On that note, we’re going to tuck the blog in for the night – I am sure there is a wall somewhere I need to stare at.
A massive thank you to everyone who followed along today. It was a bit of a fast moving beast, so thanks for making it entertaining.
We’ll be back early tomorrow morning. As always – take care of you.
And make sure you take a moment to Angus Taylor yourself. You deserve it. #welldoneAngus
Labor is in Melbourne tonight, with Bill Shorten about to be interviewed by the ABC’s Leigh Sales in the first of two scheduled 7.30 appearances. But it’s to Tasmania tomorrow, which is interesting – everywhere the campaigns go now is a sign of where there is hope, or concern. For Labor, Braddon and Bass are a concern.
Scott Morrison is still in Western Australia – which, same deal. That’s three days in WA now, because Hasluck and Swan and possibly Pearce are concerns. The Liberal campaign is leaving WA tomorrow, and I had been told Victoria was on the cards, but who actually knows.
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It’s been a day. In fact, today has been almost like an entire campaign. We covered off a lot of ’isms and ’aphobias in today’s list of candidate musings and we lost two.
#WelldoneAustralia
Usually though, this is last week of campaign stuff. The fact that so many have been uncovered comparatively this early says, at least to me, that there are more coming. We all have social media pasts. And while we are used to this stuff from the minor parties, the majors, particularly the Liberals, tend to drop the ball when it comes to checking over their candidates for seats they know they are not going to win.
It’s all part of our social media past. We’ve all been nufties on the socials at some point. Particularly when the platforms first emerged and we weren’t quite so savvy on the ‘this will live forever’ point. Digital natives – those who have never been without social media, tend to be a lot more circumspect.
The problem for the Liberals today was the two candidates who were sacked didn’t make their posts on social media – one was part of a comment stream on Quadrant, while the other was on a forum. That shiz should come up.
So what else is coming? I guess we’ll soon find out – after all, there are still 16 and a bit days to go.
The other interesting thing about today was Scott Morrison starting to face questions about, well, what his party stands for. As Murph pointed out not so long ago, most of the Liberal campaign has been variations of Labor sucks (she said it much more elegantly, obviously) and Scott Morrison is not Bill Shorten.
Today he was asked about his own climate change costs, and stumbled on the time period – he keeps saying it’s over 10 years when the budget says it’s over 15.
He was also asked why he has had so little to say about his vision for the future, and whether slamming Shorten is enough.
Morrison rejected that, of course. But it’s an interesting shift.
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#WelldoneAngus
Hey @AngusTaylorMP do you mean like your old school, Kings? They have a 70KW "power station" there. https://t.co/mh3dej1vtx #auspol https://t.co/qvdHOxQcXC
— Graham Readfearn (@readfearn) May 1, 2019
And on foreign policy:
PK: If you become foreign minister, you will become the first Asian Australian to have that job? You have acknowledged today that will have a powerful symbolic impact. What would that impact be?
PW: The point I’ve made – I’ve been asked the question a few times: what will it mean to have a person born in Asia as Australia’s foreign minister?
The point I make is that it says something about us. It’s ultimately not about me. It says something about Australia and who we are. It says something about the diverse, multicultural, confident nation we are.
That is important in the region because it goes to our perception in the region, it goes to the narrative about what it means to be Australian, Australian identity and Australia’s place in the world.
I think that is an important aspect of diversity that we present to the world. I think a much more accurate depiction of who Australia is today.
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Moving on to the Greens, Penny Wong has this to say about Richard Di Natale’s (latest) call for a Labor-Greens coalition on climate policy (and his softening on international carbon credits):
Wong: There will be no coalition, Richard, and what I would say to Richard Di Natale, and to Greens supporters: don’t make the same mistake you made in 2009. Don’t make the mistake of voting in the Senate against a Labor government’s climate policy, which has been fundamental in the 10 years of inaction since.
Don’t make the mistake of suggesting that you are going to sit down on the same side of the Senate, as you did last time, with people like Eric Abetz, Cory Bernardi and others who deny the science of climate change. Don’t make that mistake again.
The only way to get action on climate change is to elect a Labor government. We are going to be putting forward to the parliament, if we are elected, the policy that we are taking to this election.
PK: But you’ll have to negotiate? You always have to negotiate, don’t you?
PW: Well, it’ll be up to the Greens. I’m saying to them don’t make the mistake you made in 2009.
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PK: If they were to say that they also denounced their comments, would that mean an apology is good enough for them?
PW: Well, Patricia, I’ve answered the question. I think you do look at the context in which things occur, when they occurred and what they demonstrate about a person’s values, what they demonstrate about a person’s integrity. I think the sorts of comments that were made by the Isaacs candidate, and by the Wills candidate, they demonstrate a set of prejudices, not a mistake on Facebook about sharing what was, as I understand it, a completely inappropriate thing to do, to share jokes about this, but this is about what you believe.
PK: The Northern Territory Senate candidate, Wayne Kurnoth, who you also disendorsed, apparently the how-to-vote cards on pre-poll, according to the Liberal party, still say to vote for him. You’ve disendorsed him but according to the Liberal party your how-to-vote cards still say people should vote for him.
PW: I’ll check that but I assume that what has occurred – I suspect if you look at what’s happening in Isaacs on pre-poll today, the Liberal party still have that candidate on their how-to-vote as well. Many were printed, some may well continue to have been handed out after the decision was made by that candidate to stand down.
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PK: Your candidate for Melbourne, Luke Creasey, has shared a rape joke on social media in the past. Should your candidate for Melbourne stand down too?
The Greens say he should. Should he also stand down because a rape joke is also offensive?
PK: Well, I’d say first, I think Luke has been very up-front in the statement he’s made. This happened some years ago.
He said it was inappropriate. He was young and he’s made a mistake. I would remind the Greens that they had at least one candidate in the state election who was a rapper who engaged in lyrics which were pretty sexist and violent and had to similarly apologise. It’s right that Luke apologises. I know him and I’ve spoken at events he’s been at and I’ve listened to him talk about his childhood and his values and what he did, which was a mistake, a number of years ago, certainly don’t – his actions don’t reflect previously the values he holds.
PK: Why are rape jokes like this for your candidate for Melbourne OK just with an apology but other Liberal candidates who say things that are offensive must be disendorsed immediately? Are there two sets of rules here?
SB: No, I don’t think so. I think we know people make mistakes and Luke has done the right thing. He should have apologised and he has. He did the wrong thing those years ago as a young person. I think racism, the sort – there is a difference between sharing a joke and making the sorts of comments that you’ve referenced.
That is a racist attack, which I assume is why some people in the Liberal party did endorse the Isaacs candidate.
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Penny Wong is next up on Afternoon Briefing.
PK: Before we turn to foreign policy, the Liberal candidate for Isaacs has resigned this morning over anti-Muslim comments he made. We’ve just seen reports that the Liberal candidate in Wills objected to the preselection of Liberal MP Tim Wilson because he’s gay. What do you make of this story?
PW: Well, you know, what’s going on in the Liberal party? I’m reminded of what Kelly O’Dwyer said or was reported to have said, which she has never denied, that the Liberals are seen as misogynist, homophobic climate change deniers.
I think what we are seeing, from a number of Liberal candidates – I would argue from many in the Liberal party – is a set of values and beliefs which really are not consistent with most of Australia. They are not mainstream. They’re not where Australia is. They don’t reflect Australian values.
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Things seem fun in the battle for Kooyong. Oliver Yates’s campaign has just put this out:
Oliver Yates said that the Liberal Party is getting desperate in Kooyong, after internal polling shows that Josh Frydenberg could lose the election after dropping 16 points since the previous election.
The Liberal Party has responded with an outrageous flyer that has hit every mailbox, attempting to smear the independent candidate.
The leaflet, which would have cost over $30,000 to print and distribute, is all about a former role that Oliver had as a board member of a company called Linc Energy.
The leaflet refers to environmental damage caused by the Linc Energy. Oliver has had a detailed response to this issue on his website at https://www.oliveryates.com/faqs since the beginning of the campaign, as this has consistently been used as an attempt by the Liberal Party to smear him.
The environmental matters are well known by the Liberal Party, since they were responsible for approving and regulating the project.
Mr Yates said, “we’ve been expecting this backlash as we gain momentum in this election campaign”.
“The Liberal Party is getting extremely desperate, because their primary vote is now so low that they could lose this former blue-ribbon seat and unseat a sitting Federal Treasurer. It’s dropped 16 points since last election and Mr Frydenberg is stooping to do and say anything he can to keep his job.
“But it’s exactly these sorts of tactics which are turning people off the Liberal Party. They have no integrity.
“I am happy to put my record on the environment next to Josh Frydenberg’s. He is the man who as Environment Minister couldn’t get an energy policy through his Liberal Party and constantly lies about his Government’s environmental performance, while in every year of his Government, carbon emissions have increased.
“A desperate Liberal Party will say anything, do anything and pay anything to hold on to power. It’s sick really, and I urge people to send them a message that this kind of rubbish in their letter boxes comes at a cost”, said Mr Yates.
