guarantee, just like he will not at the debate last week, give any Australian a guarantee that the value of their home won’t go down and their rents won’t go up. He can’t do it, because he knows what the impact will be.

And if you want to protect the value of your home, if you don’t want your rent to go up, then don’t vote Labor, vote Liberal and National.

Question: Prime minister, by reducing the deposit that people need to save for to just 5% are you not encouraging people to buy homes that they potentially can’t afford? What happens if they default?

Morrison:

No, because the same requirements will be there to assess people’s capacity to pay. That will be done by the lender in the normal course. It’s a scheme that is capped to those on $125,000 income for an individual for a first-time buyer and $200,000 for a couple where they’re both first homebuyers. They will go through all the same credit checks. They will go through all the same income checks and capacity to repay, as you would expect them to do.

What it means is that they’ll be out to get to that discussion potentially five years faster. I mean, I’m sure you all met people, I know plenty, it took them 10 years to save for their first home. Ten years, slogging away and they’ve done that, they’ve seen prices move and that mountain just gets ever, ever higher every single year, getting beyond their reach.

I’m thrilled that we’ve got 112,000 first homebuyers back in the market last year, the highest level in nine years. But I want to go further. I want to do better than that. I want to see more first homebuyers in the market. By ensuring they can get in the market sooner through this program, through responsible lending, the responsible guarantor with the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation at the wheel making sure the scheme works properly then I think that will make a big, big difference.

Updated

On Labor picking up the same scheme:

Morrison:

It’s got nothing to do with those programs at all. The risk of negative equity is Labor.

I mean Labor has said they want to mimic our policy, but it’s like putting your foot on the accelerator and the brake at the same time.

Labor wants to put a housing tax on the housing industry and undermine the very value of the home someone is seeking to buy, which actually increases the risk. See, Labor aren’t mimicking our policy, they’re just picking out bits. I mean, I understand they even supported it before they’d even seen the whole policy, not the first time we’ve seen Bill Shorten agree with something that he hasn’t even heard.

But this is a guy who says he wants to mimic elements of our policy, but not follow through on the whole package. That means not putting a big housing tax on. It means ensuring that first home deposits savers can keep their tax cuts. He wants to increase their taxes on saving for a deposit and he wants to increase the taxes on the housing sector which will undermine the very value of the property that they would indeed own and indeed that everyone else owns.

Updated

As promised, here is the Q and A from Scott Morrison’s very early press conference:

Question: Prime Minister, why isn’t it hypocritical for you to argue against Labor’s housing tax changes now, when you were open to reforming negative gearing and capital gains tax early in your time as treasurer?

Morrison:

We looked at all these issues all those years ago and decided not to do it.

... I mean that’s quite plain, we’re not proposing to increase taxes on housing in Australia, the Labor party is. We’ve got people all around here, the houses that have been built, homeowners have come in and worked so hard to get that home. What are Labor going to do? Attack the value of that home.

Labor’s housing taxes are going to reduce the value of people’s homes, right across the board. If you take 30% of the buyers out of the market, what do you think it’s going to do to the value of your home? It’s going to put up rents as well and that’s not me saying that, that’s SQM Research, one of the most respected property and residential research companies in Australia today.

I read today that 75% of builders, just like the ones we see on the site next door, say Labor’s housing tax is going to undermine the performance of the residential construction industry, costing housing jobs, costing housing starts. So whether you’re a tradie looking to buy your home or build a home, Labor’s housing tax hits both ways. That’s why Labor’s housing taxes are a real danger for our economy and it’s all part of the $387bn of higher taxes.

Another $373m was revealed just last Friday, a higher tax even on saving your own home.

Question: Did you take a proposal for changing housing tax to cabinet in 2016?

Morrison: No.

Question: In regard to your latest announcement, at the last debate you said: ‘In my experience every time you subsidise something, it always pushes up the price.’ You’re subsidising the amount of money young first homebuyers need to get into the market. Aren’t you in effect also forcing up the price of houses?

Morrison:

We’re not subsiding houses, it’s a guarantor on the loan, so that the first homeowner is still borrowing the money. There’s no free money here. What this is, is guarantoring the loan so they can get access to the loan to buy their first house.

They’re being locked out by their ability to be able to save more quickly, to buy that first home. That’s why this scheme works. This is why similar schemes, whether in New Zealand or indeed in Western Australia, have been successful. Because it enables them to open the door and actually turn the key on their first house. Once they’ve done that, well, they’re able to move forward in a couple of years they will undoubtedly refinance. They’ll go through that process again, the equity in their home will build and they are ‘up up and away’. That’s where we want to get them to.

Updated

We have seen a lot we shouldn’t be proud of this election cycle.

This is absolutely up there with some of the worst this country offers in terms of political discourse – using a grieving family in your image to try to make a disgusting and immoral political point.

Updated

And someone has now sent this through – so I guess it’s going all directions:

Updated

Turns out the experts don’t believe the Great Barrier Reef is as saved as Scott Morrison asserted in yesterday’s Liberal campaign launch:

Seems like there are a few bugs in the Labor campaign office’s mailout at the moment.

Yesterday we got the talking notes sent to the media. Then supporters received a decidedly un-personalised personalised email, and now this has been sent out:

THE HON SHADOW MINISTER MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR PORTFOLIO

MEMBER FOR ELECTORATE

MEDIA RELEASE TITLE

Media release body


FRIDAY, 8 JUNE 2018


MEDIA CONTACT: LABOR CAMPAIGN MEDIA -

Authorised by Noah Carroll, ALP, Canberra.

Like I said, we are all very tired.

Updated

Labor, I believe, will be on its way south, wayyy south (Tasmania) as one of its next campaign stops.

It is defending Bass and Braddon there.

Updated

We’ve had United Australia party T-shirts in the same bag as the LNP volunteer T-shirts.