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Could I just say, the theme of today is absolutely #welldoneAngus.
Just in general.
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PK: But will this candidate for this seat, Mr Singh, be reviewed as well given his homophobic comments? It seems like one candidate today has gone from Wills but will this other candidate be reviewed as well?
SB: I have no doubt that, if there are issues to be looked at, they will be being looked at...
PK: Are they being looked at?
SB: I have no doubt if there are issues to be looked at, they will be looked at. I think what is important is we do get back, out of looking at candidates who are unlikely to be elected, into the issues that matter in this election.
It is an election where there are radical policy differences between the parties. That’s been lost a bit in debates about these candidate issues or about preference matters or otherwise, whereas the radical policy differences between the higher taxing agenda of Bill Shorten or our plans to eliminate the 37 cent in the dollar tax bracket, the higher spending agendas of Bill Shorten or our carefully calibrated plans that invest wisely in areas like extra support in mental health, extra home care places in aged care, these are the areas that I trust the election can and will be fought on over the next two-and-a-half weeks.
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Patricia Karvelas then brings this story from last week up (I found it on the SMH) where the Liberal candidate for Scullin, Gurpal Singh, was found to have made these comments:
In a radio interview, he said same-sex marriage was unnatural and linked it to paedophilia.
“Here we are doing something that is against nature … ,” he told SBS Radio in October 2017.
“How do you perceive that situation and what is the overall impact? I think there is also an issue of paedophilia.”
PK: Mr Singh, running in the seat of Scullin, made the comparison between same-sex marriage and paedophilia. He is still your candidate. Why is he still your candidate?
SB: In relation to these remarks, I think you’ve got to look carefully at exactly what was framed, how it was put there, but I want to be very clear...
PK: When should same-sex marriage ever be compared to paedophilia?
SB: I’m not sure that is an accurate reflection. I haven’t reviewed those remarks myself but I want to be very clear. We’ve taken a strong stance today in relation to candidates who should not have been preselected but they will not fly the Liberal flag for us. They are no longer endorsed candidates and that’s the approach that should be taken.
Of course, there is a lesson about making sure there is tougher vetting in the future but that lesson is one that the Labor party needs to learn in relation to their candidates too. It’s not been a great outcome for either major party on that front today, but these are not the issues, I trust, that the election will be determined on either because we’ve got to get this back on to the policy debate and the issues and the choice that is there for Australians’ future.
It is not a choice about candidates in safe Labor seats or Labor candidates in safe Liberal patches who aren’t going to get elected anyway. The choice is about the policy issues for the future and...
PK: I think it is but these issues matter as well.
SB:I have addressed them for a long time in this interview now.
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So the argument seems to be here, that all political parties preselect nufties (insert your own preceding adjective) so therefore, that’s politics.
PK: Kelly O’Dwyer once told Liberals they were regarded as ... “anti-women, homophobic [climate change deniers]”. The one today, the Islamophobia comments, doesn’t it demonstrate the party has a problem? They can’t all be isolated incidents?
SB: It demonstrates a need to be ever vigilant. Some of those processes clearly fell down. Equally, the Labor party have to answer why it is, even today, they were still preferencing the candidate for the Northern Territory Senate who they said they disendorsed but handing out how-to-vote cards to the No. 2, someone Bill Shorten said he has never met yet been photographed with his arm around. In terms of the accountability of the major parties, we have to make sure the media doesn’t run a double standard.
Ultimately, the Labor party has had multiple problems. A candidate who makes fun of rape, in the case of the candidate for Melbourne, a candidate with antisemitic views in the Northern Territory and an earlier one who withdrew because of other ones. There are problems we all have to address.
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PK: But you mentioned all of those candidates who are gay, they’re all men. That brings me to the question of women in the party because there’s a Liberal candidate for a once-safe New South Wales seat of Paterson who says women are not getting pay rises because they are not interested in money matters and “other business-related stuff”. What do you make of that comment?
SB: I think the entirety of the remarks there need to be taken a look at because my understanding is – I haven’t read them all myself but so far as I’ve been briefed, this was actually a discussion about addressing gender pay disparity and that the comments were made about some of the issues in terms of how you best overcome that.
That the candidate in question was citing the clinical prowess, expertise and care in the medical profession delivered by women as a reason as to why women should be expecting to receive, if not pay equity, then even greater pay in some instances, but was equally identifying some of the reasons as to why that didn’t seem to be the outcome and how would you address that and how would you best achieve gender pay parity. I think that’s important to realise.
While we are on that topic, it is also important to realise that, in terms of gender equality and pay rates, that gap widened when Labor was last in office and has narrowed under our five-and-a-half years in office.
We have seen positive outcomes in terms of the gender pay gap closing, in terms of women’s workforce participation reaching all-time highs under our government. These are things we are passionate about continuing to answer.
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PK: But Peter Killin urged Christians to join the party. How concerned are you this isn’t one guy in one seat, he is calling on others to join your party to stop gay people having positions of power in the Liberal party?
SB: I’m proud of the fact our party has preselected and elected to the parliament Tim Wilson, Trent Zimmerman, Trevor Evans, Dean Smith. We have a proud record of supporting gay Australians as candidates in their election to the parliament. That is helping to boost the diversity of the parliament.
There’s a continual process at work to be done around boosting that and getting those best possible outcomes. But as I said before, I’m confident that those four and others who follow will shape and frame the future of our party and the government far more than those whose views belong in the past and who have been ditched as our candidate.
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PK: This comes after your candidate Jeremy Hearn was dumped as the Liberal party’s candidate in the seat of Isaacs after that conspiracy-filled anti-Muslim rant he posted online last year. The question really is, given these extreme views, extreme anti-gay views and extreme anti-Islamic views here, is there a systemic problem in the Liberal party?
SB: Well, Patricia, I hate to do it but is there a systemic problem of antisemitism in the Labor party?
They’ve ditched two candidates now in relation to antisemitic views. In the end, yes, there are clearly problems in relation to these isolated candidates and what we’ve seen in terms of the candidate who was removed this morning is that the PM, the party took swift action as soon as those remarks were made public, as soon as we became aware of them ourselves and said, “That’s inappropriate, not excusable and this guy’s got to go. He doesn’t reflect the values of the party and particularly not the prime minister.”
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PK: OK you are going to equivalence, but this candidate wrote: “The homosexual lifestyle is distressingly dangerous and carries appalling health risks.” This is the second candidate to go. How did he get preselected in the first place? What’s wrong with the party’s processes that would allow someone like this, who said things like this, that you can find online, to be preselected?
SB: Clearly that process failed. There is no excuse for that...
PK: How did it fail? How?
SB: Somebody didn’t check appropriately during the candidate vetting process. That’s self-evident. It’s an obvious statement of fact in terms of how that occurred and what occurred, just as obviously the Labor party failed to see that their NT Senate candidate was making such crude remarks about Jewish Australians or Jewish people in general.
Now, in the end, that’s a failure of both major parties in terms of such vetting processes. Neither are or were particularly likely to be elected to parliament but it’s clearly a failure and I imagine, post-election, both parties will be going back and taking a second look at what type of double-checking, triple-checking has to be in place for people who nominate even for these unwinnable seats.
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It’s Afternoon Briefing time (which is also afternoon mop-up time, lately).
Simon Birmingham is the first guest.
Patricia Karvelas asks if the candidate who made the anti-gay candidates has stepped down.
Birmingham: Yes, I understand he has. That, of course, is the appropriate thing. We don’t wish to see people as our endorsed candidates who have such views. These views belong in the past. As a government, we are proud to have people like Tim Wilson as members.
Tim is part of the future of the Liberal party and a leading part of the future of the Liberal party. I have no doubt that his approach to liberalism, his values will be the ones that well and truly prevail across the party into the future.
Now, we have, yes, seen today, I think, a fairly messy day for both major parties in terms of candidate problems. You’ve identified and gone through the list of those. A couple of ours in Victoria.
For Labor, one in the seat of Melbourne, an NT Senate candidate as well. These are a reminder that, even for these unwinnable spots – they are probably all unwinnable on both sides of the ledger – the party systems should have done a better job in identifying some of these issues.
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Liberal candidate resigns after anti-gay comment discovery
And a second Liberal candidate has fallen. Today.
BREAKING: Peter Killin, the Liberal candidate for Wills in Victoria, has resigned after the Herald Sun revealed anti-gay comments from 2018. #auspol Details here soon: https://t.co/6OQoOzfIoG
— James Campbell (@J_C_Campbell) May 1, 2019
A few yrs ago, while I was representing Melb’s values in Parl’t, my Labor opponent was posting rape jokes.
— Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) May 1, 2019
This is deeply concerning. Violence against women is unacceptable under any circumstances.
He must reconsider whether he remains the ALP candidate. https://t.co/mvVnmqWwPG
Just on that “over 10 years” climate policy Scott Morrison was mentioning, the budget revealed it is actually over 15 years. As Paul Karp reported at the time:
The $2bn relaunch of the Abbott-era emissions reduction fund was part of the Morrison government’s effort to bolster its environmental credentials in the face of rising community concern about the impact of climate change and challenges from independent candidates targeting the Liberal party on its climate record.
In February the prime minister’s office briefed journalists, including Guardian Australia, that $2bn would be invested over 10 years in the climate fund to build on the ERF’s record of reducing emissions by 193m tonnes.
On 25 February Scott Morrison told Sky News the Emissions Reduction Fund was a $2bn investment “over the next 10 years”, a comment he repeated in a speech the following day.
But in the budget papers released on Tuesday, the climate solutions fund is allocated $2bn over 15 years from 2019-20, including $189m over four years.
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Question: Bill Shorten says that the Liberal party is riddled with rightwing extremists. Is that the case?
Morrison:
That’s absolute nonsense. The thing I notice about Bill, as he keeps dropping his notes on this campaign, is the more desperate he gets, the more outrageous the claims.
The only thing that people want to hear from him at the moment, Bill, is tell us the price, Bill. Tell us the price.
There are more questions yelled – I hear “you say it’s over 10 years” and “Ian Goodenough...” but Morrison has taken his last question.
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Question: The Greens have suggested creating a coalition of the willing with Labor. Bill Shorten has ruled that out. What’s your response to that? Do you approve of Bill Shorten ruling that out?
Morrison:
I never believe what Labor say what they are going to do with the Greens. Has he ruled out taking their vote to form a minority government? Don’t think he has.
Look, Labor and the Greens are joined at the hip, always have been. We saw that before in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. We know who holds the chain.
If it’s not the Greens, it’s the militant unions. Who Bill Shorten will end up taking his cues from, it won’t be Bill Shorten at the end of the day, it will be one of the other influences we have seen dominate and influence policies all the time.
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Question: Can you rule out that any more candidates will go between now and election day from the Liberal party?
Morrison: Look, we will continue to take the same approach, where if any issues are raised we’ll deal with them swiftly and in a professional way and that is in accordance with the strong professional campaign that we have been running.
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Question: Any more changes to paid parental leave or have you ruled out any more changes to childcare?
Morrison:
First of all, on childcare, we’ve got a leader of the opposition who has said that he wants to, on Monday, increase the wages of childcare workers.
Childcare workers are among the more lower paid. So are aged care workers. So are retail workers.
So are hairdressers, people who work in the construction industry. At the end of day one, he was suggesting he was going to extend this policy of providing taxpayer subsidies to other employees and then, by the next day, he wasn’t.
Then by today, he’s saying, well, he might, after an aged care royal commission.
He is making up policies, with billions of dollars of taxpayer expenditure, every single day. Last week he didn’t even know he was going to put up taxes on people who were earning the rates of pay they were earning on the Gladstone port.
The week before that, he didn’t know he had $34bn worth of superannuation taxes. This is a guy who is making it up on the run.
He has been leader of the opposition for more than 2,000 days. More than 2,000 days.
He’s got 18 days left to tell you what these things cost. Now, we’ll be making further announcements between here and the election, but what we’ve said very clearly, in the 700 measures we’ve set out in the budget, that’s an agenda. It’s a big agenda. You’ve got to pay for it.
If you can’t manage money, you can’t pay for it.
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Question: At the halfway point of this campaign, we have heard your talk about Bill Shorten, painting it as a referendum. Do you fear that, beyond that, there’s very little you’ve had to say for your vision of the country and that just talking about Bill Shorten won’t be enough?
Morrison:
I don’t accept that at all. We launched an entire budget going into this campaign with 700 individual measures that equate to almost $500bn worth of expenditure across every element of government activity. $100bn being spent on infrastructure on our congestion-busting fund. $500m and more being spent on combating the big challenge of youth suicide and youth mental health in this country.
Our education policies, which has seen education spending per student increased by more than 50%, in some cases even greater than 70% across the country, to ensure we’re meeting the needs of those students both today and into the future. Our hospitals funding the same – $30bn in new hospital agreements.
See whether it’s increasing our aged care spending by a billion dollars every single year, or increasing our education funding beyond the 60% increase for public schools we’ve already done, or the 27% increase in Medicare, or more than 45% increase for mental health, all of this is made possible by doing a number of things well and that is managing money, growing the economy and ensuring Australians get to keep more of what they earn because that reinforces both.
This is the point I’m simply making to the Australian people: our vision for the country is to ensure all these essential services you rely on can be delivered and you can count on them.
Bill Shorten doesn’t even know what things cost. If he can’t explain his policies to you and he doesn’t understand them, I suggest you don’t support them.
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Question: If you are meeting them earlier, why not go further?
(He goes to another question.)
Question: On Jeremy Hearn, these weren’t social media posts that he got in trouble for. They were comments published on the Quadrant website...
Morrison: On the internet, social blogs and things like that.
Question: They were quite old, they were posted some time ago. Why was he preselected in the first place?
Morrison: He was a very recent candidate who came in because we weren’t able to continue with the other candidate because of section 44 issues. He has been asked to explain these and I will allow the party process to take its roles. Sorry, you are referring to the other one?
Journalist: Yes, he’s been disendorsed.
Morrison: Again, I expect the party administration to be doing their due diligence and where that’s been not up to standard, I expect them to meet those standards in the future and improve their processes.
The Labor party had to disendorse a Senate candidate. Of course, the Labor party has a candidate running in the seat of Melbourne who was strategically positioned right behind the Labor leader talking about their commitment to women and at the same time has been caught out with some rather disturbing comments of their own. Look, in election campaigns, these individuals we identified, they’ve been identified in a number of parties and they need to be dealt with swiftly and appropriately and that’s the action we are taking.
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Question: You mentioned before tackling climate change, spending $3.5bn. Over how long is that period?
Morrison: The commitments of that $3.5bn are made over 10 years...
Question: If you are serious about acting over climate change if you are spending the money over 10 years?
Morrison: Because that’s the 2030 target. We are meeting the 2030 target. We made a commitment to meet the 2020 target when we came to government.
The Labor party set those targets. When we came to government, there was more than a 700m tonne deficit in meeting our Kyoto 2020 targets.
We put the Direct Action plan in place and a number of other measures and we are going to beat the Kyoto target by 2020 by 369m tonnes.
That means our target for 2030 requires us to achieve 328m tonnes in carbon emission reductions by that date and the policies that I have outlined achieve that goal. We will meet our carbon emissions reduction targets and the commitments we have made. We are taking action on climate change.
More than that, we’re meeting the commitments that we’ve made through that action that we are taking.
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Question: You lost one of your candidates over some comments that he made about Muslims. There’s another one this morning that says a homosexual lifestyle is distressingly dangerous and he wouldn’t have voted for Tim Wilson simply because he is gay. Do these people belong in the Liberal party?
Morrison: First of all, I think Tim Wilson is an outstanding member of parliament. I stand with Tim. Absolutely. I thank him for the great work he has been doing.
Tim has done an outstanding job chairing the House committee on economics, particularly in exposing the real cost to Australian retirees that we were talking about this morning, and he has led that charge as chair of that committee and I commend him for that work.
The individual you are referring to, I understand, as an organisational matter is being brought into the party administration to give an explanation about these issues and what further action is taken, well, I’ll allow the party to follow its processes.
You are right to say the other individual has had their endorsement removed, as they should.
We have seen the same thing happening with the Labor party. So what I would simply say is this: for the Liberal party, in this day and age when there is social media, multiple posting, that represents new challenges in the vetting of candidates. This is something I will be expecting the party to be working on and improving their processes. The candidate we are talking about on this occasion that you’re referring to has come in late to the position because of the section 44 challenges, which has been an issue for all parties.
We’ll continue to manage those issues. But I suggest that it’s important we don’t be distracted from the real choice at this election. It’s a choice between myself as prime minister or Bill Shorten. It’s a choice between a party who knows how to manage money and a Labor party under Bill Shorten who has demonstrated they don’t know how to manage money. If you can’t manage money, you can’t run the country.
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Question: (I miss the whole question but it is about what the price of the government’s climate policy is.)
Scott Morrison: [The price] we have been able to achieve through the Emissions Reduction Fund is around $11 or $12.
That’s well below what we have seen the credit price is currently in Europe, which is around $42. Our emissions reduction target is 26%.
That doesn’t require the types of initiatives that the Labor party have set out, which is requiring firms to go and purchase foreign carbon credits.
If you’ve got a 45% target, that’s why you are forcing businesses, and there’s over 100,000 employees here in Western Australia who are in businesses whose operations are here, which would be impacted, and there are some 35,000 in Queensland.
Under our target, we meet the target for that. Labor party has a 45% emissions reduction target. Eighteen days to go and Bill Shorten has still not told Australians what the cost is. He says he doesn’t know the cost and he can’t count the cost of it. It’s very important Australians know what the cost is of a change of government. You can’t tell other people to do the math.