Now, we have this:

The volunteer says he is not handing out for Pauline Hanson and One Nation, before handing out a HTV card for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the Senate, while reminding people to vote for the Coalition in the lower house.

Updated

Meanwhile, in Flinders

You hear different things from different people about how the contest in Flinders is playing out. The incumbent is the Liberal health minister, Greg Hunt, and he’s being challenged by the former Liberal and now independent Julia Banks.

The Wilderness Society has been active in this campaign on environmental issues and has just done a mailout to 25,000 households in Flinders about a proposed gas development at Cribb Point.

The mailout says when Hunt was environment minister, he handed over responsibility “on this and all Victorian projects to the state government”. (Hunt has said in the campaign he opposes the gas development.)

The mailout says Hunt, if the Coalition wins, will make Australia’s environmental laws “even weaker, giving communities less say over their future”.

The Wilderness Society has been active in the campaign pressing for new environmental regulations including an independent Environmental Protection Agency and an overhaul of the legislation governing whether or not approvals for major projects are granted or not.

The group has paid for billboards in Flinders, Reid, Bonner, Kooyong, Warringah and Boothby, and there are digital ads targeting voters in a bunch of seats, including Kooyong, Wentworth and Warringah.

Updated

We are told this email was very quickly followed up with an ‘oops, soz about that’ email. The ALP campaign director, Noah Carroll, is right when he says that this isn’t a “regular email”. It’s obviously a cool, we forgot to hit the bot which personalises these things for us email. Still, at least it gave a few people who received it a chuckle. We’re all tired at this point and just crawling to the finish line.

Dear %recipient.KnownFirstName%,

This isn’t a regular email – it’s not going to all our supporters.

I wanted to write directly to you %recipient.KnownFirstName% to thank you for your specific contribution to this campaign.

You have generously donated, and because of that we’re within reach of being able to form the next government.

I know we’ve asked a lot, and it can seem overbearing at the crunch time of an election, but I wanted to make it clear that your contribution is making a real difference to this campaign and this country.

We are so very close to winning this thing.

But I also owe it to you to be frank. We’re not there yet.

I’ll just tell it to you straight: our team at Labor HQ knows what we need to do to get us over the line in the final days, but as it stands we’re still $13,895 short of our target.

The Liberals are throwing huge amounts of money at any and everything that can be advertised. We just don’t have the huge top end of town donors that they do. What we do have is supporters like you who make up more than they ever could collectively.

I’ve been blown away by your generosity. I know I’m asking a lot. But elections cost money. If you can, I’d like to ask you to dig deep again so we don’t leave anything on the table.

%recipient.KnownFirstName%, thank you again. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it could make the difference between a Prime Minister Bill Shorten or three more years of Scott Morrison.

We only get one shot at this. Let’s make sure we do everything we can.

Thank you again for all you’ve done.

Noah Carroll

ALP Campaign Director

Labor Campaign HQ

Updated

Question: Why do Labor’s policy costings include abolishing the first homebuyers Super Save Deposit Scheme yet you’ve agreed to build on what Mr Morrison announced yesterday?

Bill Shorten: We’re open to good ideas and that’s what you’ll get under Labor. But we’re not open to bad ideas. Chris will tell you why the government’s scheme has been a turkey.

Chris Bowen:

Well, the government’s so-called First Home Savers accounts are an undermining of superannuation.

We made it clear from the beginning we would have no part of the undermining of superannuation.

It was a thought-bubble when the government was desperately trying to come up with a housing affordability plan.

We’ve been consistently opposed to it.

We’ll tick a good idea, oppose a bad idea. This morning on radio, [3AW] Josh Frydenberg said thousands of people have used the scheme. He didn’t want to answer. The answer is two.

Updated

Question: The underground coalmine is a major issue here on the coast due to the region’s drinking water catchment. Environment minister Price has signed off on it. If Labor wins on Saturday would it be in a position to reconsider commonwealth approval?

Shorten:

First of all, we’re not going to engage in sovereign risk. But this coal mine has only ever moved forward under state Liberals and federal Liberals.

We’re pleased to announce that we’re going to do a review in seismic testing offshore because this is a fantastic marine landscape and Ann Charlton, we’ll call it the Ann Charlton Review of Seismic Testing because she’s been so fantastic, we’ll do a review.

People mightn’t know, this is one of the most beautiful parts of Australia’s coastline for whale movements.

The point about it is with this government, if you want more development which doesn’t take account of the environment, then that’s what the Liberals will give you. I’m deeply conscious that as good as it is, we’re heading towards the next lunch break.

Updated

Question: Clive Palmer I note had been spotted in Fiji with five days until the election. Can I get your view on that?

Shorten:

I’m not sure if Mr Palmer is in Fiji, and if you told me you wouldn’t automatically believe it would you.

But the real issue is not Clive Palmer. The real issue is people don’t want any more chaos. Doesn’t matter if you’re Liberal, Labor, whatever.

People are sick of Canberra focusing on itself and fighting each other. Love us or hate us, the Labor party is united.

We have 2,000 days of lived experience to demonstrate we’ve learnt our lesson. We are united. We have got a talented front bench, one I’m proud to put out in front of people. And we have fantastic policies. Chris said before about our costings, he said, “Yeah, we’re putting our costings out there because for the Australian people to trust us we know we have to trust the Australian people and be up-front with our views and policies.”

The problem with Clive Palmer, no matter where he is sighted, he’ll be calling the shots in a Morrison Coalition government. That is a recipe for chaos and Australians are over the chaos. Vote Labor in the House and the Senate to end chaos.

Updated

Question: You are spending most of your time in LNP-held seats so that has to suggest a level of confidence from the Labor side. Is your polling sort of reflecting what the published polls are showing, that Labor is ahead?

Shorten:

I want to talk to as many Australians as I can, directly, about Labor’s plans to end the chaos, to stop the cuts, to start to vote for real climate action, real action on climate change.