As I said, the prime minister should be able to do the math. I’ve been doing the math both as a treasurer and as a prime minister. In the budgets we’ve handed down, I’ve been on the expenditure review committee for the last five years. As prime minister, you chair the expenditure review committee. You can’t contract out the maths, Bill.
You’ve got to do it yourself and know the cost of things. But the leader of the opposition doesn’t know the cost of things because it’s not him who will have to pay for it.
It’s the Australian people and $387bn worth of higher taxes. I’ve done the math, Bill, it’s 387bn.
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Liberal press conference
Scott Morrison is in East Cannington (still in Western Australia) holding his first press conference.
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During one of their last radio appearances together on Adelaide radio 5AA, Christopher Pyne and Anthony Albanese had a few things to say about preference deals:
Pyne: Well our preferences don’t get distributed so therefore it’s completely, really, a moot point. The only preferences that get distributed are the ones that come third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth, not the people who come first and second. So Labor and Liberals preferences very rarely ever get distributed.
Now what Anthony has just tried to do, of course, is distract everybody from the fact that Labor always does a deal with the Greens in the end to form government as they did when Julia Gillard was the prime minister, and that makes them a very dangerous choice.
But our preferences won’t be distributed, but we’re not going to preference the Greens because they want ‘death taxes’, they want to phase out all coal in a way that will destroy….
Host: What about in the upper house?
Pyne: Well in the upper house….
Albanese: That’s where it matters.
Pyne: Well they’re preferencing the Greens in the upper house.
Host: You’re preferencing Clive Palmer, which puts him in a position to potentially have some influence and say about the future of something like the Murray Darling Basin Authority.
Pyne: With preferences in the Senate, it’s often a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. Now Labor’s chosen to choose the Greens because they like the Greens. Now Anthony personally has always attacked the Greens in his own seat particularly, in Grayndler, because they’re a big threat to him, but Labor always cuddles up with the Greens and that means higher unemployment, lower economic growth, mad policies that’ll damage our national security, tearing up the US alliance…
Host: Is tearing up the Murray-Darling Basin plan a mad policy?
Pyne: Well of course, of course we’re not going to tear up the Murray-Darling Basin plan, we’re…
Host: But is it a mad policy?
Pyne: Well that’s Clive Palmer’s policy apparently, but we support the Murray-Darling Basin plan, we’ve implemented it and it’s the best plan possible for South Australia and we have to hold fast to it. Now just because Clive Palmer has that view, number one, he’s not elected yet by the way. He doesn’t have any elected representatives in the parliament. The Greens have eight…
Albanese: You’re doing your best to get him there.
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Not politics, but because we all need some light relief from time to time – Chris Kenny has quit twitter for about the third time.
Liberal candidate attacks Tim Wilson in homophobic comments
It really, really is just the day for it.
The Sydney Morning Herald has a breaking story on another Victorian Liberal candidate facing the sack – this time for comments he made about his would-be party room colleague Tim Wilson because he had the temerity to be born gay.
The Noel Towell and Benjamin Preiss story shows Peter Killin, who was preselected to take on Labor’s Peter Khalil in the electorate of Wills, had a few things to say about the LGBTI community at large. Wilson in the forum is referred to as “that notorious homosexual Tim Wilson”.
From the SMH:
The candidate’s comments came in response to a post by another commentator, Michael Taouk, who said he was not in the Liberal party, calling for the “Liberal grassroots” to “remove preselection from that notorious homosexual Tim Wilson”.
Mr Taouk wrote: “No true Christian can fight on the same side of that man.”
In response, Mr Killin wrote: “Your observations about Mr T Wilson, federal member for Goldstein are most pertinent at this point. Many of us will recall he was the openly homosexual who proposed to his boyfriend in parliment [sic].”
Mr Killin went on to exhort his fellow activists to greater efforts to prevent gays becoming Liberal members of Parliament, noting that Mr Wilson’s preselection was won by a very narrow margin.
“ONE LOUSY VOTE! So, if you and I were there to participate in preselection the result = no homosexual MP,” Mr Killin wrote.
“Thats what grass roots is – you and me – not someone else!”
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Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain.
La de daaaaaa, la de da de daa.
An opening paragraph from the ABC a couple of years ago that resonates powerfully still pic.twitter.com/IefKNFaJ7m
— James Jeffrey (@James_Jeffrey) May 1, 2019
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Wong continued:
The global dynamics I referenced earlier are accompanied by changes in the relative economic weight of the US, China and major powers, and by the way in which economic power is being refocused and reorganised.
In these circumstances, Australia’s international engagement is of even greater importance.
Indeed, in today’s world, our future prosperity depends on improved capability at home and greater engagement and collaboration abroad.
This is the terrain a Shorten Labor government will need to navigate to protect and promote Australia’s economic, strategic, and foreign policy interests.
We recognise and accept the responsibility of these times.
We know that the playbook of decades past may be of limited utility in dealing with the challenges and opportunities ahead.
As Bill Shorten said here at the Lowy Institute last October, foreign policy should be shaped by our national interest – first, second and third.
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Penny Wong has addressed the Lowy Institute, with a speech on how she sees foreign affairs. Heres part of what she had to say:
We live in a time characterised by disruption.
Power is shifting.
The global order we have known and relied upon since World War Two is being transformed.
The disruption we face is driven by structural, economic, and strategic dynamics.
We see it in rising economic and social inequality; greater numbers of displaced persons; ethnic tensions; pressures on democracy; heightened security threats from terrorism to cyber security; and the erosion of support for international norms, rules and institutions.
We see these trends in Australia with the rise of right-wing fringe groups like One Nation, Fraser Anning and Clive Palmer’s UAP – and in the failure of some of our political leaders, including the current Prime Minister, to take a clear and unambiguous stand against the politics of prejudice and division.
Through his preference deal with Clive Palmer, and his refusal to ensure One Nation is preferenced last by all members of his government, Scott Morrison is supporting political figures who promote fear and division.
He is supporting figures whose views hark back to the White Australia policy – harming the perception of our nation in the region.
This is beneath the standards we should expect from any prime minister.
And it only serves to feed those disruptive forces.
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The press club finishes.
Just an update on the third-debate debate, Labor has written to the Liberals suggesting an 8 May debate at the National Press Club, with a panel of journalists, including the ABC and Nine, which have made requests, after Seven West was granted one.
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Last month Katharine Murphy reported that Adam Bandt, asked about international carbon credits, said this:
Bandt said that, given the lack of climate action since the repeal of the carbon price, Australia was no longer in a position to shirk the abatement task by allowing heavy polluters to use international carbon permits to help meet their obligations.
“Things are more urgent now than they were five years ago,” he said. “Allowing offshoring now doesn’t acknowledge the urgency of the task.”
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Di Natale – it's not a 'blanket no' on international carbon credits
Well this is interesting.
Question: Accepting Australia is responsible for about 1% of the world’s carbon pollution, and so 99% is international, would you acknowledge some industries that might want to do something about carbon, particularly airlines that have, you know – they have access to fuel – in the long-term future about hydrogen but not now, if they want to reduce their carbon they need to look at things like international credits? Would you deny them the ability to do that and perhaps make a bigger impact on reducing the global carbon emissions than they could locally?
Richard Di Natale:
I’m not going to say there should be no carbon permits under any circumstances, of course not.
What we don’t want is for the Australian government to use permits as an excuse for not transforming the Australian economy and taking advantage of the opportunities.
We’re not going to give a blanket no under any circumstances, but we do want the next Australian government to set us up for the future. That’s what we’ll be doing going into this election.
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He continues:
I take a long-term view. It’s unfashionable in politics but I take a long-manufacture-term view. If you asked me when is sitting in the parliament, we had a senator in the parliament, whether the Greens would hold balance of power in 2010 and negotiate our climate laws, I would have said that’s a stretch, but it happened. If you look at the trajectory of the major parties over the last 30 years, their vote is shrinking and what you’re seeing is an increase of votes in the Greens, independents and third parties.
I’m very confident that some time in the not too distant future, majority governments will be the exception rather than the rule and that will be a good thing.
Because politicians will then be forced to work together collaboratively, represent the views of the community, not just the views of sectional interests, and get good outcomes.
We’ll continue to work hard, to win not just our senators and re-elect them, but got the option of an additional Senate seat in the ACT, keep your eye on that, but we will work very hard in the lower house so that Adam has company, doesn’t have to rely on Bob Katter to second his motions.
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Question: I think this probably draws on the thing that’s come up a bit today, but yourself and I think Bob Brown before him have used this podium to talk about the Greens’ longer term trajectory.
I think Bob Brown may have even predicted at some point, possibly some way down the track, you would be a party of government or at least vying for that.
But given all of the argument that you put up today, you have made a very strong case for what’s wrong with politics, you have talked about a huge corporate greed, talked about the urgency of the climate issue, you talked about the disorder in the government and the failure in policy and so many different areas – why is it that you’re in a situation where you’re not expanding rapidly, right now of all times, and given that is the case, is it perhaps time to acknowledge that you are – you know – at core a Senate force rather than a force in the House of Representatives?