To vote for real action on costs of living so that a million Australian households can get additional subsidies for the crippling costs of childcare.

I want to put forward the case we need to get wages working again in this country, put middle- and low-income Australians back on top.

There is mood for change. We’re approaching 2020. The first two decades of the 2000s is up. Six years of this government, the nation doesn’t deserve more of the same. Mr Morrison made a virtue about being the only politician at his launch.

But you don’t only just vote for the leader – you vote for the whole party. The fact that he’s got his own party in witness protection shows you that the disunity, which makes Australians so angry, the constant infighting, so angry, it is barely masked.

So I’m putting the case to the Australian people – vote Labor on May 18 to stop the chaos, vote Labor to start putting middle- and working-class people back on top.

Updated

Question: Mr Shorten, can I ask about the Gladstone Ports worker. He reportedly had his pass suspended, temporarily at least, and his desk packed up. Do you have concerns he was treated unfairly and there is some sort of suppression of freedom of speech in that workplace?

Shorten: Look, I have to say I was unaware of this issue until today. The company has put out a statement. People are allowed to express their opinions and they should be able to do so without fear or favour, full stop.

Bill Shorten: I’ll ask Chris to supplement because there is a point emerging from Mr Morrison’s fantasy promises from East West Link which needs your attention.

Chris Bowen:

Briefly, the Labor costings were released on Friday – the earliest any opposition has released their costings ever and I note the government hasn’t laid a glove on them – but I make this point. When is Mr Morrison releasing his costings?

He admitted yesterday the commitment to East West Link wasn’t in the budget. He’s made other commitments in this campaign adding to $6bn. The rules are any new spending has to be offset by cuts. They are the rules.

What will you cut, Mr Morrison, to pay for those promises? I invite the treasurer to catch up and release his costings and reveal where are the costs.

Updated

Question: Perhaps the only significant move in opinion poll numbers this morning is in your personal popularity. We note that it comes after the press conference where you tackled, last week, the issue of your mum and your mother’s treatment in news media. Can you tell us, does that rise in popularity accord with what you’re getting from the electorate, the sense you’re getting as you come not just to school yards but, more broadly, around Australia?

Bill Shorten:

Today is the day of anniversaries. I want to congratulate Mr Morrison on achieving a birthday. It is another anniversary. It’s about 2,046 days since I’ve been opposition leader. In that first 2,046 days, I’ve made a practice of not commenting on the polls, good, bad, indifferent, or whatever.

... I’m a very disciplined unit and I will wait the next five days and I’ll give you all the commentary in five days’ time. But there is another anniversary which I’d like Senator Keneally to talk about.

Kristina Keneally:

Thank you, it is Mr Morrison’s birthday, and while we wish him a happy birthday and hope he gets time to spend with the family, it is also the fifth anniversary of the Abbott 2014 budget.

We all remember that budget, we all remember that budget for the cuts it inflicted. It inflicted cuts to schools, cuts to hospitals, they cut the ABC – $35m, then they cut it $254m, then they cut it $83m.

Let’s not forget that this 2014 budget, this horror budget from Tony Abbott, came after his pledge on the eve of election night 2013, where he said, “there will be no cuts to schools, no cuts to hospitals, no cuts to pensions, no cuts to the ABC or the SBS”.

What did he do when he got in? He cut schools, he cut hospitals. He tried to make families pay $7 to visit the doctor. In the past four years if their GP tax had gotten up, some 7,000 families in Australia would have been worse off, he would have added to the already growing cost of seeing a doctor in this country.

They cut $1.3bn from renewable research, they tried to introduce $100,000 university degrees. They even cut $500m from Indigenous affairs before they then turned their back on a voice to the parliament. Let’s be clear, here today, on the anniversary of the 2014 Abbott horror budget – Scott Morrison is just Tony Abbott in a baseball cap.

And a minority Morrison-Palmer government would just bring back more cuts and more chaos. More cuts are coming.

Winter is coming, Mr Morrison.

If a Morrison government is re-elected it’ll be more cuts to hospitals, to schools, more cuts to families, more cuts to renewable energy, more cuts to Australia. We cannot afford five more years of the cuts and the chaos that the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments have brought on Australia.

It is time to vote them out.

Kristina Keneally, Bill Shorten and Labor candidate for Reid Sam Crosby hand out election material at Rhodes station in Sydney
Kristina Keneally, Bill Shorten and Labor candidate for Reid Sam Crosby hand out election material at Rhodes station in Sydney. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Updated

Question: Just on foreign policy, the prime minister said today we shouldn’t choose between friends and customers. Should we take a side in the US-China dispute?

Bill Shorten:

Australian foreign policy should be pursued with Australia’s national interests at its hearts.

The United States, as I’ve said on many occasions, is our longest standing ally and we have shared values. But I did notice that Mr Morrison calculates China as a customer. I think we need a bit more sophistication from people who want to be prime minister than telling one of the largest countries on earth that we see you as customers. No doubt trade is important.

But I think we need to grow up in the 21st century and stop having a simplistic view of the rise of Asia. I don’t look at China, Japan, Korea or Indonesia just as customers. I see them as very complex, dynamic societies. I see them with lessons to teach us and things we can teach them.

I see a much more sophisticated relationship than viewing China as some sort of customer going through the Australian drive-through and saying, “What can we get from you?”

In terms of the other party or question where you say is in dichotomy, we’ll pursue our own interests. America and Anzus is fundamental to our security and will – nothing will change that. But we need a more sophisticated view of the rise of Asian societies rather than view them as customers.

Updated

Question: Do you accept your capital gains tax changes could make property less appealing to investors?

Bowen:

No. Our capital gains tax changes are part of a broader suite of measures. Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg will defend every measure that benefits high wealth individuals.

Remembering that 70% of the value of the capital gains tax concession goes to the top 20% income earners or wealth, excuse me, in Australia. This is a highly regressive tax concession which needs to be reformed. Needs to be reformed. If you get your income from working in a factory or an office you pay your marginal tax rate. We accept there should be some sort of discount for capital gains tax but the 50% discount which was designed in a very different era is no longer fit-for-purpose.

Updated

Question: You say the government needs to provide more detail. Why did you decide to back it then?

Chris Bowen:

The government said it will only have a modest impact. We think it will only help a relatively small number of people in the scheme of things. But in keeping with what already happens in Western Australia, what happens in New Zealand, what happens in South Australia, it is not a new concept in that regard. It’s not a radical proposal. It’s sensible enough, a proposal we’re prepared to support it. When we see an idea from the other side we don’t automatically default.

Question: Have you costed homeowners defaulting in your policy? Have the big four banks been receptive to this idea because they’ll be set to make money off it?

Bowen:

Again, the proposal put forward by the government and we agree concentrates on the small lenders, non-big four banks, which is good for competition. We envisage it working as the Western Australian model has. Default is almost non-existent, minimal. The scheme is devised to ensure minimal default. Default is lower than the average in the broader housing market.

Question: How much will it cost?

Bowen: It’s off-budget, there is no cost itself to the budget.

Updated

Question: On the first homebuyers scheme that you signed up to yesterday, what problems do you envisage there might be with that policy and does it deserve modelling and consultation to check its effect on house prices?

Shorten:

I will get Chris to supplement it because he’s been working very hard in this policy, but let’s call it as it is. I think the government scratched around yesterday looking for something to announce because all they do is talk about us. So they proposed a modest program, a small program, which might assist 10,000 people. If you want to tackle housing affordability, it is the much bigger picture. Property investors are being subsidised by Morrison government to buy their sixth or seventh house.

Chris Bowen:

What Australians are sick of are political parties who say, “Just because somebody thought of the idea we say no.”

Yesterday we saw an idea, it is unobjectionable, it is modest, as Bill said, it will have a small impact but one we’re prepared to tick. In terms of policies that work best it will work best as part of a broad suite of reforms. That’s all they’ve got, six minutes before an election.

We can fit in with those ideas but that’s all they’ve got. In terms of the detail, of course, it is up to the government to provide that sort of detail but we could envisage the scheme working similarly to the Key Start program, which has existed for several decades under governments of both persuasions by the Western Australian government. We’re prepared to give it a tick, but it will only work as part of the broad suite of measures.

Updated

Chris Bowen:

Today we see the release of a New South Wales Treasury note which reflected the conversations they were having with the federal Treasury in 2015.

What does that note confirm? What does it tell us?

The federal Treasury was saying negative gearing could be good for the future. We know that he with Malcolm Turnbull, took a submission to the expenditure review committee to say negative gearing could be reformed and they got it wrong.

We know Scott Morrison said there were excesses in negative gearing but he’s now chosen the cheap scare campaign instead of policy.

We’ve announced our negative gearing policy three years ago. Since then they’ve engaged in a negative scare campaign.

Saying house prices would go up, sometimes down, all in the same interview. We know that our negative gearing reforms, grandfathering existing entitlements, will encourage housing supply, put first homebuyers on a playing field and be good investors. House prices have fallen under this government’s watch.

Josh Frydenberg would have you believe that house price falls under him are wonderful but under Labor would be a disaster. All this time what they’ve been telling the Australian people is untrue.

This is the latest instalment, the latest reminder when it comes to negative gearing, when it comes to housing, Scott Morrison and the Liberals are full of it. We have the most comprehensive plan.

Not just negative gearing reform but the national affordable rental scheme. In 2016 we announced a National Housing Supply Council which the government finally caught up with us three years later yesterday. It is only Bill Shorten and Labor who have the positive policies and plan for action on housing.

Updated

Bill Shorten press conference

Bill Shorten opens his Robertson press conference on climate change:

We’re still arguing about climate change 12 years on. This election is about the future. It’s about the future we hand on to our kids. It’s about the sort of future we want for this country. This government has proven incapable of taking any serious action on climate change in the last six years.

This election is a turning point for how the nation deals with climate change.

We’re ranked 55th out of 60 countries for the way we’re handling climate change. The prime minister acknowledges that under him our carbon pollution has gone up and is projected to go further up.

The future generations of Australia deserve better from the current crop of political debate.

Labor will take real action on climate change. We will help reduce our emissions on 2005 levels.

We will help put 50% of our energy mix being from renewable energy in the future. This is what the future deserves – the very best efforts from people in government in 2019.

We’ve had 13 different energy policies from this government – three different prime ministers – and still the power prices go up and our climate pollution goes up.

Today we say again in this last week – we will say it every day until May 18 – vote Labor to stop the chaos on climate, vote Labor to take real action on climate change. I’d like to briefly pass to my shadow treasurer, who will talk about the latest, boring scare campaign from the government which has no scintilla of truth to it.

Bill Shorten surrounded by students during a visit to St Joseph’s Catholic College in East Gosford on Monday
Bill Shorten surrounded by students during a visit to St Joseph’s Catholic College in East Gosford on Monday. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Updated

That awkward moment when you forget what seat you are running in, because you have unsuccessfully run in so many, for different parties:

There is applause after the Tony Abbott and John Howard doorstop*.

Howard said he is noticing “growing suspicion” over Bill Shorten’s ‘cash grab’.

John Howard also said in May 2017 there was no appetite for a leadership change within the Liberal party, and that he believed Malcolm Turnbull was doing very well at the federal Liberal conference last year.

*for context the crowd included Concetta Fierravanti-Wells

Updated

John Howard says he “is always asked to help” and it is nothing special to see him on the campaign trail.

Tony Abbott and John Howard are walking around Warringah together.

Abbott says that there may have been problems “some time ago”* but there is a “united team” around Scott Morrison.

He also thinks that voters in Warringah want to see a Coalition government re-elected.