Di Natale:
I suppose you might want to talk to Adam Bandt about that. He might take issue with you on that. We’re running some terrific campaigns in the lower house as well. I mean, yes, the Senate is a clear focus for us at this election campaign.
The Senate is going to be absolutely critical in achieving climate action, protecting our environment and addressing economic inequality.
It’s going to be absolutely critical at the next election and there’s going to be a question as to whether Bill Shorten does want to negotiate with the Greens to get good progressive outcomes. I say to people use your Senate vote very carefully.
We have got a wonderful team of Greens senators who are up for re-election and we need to have them represented in the Australian parliament so that we can get action on climate change.
On the lower house, we have got some wonderful campaigns going on right now. We have got seats like Higgins and Kooyong.
Just the fact we’re talking about the possibility of blue-ribbon Liberal seats, these are the seats that belonged to prime ministers and treasurers that are now under threat as a result of campaigns from the Greens. Jason Bore in Higgins, Julian Burnside in Kooyong, all running terrific lower house campaigns and that’s just my home state, not to mention some of the inroads we’re making in other states across the country.
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Question: Can I just go to if Labor wins and you’re not in coalition but you are working with them constructively as you say. What approach you will take to negotiating climate policy in particular? Would you be willing to horse-trade, cross-trade foreign permits, foreign carbon permits in return for Labor giving you a bit of ground on something – be it a higher emissions target, be it a quicker transition away from coal-fired power – are you willing to negotiate on that?
Di Natale:
That’s a good question. I suppose the key part of any negotiation is not to conduct it publicly through the media.
... I mean, it’s a fair question. I think it’s a reasonable question to ask, but if you’re going to have a relationship with somebody, have a relationship based on trust, you don’t set ultimatums through the media.
You have a constructive negotiation where you try to find common ground. That’s what we’ll look for.
Horse-trading as a principle where we trade one policy area against another is not something we engage in, but, of course, in any negotiation if we can get from here to there, and it’s a step along the pathway to achieving change, then, of course, that’s what we’re going to do.
And I’m very positive about the possibility of getting some real climate action after the next parliament.
I go into this role assuming the best in people and I want to assume that there are people within the Labor party who want strong action on climate change. We want to work with them and we want to get this country back on track.
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Question: When you became leader you articulated a goal of 20% of the vote as your aspiration. If this election sees the party’s representation go backwards, and you’re sort of flatlining at 9% at the moment, will you take responsibility for that? And stand aside as leader and let someone else have a crack?
Di Natale:
Sure. Always like when people quote me to quote the full quote. I might quote it back at you – there’s no reason why the Greens couldn’t achieve a double in our vote in a decade.
Just to be clear and to put that directly on the table. I think that’s actually probably being pessimistic. I have a lot of faith in the long-term trajectory of the Greens.
We’re a party that over 20 years, since I have joined, we had a couple of MPs, we now got MPs, 10 in the federal parliament, got a number of MPs right across the country.
Local government councillors, mayors of a number of different municipalities. We have seen growth over what is a relatively short period of time.
I think we’ll continue to grow. Our trajectory has been characterised by consolidation in periods of rapid growth. And I’m sure one’s on the way very soon. It’s a privilege to do this job. It’s always a privilege.
It’s a privilege to work with such an incredible bunch of people. Since I have been doing the job, what is it – four years I think – I have seen three different prime ministers. Been in the parliament, what, nine years I think, I might have seen half a dozen different prime ministers.
We’re a party that has been such a stable, in fact the only stable force in Australian politics right now, and I’m very committed to continuing on in my role because it’s an enormous privilege to do it.
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Question: As a regional Australian myself, it’s a well-timed question - I think there is, in fact, deep environmental concern among many farmers and others in the bush. That’s one of the reason why the Nats are in trouble at the moment but you haven’t actually been able to harvest that other than specific areas.
...Why do you think you haven’t been able to cut through more effectively through the regions when that level of concern does exist in many regional areas.
Di Natale:
Well, we are making progress. I’ll remind you again, the New South Wales election, we had seat of Ballina MP there returned, regional electorate.
We had Lismore where our standing candidate there almost got over the line, just missed out. We are having strong success in some areas. This is a long-term project.
We’re a party that’s been around for a few decades. We’re a party that’s growing our support base, slowly, long-term. We’re a party - I come from regional Victoria myself.
I’m speaking to so many people who say to me, “We are sick and tired of the Nationals. The Nationals do not represent us, they represent big mining interests.” I mean, this preference deal with One Nation! Ron Boswell, we disagreed on lots of things but we Ron Boswell who made it very clear that the way to approach One Nation was to actually stand up against them.
Modern National Party’s is basically turning into One Nation. They’re dealing with One Nation by morphing into One Nation. Shameful that you have got someone like the leader of the Nats saying, well, of course a preference deal is logical because we have so much in common.
Tells you everything you need to know about the modern National Party. Now, we’re going to work in regional Australia. It’s a long-term project.
Question: Just on Barnaby Joyce – he did give an extensive interview where he said, I got clean hands.
Di Natale: He might have said that, but he was also recorded saying to some of his constituents, and I’m paraphrasing here, that we’re going to stitch up the greenies and give you water – we’re basically not going to let the water go to the environment, make sure you get it.
That’s not what a water minister does. It’s to have a healthy Murray-Darling Basin, not to look after a sectional interest, not to look after donors, but to look after the health of the Murray-Darling Basin.
So all of those people that rely on a healthy Murray-Darling Basin know that they have got somebody looking out for their interests. Not for a narrow sectional interest.
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Question: Just on the Murray Darling Basin – we had some figures out yesterday from the Bureau of Statistics showing that the area under irrigation went up, I think it was something like 7% last year while the basin endured its second driest season since, I think, 1942 or 19 3.
What do you make of that?
Di Natale: It shows the Murray-Darling Basin plan has been a failure. What we have seen from the royal commission in South Australia and, you know, if you have a look at the findings from the royal commissioner they’re damning about the management of the Murray-Darling Basin.
This represents everything that is wrong with Australian politics right now. Huge corporate greed, massive corporate irrigators taking water out of that. Corruption, mismanagement. Water diversion, metre theft, the association with some National MPs. Their role in this. Barnaby Joyce’s as water minister.
If we had a national anti-corruption watchdog right now, we’d probably see Barnaby Joyce in front of it having to answer for himself.
It’s been a disgrace. And this year’s Australia’s food bowl – we need a healthy Murray-Darling Basin because so many people rely on it. We have got the issues that are going on in South Australia. No, I just think this is, this exposes everything that’s wrong in Australian politics right now. We’re calling for a royal commission, nationally. We hope the Labor party will support our call for a royal commission and it’s about time we lifted the lid on what’s going on there.
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Question: Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is facing a fight to retain her spot in the Senate. How will your party represent the issues of South Australia if she is not re-elected?
Di Natale:
Well, I’m not – I don’t – I think she will be re-elected. She’s done an incredible job for the people of South Australia.
She’s been the single voice in the Australian parliament defending South Australians’ access to a healthy river. I mean, we’re talking about whether people can actually turn their taps on right now and we have seen a Murray-Darling Basin plan plagued by corruption and mismanagement.
Sarah was arguing for a royal commission long before other people stood up and recognised the gross mismanagement and corruption that’s going on in the Murray-Darling Basin.
She’s been a champion against oil drilling in the Great Australian Bight. Remarkable we’re having a conversation about sinking a deep sea oil well in one of our most pristine wilderness areas at a time of dangerous climate change.
She’s been leading that campaign, working with the community, to mobilise people, not just in South Australia, but right around the country. I joined my Tasmanian senators in Hobart recently where we joined surfers paddling out in unison to say no more oil drilling in the Great Australian Bight. And Sarah has been a champion of that cause.
She’s been a strong, powerful, passionate voice in the South Australian parliament and I’m very confident that she’ll be re-elected because of the wonderful work she’s done for South Australia.
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Question: In the New South Wales election, the state Greens were plagued by internal conflicts about the direction and priorities of the party. In the aftermath of the election you lost an upper house MP who quit to become an independent.
Do you think these internal conflicts have been resolved? And how do you plan to balance the social and environmental priorities of the party going into the future?
Di Natale:
Yes, I do, I think we have taken important steps to address some of those issues. I think it’s worth perhaps telling the whole story there – in the state election where, as we often do, we were written off and we saw three lower house MPs returned with a significantly increased margin. Huge swings to our lower house MPs there.
Which shows that when you elect a Greens MP, people actually like what they get. They get someone who’s working for them, not doing the bidding of the coal, oil or gas lobby. I was heartened by the results we saw in New South Wales.
In terms of addressing social and environmental tensions, there is no tension. They’re both the same side or different sides of the same coin. And in my speech today, we talked about the twin challenges of addressing climate change and economic inequality.