*August last year

Updated

I’ve just been pointed to this interesting look at why so many polls have been similar – and how that in itself is an anomaly. From the Mark the Ballot blog:

The probability of 13 polls in a row at 48 or 49 per cent is 0.000059. This is actually slightly less likely than throwing 14 heads in a row.

As I see it, the latest set of opinion polls are fairly improbable. They look under-dispersed compared with what I would expect from the central limit theorem. My grandmother would have bought a lottery ticket if she encountered something this unlikely.

In my mind, this under-dispersion raises a question around the reliability of the current set of opinion polls. The critical question is whether this improbable streak of polls points to something systemic. If this streak is a random improbable event, then there are no problems. However, if this streak of polls is driven by something systemic, there may be a problem.

The statement also included this bit:

“The manner in which our plans are now being assessed by the Queensland Labor Government has gone well beyond the legitimacy of the science. Of course scientists should contribute to the delivery of management plans, as they have done in our case,” Lucas Dow said in the statement.

“Considering DES has already been reviewing the water management plans for more than two years, across 11 versions, and had access to CSIRO and Geoscience Australia’s assessments, the requirement for further information and delays at this point is not just extraordinary, it is an injustice through process,” he said.

Mr Dow said DES’ move towards a secondary CSIRO and Geoscience Australia review was further evidence of the Queensland Labor Government shifting the goal posts for Adani Mining.

“We are 1 of 125 coal mining companies in Australia. We should all be subject to the same legislation, regulations, approval processes and standards,” Mr Dow said.

“In the past six months alone we have seen the Queensland Labor Government insist on additional review processes headed by individuals who lead organisations with members who harbour anti-coal sentiments, put in place ongoing delays and continually ask for commitments well beyond our regulated project conditions, while waving other Queensland coal mines through approvals processes.

“They have even labelled us bullies, all because we have publicly held them to account for their behaviour and asked to be treated fairly and on the same terms as other Queensland coal companies,” he said.

This past weekend also marked two years since Adani Mining first submitted the Black-Throated Finch Management Plan to the Queensland Government for approval on 11 May 2017.

“....We are not going to be pig-headed about it and we are working through the latest round of requested changes for the Black-Throated Finch Management Plan as urgently as possible in order to move forward, however department officials have refused to commit to a timeframe to finalise the plan, even if we were to accept the State’s new round of requests in full,” he said.

“At some point, the Queensland Labor Government will need to show some courage and face regional Queenslanders with a decision on these outstanding management plans, ultimately deciding whether they will allow thousands of jobs to be delivered to the parts of our State that need it most.

“We have jumped all their past hurdles and we will jump these ones as well. Our courage and resolve is only strengthened with every hurdle put in our path.

“We have already invested $3.3 billion into the Queensland economy. We are not going away and we will see this through for the benefit of Queensland and in particular for the people in regional Queensland.”

Updated

Adani continues to tick over as an issue this election (but quieter than I think most would have anticipated, given the split in voters).

Adani has released a statement about what it is calling further delays:

Queensland’s Department of Environment and Science (DES) is seeking to further delay finalisation of the Carmichael project’s Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem Management Plan (GDEMP), by once again engaging in a secretive and non-transparent additional review process.

This is at odds with the department’s previous commitments and smacks of the type of tactics it has employed to delay and frustrate sign-off of the Black-Throated Finch Management Plan.

Advice provided by DES officials on Friday suggests the department now intends to renege on its February commitment to no further reviews and has instead shifted the goalposts once again and requested another round of information and assessment from CSIRO and Geoscience Australia, despite previously ruling this out.

DES officials would not confirm to Adani Mining what the scope and nature of the requests were or if the requests were in fact limited solely to assessing the Carmichael Project’s environmental conditions.

Adani Mining CEO Lucas Dow said the department’s request was the latest delay tactic designed to stop construction of the Carmichael Project and the delivery of thousands of jobs for regional Queenslanders.

“DES has consistently said it would not pursue further reviews,” he said.

“However, they have gone back on their word once again.

“We are now facing the prospect of another tortuous and never-ending management plan approval process like the one we have endured for the Black-Throated Finch.

“It appears this process will again go beyond the scope of what our project is required to deliver under regulatory conditions – and put simply is simply another fishing expedition.”

Updated

Just a point of interest.

This morning, talking to Sabra Lane on ABC radio, Josh Frydenberg confirmed the $4bn the Liberals are promising for the east-west link would be coming from the surplus:

“If it goes ahead, yes, the $4bn will come off [the surplus] but then that will be depending on the profiling of when that is actually built.”

On Sunday, Simon Birmingham said it would come from the contingencies:

Birmingham:

We’ve made clear that there was already money, significant money, provisioned for this project, and, of course, as with everything we do, it will be fully costed.

Question:

It’s not in the budget papers, is it?

Birmingham:

No, Andrew, in the contingencies and so on, this project has been provisioned in the past, consistently, because the money has always been there. We’re now making sure that it’s a different model and approach, hopefully to secure it.

Question:

But it is not there by name in the budget papers?

Birmingham:

It’s there in terms of being provisioned as part of the contingencies.

The contingency fund is like the hollow log of the budget – it is money that is set aside, but not spent. If it is built, yes, it will come out of the surplus.

But the only way the federal government can get this built, without the Victorian government’s approval, is if the federal government basically decided to use defence powers to roll the asphalt tanks into Melbourne. Because of, you know, that whole federation thing which gives sovereign powers.

Updated

As we reported yesterday, Bill Shorten has decided not to make the traditional final week National Press Club address that both leaders usually partake in. He’s going to keep campaigning.

Scott Morrison was scheduled to give his address on Wednesday, but that has now been moved to Thursday.

Acoss is not a huge fan of the first homeowner’s deposit guarantee, questioning what it will actually do to improve housing affordability. From its statement:

The government’s first homebuyers’ announcement, which was matched by the opposition, is not the answer to our housing affordability crisis. Acoss warns that the government’s budget forecasts, combined with its unprecedented tax cuts, put funding for housing and other services at risk.

Acoss CEO Cassandra Goldie said:

“The bipartisan first homebuyers’ package will help some first homebuyers but it’s not the answer to the entrenched housing affordability crisis.

“Acoss has concerns about its possible impact on the cost of housing, the risk of negative equity for some people, and the risk of encouraging some people into housing debt they can’t sustain. We’ve had many policies to subsidise first-home purchase from both sides of politics over the years. While they benefit some, they often disadvantage others by lifting home prices.

“We need to seriously tackle the underlying drivers of Australia’s chronic housing affordability crisis, like negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. Our housing tax concessions have driven housing prices through the roof, rewarding speculative private property investors at the expense of people trying to secure a home. Curbing negative gearing will help ease the boom/bust cycle in housing and make housing more affordable for all.

“People struggling to afford to rent urgently need commitments from both parties to lift Newstart and rent assistance, strengthen social housing, and boost private investment in affordable housing generally.

Updated

Bill Shorten will hold his press conference from the central coast this morning. Sometime in the next hour.

The press conference will be held in the electorate of Robertson, which the Liberals’ Lucy Wicks holds by 1.1%.

Updated

While we are all talking first homeowner deposit guarantees and the lack of modelling, it has to be said that Labor has matched it with a similar amount of scrutiny.

That would be – not a lot.

And as for the super-saver scheme Scott Morrison was talking about (which Labor plans on scrapping), Triple J’s Hack program reported in August last year that just 500 people had withdrawn money from the scheme.

Updated

The Liberals seem resigned to losing the Victorian seat of Chisholm but Guardian Australia has seen WeChat messages showing its candidate Gladys Liu seems very determined to hold it.

In fact she set a fundraising target of $1m and told one donor she needed the money because “current representatives” had “greatly damaged the image of the Liberal party”. The chat was in December, not long after current MP Julia Banks quit the Liberal party to contest Flinders as an independent.

In translation:

Our campaign fundraising [target] is one million dollars. Of course, not every district needs one million dollars of campaign finance, but Chisholm is a federal electoral district and about three times bigger [than a state electorate]. This is also a swing district, and on top of that, we’ve had some current representatives whose actions have greatly damaged the image of the Liberal party. So we need this funding to increase our media influence and promotion.”

Updated

Just a reminder that the advertising black out kicks in on 12am on Thursday.

Just a few days after the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age reported $150m was being cut from the Home Affairs staff budget, the Australian’s Primrose Riordan reports a drone surveillance technology program announced by Peter Dutton last year to much fanfare, is in doubt:

The Coalition has failed to fund a fleet of drones and maritime surveillan­ce technology worth hundreds of millions of dollars that home affairs minister Peter Dutton said were “critical to maintainin­g secure borders” and due to be delivered by 2024.

In October last year, Mr Dutton­ – flanked by military leaders – announced plans for the Future Maritime Surveillance Capability project to equip the super-department with new drones and undersea sensors to monitor Australia’s borders. “This is a very significant investment and we can’t keep our borders sec­ured­ without it,” Mr Dutton said.

“We’ve got significant amounts of money in the budget over the forward estimates and obviously … a commitment that will be enduring for us because, as an island ­nation, we need to make sure we’ve got the best technology available to keep our waters safe, to keep our borders sec­ure and to keep Australians safe, and that’s what we’re investing it.”

... While the department said the Future Maritime Surveillance Capability project was “continuing”, the Australian understands some staff working on the ­program have been reassigned.

Updated

The Australian reports Barnaby Joyce has pulled out of Seven’s election coverage this Saturday. He was meant to be part of the panel covering the poll:

But Diary understands that in the past few days Joyce finally ruled out making the trip down to Seven’s Martin Place bunker for the coverage, saying he needed to remain in New England for the entire election day, suggesting the battle for New England is much tighter than the convincing by-election win Joyce recorded late in 2017.

Scott Morrison this morning:

This is going to be a very close election. And I am happy for this election to be about who you want to be prime minister.

Me, or Bill Shorten.

The ‘Bill’ you can’t afford, or the prime minister in me who backs the decent hardworking, honest aspirations of Australians.

I want to see people pay less tax because I want to see them keep more of what they earn. I believe their money is better in their pocket than it is, certainly in Bill Shorten’s pocket, and the government’s pocket.

I want to make sure that we keep the budget in surplus, that we have worked so hard to get it back into surplus.*

I mean, if you can’t manage money, as Labor can’t, you can’t manage the country. And when you can’t manage money you can’t pay for hospitals and schools.

We saw what happened last time under Labor**. They ran out of money and they stopped listing medicines on the PBS. They raided the defence budget and took our defence spending down to the lowest level since prior to the second world war.

When you can’t manage money, as Labor couldn’t, you can’t run the country.

*The budget is not yet in surplus. It is forecasted to be in surplus for next year.

**The GFC happened

Scott Morrison at a housing construction site at Orchard Hills in Sydney on Monday.
Scott Morrison at a housing construction site at Orchard Hills in Sydney on Monday. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

Those pre-poll numbers keep creeping up

And the AEC has also reported 1.3m postal applications have come in.

And on Murph’s story about the close polling in Kooyong, Josh Frydenberg says he thinks “it is tight, I think it is close”, and he is not taking it for granted.

He says he has been buoyed by the support of his local community.

Updated

On the East-West Link that Victorian voters have rejected, given its re-election of the Andrews government, which is against the project, Josh Frydenberg says it is “about busting congestion” in the city, not sandbagging Melbourne seats.

Reminded that the federal government can’t build the road without the state government approval (that pesky constitution again), Frydenberg admits that if the state government wants to “continue to obstruct a key infrastructure project for Victorians, then they have to explain themselves” (which basically admits it can’t happen without the state’s approval).