And it’s the same rotten system that leads to both of those failures. We’ve got to clean up politics, we’ve got to bring people in and get the money out, we’ve got to have a democracy that actually represents the views of people and that is actually reflective of the diversity of the Australian community.
You do all of those things, we’ll start to make progress and we’ll make progress on both things because there isn’t a tension between the economy and the environment. Those two things work in the same direction. It’s only the opponents of change that try to create this false dichotomy. We have seen the market already say, “We’ve got to move in this direction because we understand the climate imperative.” Seeing even big coal companies like Glencore say they’re going to cut their production.
Ultimately it’s politicians that are lagging well behind the business community and the general community. And I’m very confident we’re on the right side of history here, very confident.
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Question: You’re talking about this being a critical moment for the environment, certainly opinion polling is showing that concern for the environment has never been higher amongst voters, yet we’re also in terms of predictions for the elections looking at the Greens perhaps losing a senator, there’s not serious talk about you guys picking up an extra seat in the lower house.
I just wondered what your thoughts were: is concern for the environment failing to translate into votes for the Greens? And why might that be so? And I suppose what is your definition of a successful election for the Greens in terms of the result for you guys?
Di Natale:
Well, my definition of success is decent climate policy. My definition of success is having an environment where we nurture it and look after it. That’s why we do this job.
These are challenging jobs. We do them because we believe in things and I tell you what I believe in – I’ve got two young kids and I worry about the world they’re going to inherit. I worry about the kids who have come here, the young people who have come here. We are at a critical moment in human history and it’s up to us collectively to decide if we are going to make the change that needs to be made.
So my definition of success is a climate policy that gets Australia back on track, not losing the plants and animals we’re losing at the moment. They’re the sort of things we want to see.
Addressing economic inequality so people aren’t living with nowhere to sleep at night. That’s what we want to see.
Now, we’ll know the result in a few weeks’ time, we won’t have to guess any more. We’ll actually know the result in a few weeks’ time.
The mood on the ground is terrific. I have been campaigning right around the country and I have been – I was part of the Adani convoy for a few days over Easter. I have joined young people, older people on campaigns right around the country. Lower house seats, Senate contests and people are mobilising like I have not seen before.
I feel very positive about the future for the Greens, but more importantly I feel positive about the future for the planet because it’s in the people in this room, not the people in parliament, who are going to sort it out. It’s these inspiring young people who are taking action into their own hands, who understand the urgency with which we need to act.
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On that first part of the question, Di Natale says:
Adam Bandt I think said it best – we don’t think it’s good climate policy, it’s a bit like being on a diet.
You don’t pay other people to go on a diet while you stay at home eating Big Mac and chips.
What we need to do, what we need to do, is we need to make sure that we are transforming our economy to set it up for the 21st century.
This is an inevitable transition. And we have huge opportunities here. We could be a renewable energy powerhouse, exporting hydrogen to the world. Bringing in revenue, creating jobs.
We could give long-term jobs, not just to the people who currently work in coal communities, but to their kids and their grandkids.
We could do all of those things. And, um, I think, you know, this debate that says there’s a cost associated with that – what about the cost of not acting?
What about the missed opportunities if we don’t embrace this transition? What about the loss of the Great Barrier Reef and the collapse of the Murray-Darling Basin? What about more fires and floods?
We had that incredible statement from the emergency services – you don’t get climate sceptics at the end of a fire hose who desperately want governments to act. So when it comes to international permits, we want Australia to do what Australia needs to do to set itself up for these opportunities that are coming down the line.
And if we miss the boat, it’s future generations that will pay the price.
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Question: You want a carbon price. What should that price be? And in any negotiations with a future Shorten government, would you accept any level of international permits when you’re negotiating with Bill Shorten and his team?
And if I could just quickly on asylum seekers – would you seek to influence a future Labor government including working with, say, Labor left MPs, to try and abolish offshore processing and boat turnbacks?
Di Natale: Can I start with the second one first? Effective of what you’re saying is will we seek to implement our policy.
... Of course, of course. I mean, it’s our policy. People elect us on the basis of showing a bit more decency. What we’re doing to innocent people seeking asylum, I can’t believe we had a debate about whether people who are in Australia’s care deserve access to healthcare.
That was what the Coalition tied themselves in knots over. Denying innocent people in the care of Australia access to the healthcare that they need.
So, of course, as a party that has always stood up for innocent people seeking asylum, we’ll seek to implement our policy. If that means working with Labor, of course, we’ll seek to achieve it.
Labor have indicated they don’t plan to change their approach, and the one thing that will change them is what we’re seeing right across the community. I do sense a very significant shift in people’s attitude. Locking up young kids, come on! Five years. These kids are tearing themselves apart.
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Question: You just said you don’t want to contemplate the prospect of a Morrison government winning the election ... and you have made clear in your speech that you wouldn’t be passing their tax cuts, the ones they had in the budget, the stages one, two and three. It’s a distinct possibility also that the Coalition, if they did win, won’t have 39 requisite Senate votes in combination with an albeit conservative crossbench, which put you a powerful position.
Have you given any thought – is there anything you’d be prepared to work with the Morrison government in terms of their policy agenda other than what you ruled out in tax?
Other areas where you have a relationship with them, given they’re going to probably need you if they win?
Di Natale:
Hard to see that – look at the positive plan we have put out and my offer to all parties is if they want to work with the Greens on any of those initiatives that we have put forward, of course, we’re going to work constructively. But we put forward our agenda of what we want to see.
We want to increase Newstart by $75 a week. We want to make sure we get back to the idea that the public education system is the foundation of a decent society.
Out-of-pocket costs: if the government wants to introduce universal Medicare, dental care under Medicare, absolutely, of course, regardless of their persuasion, but ultimately on the key issue going into this election, and this is a climate change election, it’s the issue that gets raised with me wherever I go – people right across this country, they’re not scared anymore, they’re terrified of what the future holds.
And they are sick of watching their governments sit on their hands or worse still do the bidding of their corporate donors.
They’re sick of it. On the key issue of climate change, this government has been a catastrophic failure.
A failure of leadership, a failure of governance. Can you believe that we are here in 2019, the science is telling us we need to act urgently, and these jokers don’t have a climate or energy policy going into this election?
It tells you everything that you need to know. A divided party, a rotten party, a party that deserves to be turfed out at the earliest opportunity.
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Question: You had a message to Bill Shorten in your speech today. He responded to you this morning in anticipation. He said: sorry, Richard, it’s not happening. Are you seeking a formal alliance with Labor as was in 2010 or is it more of an offer of a helping hand in the Senate on tax and climate issues?
Di Natale: Certainly not the former. We are – we want to work constructively. We want to negotiate.
Look, politicians say a lot of things in the lead-up to elections. They will all claim they have a mandate. They’ll all say they work with other parties. But it’s really important to remember that in the end, the Australian people will determine what they want of their prime ministers. And if the Australian people – 1.5 million people voted for the Greens at the last election.
Many more shared our views on climate change – 1.5 million people. It’s up to Bill Shorten if he’s the next prime minister, and as I said, I hope he is, as to whether he wants to respect those people who vote for parties like the Greens in the Senate to push the big parties on climate change, to hold them to account on other issues, to not do the bidding of the coal, oil and gas industry.
Again, I’m not surprised to hear the response from Bill Shorten today, but we hear that time and time again in the lead-up to an election.
In the end, prime ministers who are successful acknowledge how the Australian people vote, they respect the fact that they have to work with parties, independents, in the Senate, and if they are to endure, if they are to get good outcomes, then they’ll acknowledge that the Senate also has a responsibility to work on behalf of the people who put us into that place.
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Di Natale continues on that question:
They have been a disaster for the climate and if we are to have any hope in turning things around, we do need to see a change of government.
But we need the Greens in the Senate working with the Labor party and other voices to ensure that the policy that’s delivered meets the science and that is up to the challenge of transitioning our economy.
You know what the good news here – this is why I find this debate so frustrating – if we do this transition properly, if we manage it, and we’ve got a plan, RenewAustralia, a transition away from coal to 100% renewable energy by 2030, 180,000 new jobs if we manage this transition properly.
The only party saying to people in coal communities we know already based on decisions from the market that your jobs are at risk, we’ve got a plan to manage that transition, to give you long-term employment.
Things like a carbon price, investing in our energy grid, bringing down energy prices, these are all the things that we could do if we worked constructively and collaboratively.
And I just say again to Bill Shorten – don’t negotiate with Tony Abbott, with Barnaby Joyce.
If up got a Senate that involves Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson, you have got a decision to make – do you want to negotiate climate policy with them or do you want to negotiate a policy that will do what needs to be done with the Greens? We will work constructively and collaboratively with the Labor party.
The choice is up to Bill Shorten as whether he wants to do the same.
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The question and answer section of the press club address has begun.
Question: What responsibility do the Greens shoulder for the failure of a carbon price given that former chief bureaucrat John Menadue has written in the last 24 hours that if Greens had supported the Rudd Government’s CPR in 2008, Australia would be in a much better position today than having achieved nothing at all and wasted 11 years?