And where does the $4bn come from?

“If it goes ahead, yes, the $4bn will come off [the surplus] but then that will be depending on the profiling of when that is actually built.”

So, it needs the state government’s approval, and the money will come off the surplus.

Updated

Josh Frydenberg dodges detail on first homebuyers policy

Josh Frydenberg was on ABC radio this morning.

Asked where the government’s modelling was, about what its first home loan deposit guarantee (now matched by Labor) would do to the price of homes, Frydenberg said:

What we’ve seen is this rolled out in New Zealand to great effect, we also know that first homeowners represent less than 20% of buyers, so the impact on prices should not be significant. What it should do though, is enable first homebuyers to get a foot in the door, because a lot of first homebuyers struggle to get the 20% deposit that is required.

Now they’ll be able to get into the home market with as little as 5% deposit, with the government stepping in and guaranteeing the difference.

Asked again if Treasury has done any modelling, Frydenberg again points to its success in New Zealand. He is asked a third time by Sabra Lane and says:

We have come up with this policy, because we believe that we should be helping first homebuyers.

Asked a fourth time, we get:

Well look, we have spoken to people in the sector, we have looked at the situation where first homebuyers have gone down as an overall proportion of the market, if you look back in the year 2000 ...

Lane asks a fifth time and Frydenberg says:

We’ve been working on this policy for some time, we have been talking to people in the industry, but what Sabra, we have noticed, is that those aged between 25 and 34 who are in the housing market, were over the number of 50% in 2001 and today it is around 40%, so there has been a fall in the number of people who are first homebuyers in that particular age bracket, and we are trying to stem that development by enabling younger people to get a foot in the door. This is a very significant policy, we are putting half a billion dollars into the National Housing Investment Finance Corporation, it has been supported by the industry and the Labor party, belatedly got in behind it, because they don’t have any individual ideas of their own.

(I suppose except for the all those ideas the Coalition has spent the entire campaign attacking.)

But that’s a no to modelling.

Updated

The other interesting line from that press conference (which I am working on bringing you in its entirety) is when asked if Scott Morrison believed the first homeowner’s deposit guarantee (which Labor has committed to matching) would lead to house prices increasing, Morrison says:

I don’t want them to go down.”

Which is the problem in a nutshell, right? Take Sydney for example, where the median house price sits at around $800,000. Saving 20% of that, without the wealthy parents/living at home/no rent leg up makes it almost impossible.

In Brisbane, the median price is just under $500,000, but incomes don’t tend to be as high.

So house prices not dropping is great for those already in the market. Congrats.

But for those who are not, house prices not going down remains an affordability issue.

Updated

Scott Morrison says one of the biggest things locking first homeowners out of the market is not being able to save for the deposit.

He finishes his press conference with the government wants to help Australians “realise the most Australian of aspirations” which is apparently home ownership.

The presser ends with journalists calling out a question for the Liberal’s Lindsay candidate Melissa McIntosh, and she starts to head back to the microphone, leading Morrison to reach out and touch her arm, to pull her away.

Updated

Scott Morrison press conference

Asked if he had his time again, would he have supported the government delivering the 2014 austerity budget, Scott Morrison attacks Labor.

“[Australia deserves] A prime minister and a government that understands the decent, hardworking aspirations of Australians. I want to back those in, Bill Shorten wants to tax them more,” is what he finishes that with.

Updated

On Chris Bowen’s statement that the Coalition looked at changing negative gearing while Scott Morrison was treasurer, the now-prime minister dismissed it:

We looked at all of those issues all of those years ago and decided not to do it. That is quite plain. We are not proposing to increase taxes on housing in Australia. The Labor party is. We have got people all around here. The houses that have been built.

Homeowners have come in, worked so hard to get that home and what is Labor going to do? Attack the value of that home. Labor’s housing taxes are going to reduce the value of people’s homes right across the board.

Updated

Scott Morrison is continuing that press conference but the ABC has moved away from it. It will take me a while to transcribe it so I will get it to you as soon as I can.

Updated

Morrison continued:

So these are the things we have been doing, but we the backstop go further and what this program does is ensures that the government, there the National Housing Financial and Investment Corporation, an organisation I established as treasurer, will be able to effectively, in partnership with the lenders, go guarantor on the difference between that lower deposit and what is required by the banks. That will – and the other lenders.

We will be giving priority to the smaller banks and the non-bank landers, so we can encourage more competition in the market, more competition out in.

Those mortgage brokers working own behalf of families all around the country trying to get the best possible deal will get an even better deal for their clients when they know there is more competition. This is an initiative that it is all designed to realise that aspiration.

The Labor party’s answer to the housing market is to tax it more. Their answer to every question is to tax it more.

Whether it is on superannuates, whether it is on retirees, whether it is on small and family businesses. The answer to every question with Labor is tax. Bill Shorten has a three-letter slogan.

It is TAX. Tax. That is what he is offering Australians. More taxes, higher taxes, new taxes.

I can tell you that last Friday in their costings, which they released on Friday, what they didn’t tell you is they are abolishing the tax cut for first home deposit savings.

That first home super saver scheme I put in, they are abolishing it. That is $373min higher taxes on first homeowners looking to save for their first home deposit. Whether you are trying to buy a house, retire in independence, run a small and family business, save for your superannuation, contribute more whether you are a self-employed person or a mum coming back into the workforce, realising your den, honest, hard-working aspirations, Bill Shorten is looking to tax it more.

I am looking to back it more by facilitating people in Australia to get on with their lives. So that is what we have announced and we are very pleased to be able to make that announcement and to be very clear with Australians about what we are looking to achieve.

Updated

Scott Morrison was out in Lindsay this morning – the great Liberal hope for picking up a seat in NSW.

It was all about the Liberal’s first home ownership policy announced yesterday (which will be limited to 10,000 a year, which is about 10% of the first home owner loans). Labor has matched it, but Morrison said Labor’s negative gearing policy would make it harder:

Yesterday, at our launch in Melbourne, I announced the first homeowners deposit scheme. That scheme is all designed to ensure that Australians saving for their first home can get into their first home sooner.

The 20% deposit is a big mountain to climb for so many families and, particularly those on low and middle incomes, who are looking to buy the very homes around here or the established homes around western Sydney and other parts of the country.

It is a big mountain to climb. We already have taken steps, as people know, to assist and to do that in the 17-18 budget I introduced the first home super buyers scheme. That allows first homeowners as they are saving for their deposit to get a tax cut on their deposit savings by putting it through their superannuation.

We established the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation that is making loans to community housing, affordable housing projects and supporting the development of new housing supply around the country.

We made sure that foreign buyers from overseas and residents here in Australia were not coming in and outbidding young home buyers, as they were coming into the market as well as other Australians buying property here.

Updated

This is still one of my favourite things to happen this campaign:

Chris Bowen has started the morning by releasing this statement:

Explosive NSW Treasury advice – released under Freedom of Information – shows Scott Morrison was himself considering reforms to negative gearing.

The October 2015 advice shows the hypocrisy of the Liberals’ scare campaign on Labor’s housing policies.

The released documents state:

‘The Commonwealth Treasurer has indicated that all options needs to be considered, including superannuation, capital gains tax and negative gearing.’

In early 2016, then Treasurer Mr Morrison noted there were “excesses” in the negative gearing framework which was reflected in the official advice.

‘Tax exemptions and concessions significantly reduce the efficiency of the personal income tax base, and are very costly. These include negative gearing, capital gains, superannuation and negative gearing in particular…even partially addressing these exemptions would raise additional revenue and improve the efficiency of the tax system.’

Despite this recognition of the need to reform tax loopholes for the wealthy, Mr Morrison has waged a hysterical scare campaign after Labor took the lead on the issue.

We are absolutely in the last week of the campaign.

Scott Morrison started his birthday with a breakfast TV appearance.

He told Sunrise that this was one of the closest election contests Australian’s had seen in some time.

What I’m saying is that as prime minister I’ve demonstrated my authority over the party, and my leadership over the party, and my leadership over the party [during what] has got to be one of the tightest elections we’ve seen in a long time, and I’ll continue to go on as a way I begun, and I’m just getting started.

I guess that is true, if you don’t count the last election, where the Coalition won by just one seat. Which was just two elections after Labor ruled in minority government. So except for that very recent history, yes, this is definitely the closest election contest we have seen in some time.

Updated

And Katharine Murphy reports on one of the reasons Victoria is so important, with a single-seat poll showing the Greens closing the gap in Kooyong, Josh Frydenberg’s seat:

A new poll in the Victorian seat of Kooyong puts the Liberals ahead, but the Greens within striking distance of taking the blue-ribbon seat from the treasurer and deputy Liberal leader, Josh Frydenberg.

A poll of 1,741 respondents taken for the Greens by Environmental Research+Counsel this month has Frydenberg on a primary vote of 41%, the Greens candidate, Julian Burnside, on 21%, the Labor candidate, Jana Stewart, on 16%, and the climate-focused independent, Oliver Yates, on 9% – with 5% of respondents saying they will vote for another candidate and 8% unsure how they will vote on Saturday.

The poll puts Frydenberg ahead of Burnside on a two-candidate-preferred measure of 52% to 48%. While single-seat surveys can be unreliable, the Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, said voters in Kooyong were now in the box seat.

A similar set of circumstances played out in the Queensland state election and ended up with a Greens MP taking the blue-ribbon seat of Maiwar from the LNP, so it is possible.

Updated

Just on the Newspoll, AAP reports the numbers like this:

The latest Newspoll shows the campaign race remains tight, with the Coalition lifting its primary vote to 39%. But Labor still leads by 51% to 49% on a two-party-preferred basis, with its primary vote also up slightly to 37%.

Shorten has also closed the gap on Scott Morrison in the “better prime minister” stakes, the Australian reports on Monday. Just seven points now separate the pair, with the opposition leader lifting three points to 38% and Morrison falling back one point to 45%. Some 17% of voters remain undecided.

Updated

Good morning

Welcome to the final stretch. This time next week, we should (unless we are in a minority government situation) know who will lead the country for the next three years.

Which means it is seat blitz time. And blitz those seats they will.

Scott Morrison will celebrate his 51st birthday by heading to Tasmania, where the Liberals are hopeful of picking up at least one seat. Bill Shorten will start the day in Sydney. But Victoria, WA and Queensland all look earmarked for visits in this final week, as both parties desperately seek to woo undecided voters.

It took Labor all of two seconds to match the Liberal’s campaign launch set piece – a government guarantee on the bulk of a first home owner’s bank deposit – which doesn’t give much of a chance for anyone to examine whether or not it is good policy. It’s happen regardless of who wins the election. We are at that stage of the campaign.

The latest Newspoll shows no shift in two-party-preferred measure – Labor are still ahead 51 to 49, but both parties saw a one-point increase in primary vote, and Shorten’s personal approval rating also increased. The bookies maintain Labor as favourites to win. But this has been a close race, and there are plenty of people still to make up their minds, so this final week will be a doozy. And those preference flows are based on the last election, so it’s not an exact science.

Victoria still remains one of the biggest worries for the Coalition. Seats which usually would get no more than a tick and flick they are considered so blue ribbon are having resources thrown at them – and there is a reason that the Scott Morrison launch (there really wasn’t a whole heap of “Liberal” on that stage – was in Victoria.

It means every visit the leaders make from here on is crucial. Pay attention to where they go. It often says more than anything I can offer up, especially at this point in the campaign.

We’ll bring you all the day’s events as they happen, fuelled by all of the coffee in the world. All of it. I hope you’ve had yours.

Ready?

Let’s get into it

Updated

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