Richard Di Natale: So let’s be very clear about what happened in 2009. Kevin Rudd adopted a take-it-or-leave-it approach, adopted a policy that would have locked in failure.
And what we saw in 2011 was the maturity of Julia Gillard to recognise that working collaboratively with a range of voices in the parliament – we might see many more come this election – was the pathway to achieving good outcomes for the climate.
And in 2010, as a result of the hung parliament, we worked collaboratively with the then Labor government, with Julia Gillard, with progressive independent voices, and we set up what was described by the International Energy Agency as the world’s best climate laws. Look back at the history of what’s happened with our emissions and you will see that period as one of the few periods in our history where we saw emissions decrease significantly.
We set up the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Still there today, rolling out clean energy projects right across the country and bringing in revenue for this government. We set up the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. Funding a new pipeline to deliver jobs and investments for Australia. That’s what we achieved.
And we are prepared and we’re saying to the Labor party right now – we’re not going to contemplate the current government winning the next election because that’s a thought too difficult to bear.
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Shadow Foreign Minister @SenatorWong is giving a speech to @LowyInstitute on Labor's foreign policy priorities. She opens by saying the ALP sees Australia as "an independent, multicultural nation confident of our place in the world"
— Stephen Dziedzic (@stephendziedzic) May 1, 2019
Storer continues:
If public confidence up and down the system and the quality of environment of the basin are to be restored the next government must also commit to transparent, accountable decision-making.
The disgraceful example of Barnaby Joyce not undertaking an open-tender for buybacks in Kia Ora and Clyde must never happen again.
The next government should undertake increased water buybacks to secure more water for the environment, but only under an open tender process.
The next government must take significant steps to restore public trust and confidence in the Plan. This will not be achieved without accurate water accounting and independent water audits using primary data collection.
It is unacceptable that in 2019 we simply do not know where billions of litres of water in the northern part of the system are going.
Finally, the next government must take serious steps to enable the Plan to adapt to the effects of climate change. Climate change is the single biggest threat to the sustainability of the Murray-Darling Basin.
Re-evaluation of water recovery targets for the environment as well as rigorous oversight and enforcement are all the more important in the face of our changing climate.
Voters should take all this into account as they weigh up their choices, but South Australians must be aware that a vote for Clive Palmer would be a vote for an even drier future for the families, businesses and environment of SA.
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Tim Storer (who has announced he is not seeking re-election) has popped up during the campaign to ask South Australian voters to be wary of Clive Palmer.
From his statement:
Disenchanted as many voters may be with the state of Australian politics, South Australians need to be aware that a vote for Clive Palmer and the UAP would further endanger the state’s access to the water we deserve from the Murray-Darling.
Voters in SA should be in no doubt that wrecking the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, as he
recklessly proposes, would make SA worse off. It would be a disaster for the communities and businesses that rely on the river system.
The plan needs to be improved from the inside out, as I pointed out earlier this year, however all major parties, the Coalition, Labor and the Greens, need to go much
further than their current commitments.
Time is running out. It is critical that taxpayer funds are spent in the most cost-effective way to support the long-term sustainability of the system.
Merely committing to separate the Murray-Darling Basin Authority into a regulator and
authority, as Labor has done, is an essential first step, but not enough.
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On working with Labor, Richard Di Natale says this:
A Shorten Labor government will have two pathways after this election.
They can either pursue a climate and energy policy designed to pass through a divided Coalition party room, to satisfy the likes of Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce, or they can negotiate a comprehensive response based on science with the Greens.
My message to Bill Shorten is you cannot achieve bipartisanship with the Liberals when they cannot even agree with themselves.
Let me tell you what the real long-term hope for bipartisanship is – voters in key seats send a clear message that climate denialism, that being a coal-hugger is not a viable political strategy. That’s how you achieve bipartisanship, by sending a clear message to the Liberals that business-as-usual will not be tolerated.
So the decision for Bill Shorten is this: is he going to take the take-it-or-leave-it approach that Kevin Rudd took? Or is he going to negotiate with the Greens like Julia Gillard did in 2011 to deliver a climate policy that gives future generations a chance?
Our history shows we will work constructively with Labor. You know, apart from our climate laws, one of the biggest achievements in the 2010 parliament was Medicare-funded dental care, it was a policy I negotiated with Tanya Plibersek.
It was the package that has endured through six years of budget cuts. And after a long campaign from the Greens, a commitment from Labor to expand it. It’s another big idea we took to the 2010 election, another big idea that is now reality.
And the gives the parliament a chance to do big things again. It has to be because that is what’s required of us. The IPCC have just given us over a decade to change course on dangerous climate change.
That is three terms of parliament. We cannot afford to waste one of them.
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Di Natale moves on to the Liberal party.
Now, we all know that the Liberals have been a disaster when it comes to tackling climate change. What do you expect from a PM who comes into parliament and waves a lump of coal around? A vote for Scott Morrison is a vote for more drought, it’s a vote for more bushfires, it’s a vote for the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and the Murray-Darling Basin. That is their record and another three years will only intensify their damage to the environment and the economy.
But his harshest criticism seems to be reserved for the Labor party:
But for all of Labor’s talk, they are proving to be a great disappointment already. They won’t stop the Adani coalmine in the Galilee Basin, and just today they were spruiking approval of another thermal coalmine in Queensland. As if that’s not bad enough, Labor has just committed $1.5bn of your money to frack gas in the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory. They’re the biggest gas reserves and fracking will mean another 6.6% increase in climate pollution each year.
It will mean 1,200 gas wells sunk against the wishes of traditional owners and farmers alike and it will mean taking precious water and contaminating our land.
Labor’s plan will mean another 35bn tonnes of greenhouse gasses trapping heat in our oceans and atmospheres. That’s somewhere between four and seven times the climate impact of the Adani coalmine.
And worse still, Labor’s offering public money, your money, to line the pockets of three energy giants. More money than the Coalition ever shamefully offered Adani. It’s not hard to see why – the oil and gas industry has its tentacles all over Labor.
There’s the $2m in declared donations since 2012 from the coal, oil and gas industry and the millions more in dark money that’s not even declared.
Then there’s the network of relationships and lobbying. Previous Labor energy minister Martin Ferguson left parliament to be the chair of the oil industry’s peak body. He was succeeded by Gary Gray.
Former climate change minister Greg Combet and trade minister Craig Emerson work at consultants to Santos. One of the three direct beneficiaries of this public money.
Both the prime minister and the opposition leader have had coal lobbyists as their chief of staff. The boards and peak bodies of Australia’s fossil fuel industry are littered with alumni from both sides of politics. We have no hope of cleaning up our environment until we clean up our politics.
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Richard Di Natale gets applause for this line:
The bottom line is – if you don’t have a plan to transition away from polluting fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, then you do not have a plan to tackle the greatest challenge facing all life on earth – the breakdown of our climate.
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Scott Morrison is taking questions from the forum audience – franking credits seem very popular.
The question was about whether or not a future Coalition government would repeal any Labor changes to franking credits.
Morrison talks about why he is very opposed to the policy, but Sky News jumps back to its regular programming, so I don’t know if he gets around to answering that.
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Victorian premier demands answers from PM on far-right links
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, has weighed in on claims made by the rightwing extremist Neil Erikson in an online video, demanding the prime minister answer questions over alleged far-right extremist links to the Liberal party.
“We have very, very serious questions that need to be answered and they can only be answered by the prime minister in relation to the alleged engagement of convicted extremists to interfere in the Victorian election conducted last year – to pit one Victorian against another,” Andrews told state parliament question time.
Andrews warned of an emerging “pattern of extremism” in the federal election pointing to National party preference deals with One Nation.
He reaffirmed his government’s support for multiculturalism, which he said was Victoria’s most precious asset.
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Richard Di Natale has begun his press club address.
“Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus [Taylor]”, says Angus Taylor.
I mean, who doesn’t have multiple FB accounts on which to post comments on your own posts from.
A mistake anyone can make on a hectic campaign trail: Congratulating yourself from the wrong account. #humevotes #ausvotes2019 pic.twitter.com/SwnlJDMCbc
— 💧Isabel M (@mumdaze) April 30, 2019
Scott Morrison is in Hasluck, addressing a forum.
The Liberal announcement today is on aged care:
The Morrison Government will continue to prioritise better support for older Australians by investing in a new targeted research centre, funding a new program to combat loneliness while ensuring the aged care workforce meets growing demand in the future.
$34 million will be provided to establish a new Aged Care Workforce Research Centre, which will examine new ways to deliver care for older Australians and training and education for aged care providers, drawing on the world’s best practice.
The ALP has announced a big spend on remote Indigenous housing: $1.5bn over 10 years to combat housing shortages and chronic overcrowding.
The NT will receive the biggest allocation: $550m over five years from 2023-24, with $251m promised to Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia in 2019-20.
The ALP also says it will revive the national partnership for remote Indigenous housing (NPARIH), a 10-year, $5.4bn agreement with the states and territories.
The NPARIH has been the cause of a long-running dispute between the former federal Indigenous affairs minister Nigel Scullion and states and territories.
In late 2017, Scullion decided not to renew NPARIH, instead preferring to broker individual shorter-term deals with states and territories. Those deals soured, with the WA government spending $270,000 on attack ads criticising the negotiations.
The agreement with the NT government to provide $550m over five years was held up for more than nine months as they argued about the conditions of the funding.
At the time, the head of the NT’s Aboriginal Medical services, John Paterson, said he was “absolutely furious” the two governments couldn’t agree on such an essential service, and Aboriginal people were bring treated like a political football.
In November last year, the special envoy on Indigenous affairs, Tony Abbott, suggested former defence department housing could be shipped to the remote community of Borroloola to address the “appalling” housing conditions, but the plan was later abandoned after the community suggested it was not a “viable solution”.
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It’s a busy day for old social media posts. At the Sydney Morning Herald, Eryk Bagshaw has posted this story:
The Liberal candidate for a once-safe Coalition seat says women are not getting pay rises because they are not interested in “money matters and other business-related ‘stuff’”.
Sachin Joshi, the candidate for the NSW seat of Paterson, held by the Liberals for 15 years until 2016, said men were more likely to actively seek business skills and responsibilities and boost their pay packets.
“The main reason for the gender gap lies in the ‘active interest (or lack of it) towards business skills/responsibilities,” the Maitland GP business coach wrote using his candidate profile in a LinkedIn article in October 2018.
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Josh Frydenberg on Bill Shorten: “[He compared his] big electricity tax, which he can’t explain, with reducing the number of Big Macs. This guy wants to be in the Lodge, to be prime minister of Australia?
“I mean, yesterday he was talking about getting the taxpayer to pay for private sector wages in the childcare workers and he said that was the first cab off the rank, today he says it is the first and only cab off the rank – his policy changes from yesterday to today.”
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Sky News just showed a photo of Bill Shorten standing with the disendorsed NT Labor Senate candidate Wayne Kurnorth, which looks like it was taken at a rally. Shorten is posed with his arm around Kurnorth.
It is of interest because in his press conference Shorten said he had never met the (former) candidate.
Politicians meet a lot of people, as Ian Goodenough has let us know. They don’t always remember doing it, it’s true. But it makes comments made in the absolute “never met the guy” or, you know, categorically denying you have met someone your colleague has already on the record confirmed you did, a bit tricky.
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Over at The Australian, Richard Ferguson has just posted this story:
Labor’s candidate for Melbourne Luke Creasey has shared rape jokes and pornographic material online.
...Mr Creasey, who is running to unseat Greens MP Adam Bandt, shared a rape meme in 2012 on his Facebook page which read: “Hey I just met you / If you don’t date me / You’ll go to prison / I’ll say you raped me.”
He also shared a link to pornographic material about pegging – a sexual kink – and made disparaging comments about working class people and people who live in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire.
Nothing is ever gone on social media.
Updated
Josh Frydenberg is holding his press conference sans flags.
So far, he is attacking Bill Shorten for explaining Labor’s climate change policy in terms of Big Macs while speaking to Perth radio Nova yesterday.
I missed it, but Shorten explained it like this:
“You know what, mate, you are a great athlete,” he told the host. “But if you had a friend who was perhaps on the large side, the chubby side, and they had 10 Big Macs a day … there’s a cost to not eating the Big Macs.
“But in the long term it’s an investment isn’t it? The idea that you can get positive change from putting nil effort in. I’m going to use this example of the exercise. Sure there’s a cost to exercising but there’s a benefit. Now which do you measure? The cost or the benefit or do you accept that it’s all part of a total package?”
Updated
Josh Frydenberg is due to address the media in just a moment – so it looks like the Victorian Liberal party has wrapped up its meeting to disendorse Isaacs candidate Jeremy Hearn.
Updated
Bill Shorten will appear on 7.30 tonight. The ABC publicity peeps describe it thusly:
Labor Party leader Bill Shorten will be joining Leigh Sales on ABC 7.30 tonight for the first of two in-depth campaign interviews.
As the Federal Election campaign reaches the critical half-way mark, join Leigh Sales as she explores the campaign policies and issues that Bill Shorten and the Labor Party are championing this election.
This will be an opportunity to hear from the Opposition Leader in a one-on-one television interview with the ABC.
Just heading back to the Labor press conference for a moment, Mark Butler gave a little more detail about Labor’s climate policy, and how it might work, kicking the issue on a little bit, with this answer on whether Labor had an idea of how many international carbon credits may be purchased?
It will depend on price It would depend on price and we’re confident that we are a reinvigorated carbon farming market, there will be much more supply of very affordable credits from the Australian carbon farming market. We might have arrangements with countries in our region but those are matters that they want to engage in discussion with once we’re in government, if we win the election. Go and ask any business group and that will be their answer.”
So could we see some sort of regional carbon coalition established? New Zealand would seem a viable partner. Guess we will have to wait and see
This doesn’t seem the best time for Jason Wood to be bringing up African gangs. But he did. Twice, overnight.
Do we really, really have to go through this again?
Updated
Question: Just on climate change, do you acknowledge the simple fact that you’re asking Australians to vote for something without knowing what the full cost of it will be? And can you understand why that worries people?
Shorten:
No, I don’t agree with any of the assumptions in that question for the following reasons. The Australian people have already worked out what the Liberal party haven’t. Climate change is real. I don’t need to give a lecture about climate change to 2 million Australians who’ve put solar power on their rooftop. They see the advantages of moving to renewables.
It’s without a doubt one of the top two or three issues in this election. People are sick and tired of politicians. They’re sick and tired of the fear and the scare campaigns. They’re sick and tired of lazy, rightwing, anti-climate change governments coming up with every excuse in the world to say the future’s too hard.
We’re in a childcare centre. These kids have a reasonable expectation that the adults and leaders in their world will be as optimistic about the future as our young people are. What optimism or hope is there in the future of Australia when you vote for the Liberal-Nationals who basically hate doing anything on climate change? If this government was fair dinkum on climate change, Malcolm Turnbull would still be prime minister of Australia.
Updated
Liberals and Nationals 'riddled with rightwing extremists', Bill Shorten says
Question: On Jeremy Hearn, a couple of days ago, your Senate candidate in the Northern Territory resigned after sharing antisemitic posts on social media. If one candidate is responsible and reflective of the entire party, aren’t Labor in trouble on this?
Bill Shorten:
No. There’s a world of difference here. First of all, this fellow, who I haven’t met, who was in the Northern Territory Senate ticket ... anyone is contrasting that with the complete Islamophobia of the Liberals. But nonetheless, not appropriate. Gone. But goodness me, when will we finally admit what everyone actually knows?
The Liberal party is riddled with rightwing extremists. It doesn’t matter if it’s Andrew Hastie contradicting Ian Goodenough or vice versa about what rightwing nutter they meet with, or indeed this Islamophobe, this racist.
You know, after Christchurch what do you need to get people to wake up in the Liberal party and say it’s unacceptable? The real problem here is it just confirms another day the Liberal party of Australia is riddled with rightwing extremists.
The Liberal party is making, and the National party are making preference arrangements with rightwing extremists, like the One Nation party. I mean, we’ve had chaos in the last six years. And people are sick of the chaos. But because of Mr Morrison’s personal choices to work with Clive Palmer, because of his coalition partner ... I mean they’re in the Coalition except when it suits the Nats to say they’re not and do a dirty deal with One Nation – there’s a pattern of behaviour emerging here that the Liberals and Nationals are riddled with rightwing extremists and the one thing it means, as people vote today and tomorrow and right through to May 18, is that if you’re sick of the instability and chaos, vote Labor at the next election.
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Question: What are your assumptions on the amount of international credits that will be brought by business under your policy? And what are your assumptions on the future pricing of these credits? And I understand the PBO can’t do costings but if you haven’t got those assumptions, why not get them before the election from an economist?
Butler:
Well, the business community made very clear with us what they wanted to hear from the Australian Labor party before the election and what they wanted to engage with an Australian Labor party government if we’re lucky enough to win the election, after the election.
And for example, access to international permits, the way in which the emission reduction trajectory would be designed over the course of the decade, the way in which the carbon farming initiative would be reinvigorated, were all things that every business group – you can go and talk to them – every business group said, “We want to engage with you as a government.”
Q: But do you have assumptions on the amount of international credits that business will buy?
Butler:
It will depend on price It would depend on price and we’re confident that we are a reinvigorated carbon farming market, there will be much more supply of very affordable credits from the Australian carbon farming market. We might have arrangements with countries in our region but those are matters that they want to engage in discussion with once we’re in government, if we win the election. Go and ask any business group and that will be their answer.
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Question: Wasn’t that policy set to be introduced by Tony Abbott, not Malcolm Turnbull?
Butler:
It was Tony Abbott’s policy but came into place under Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership.
Q: So it’s the Tony Abbott climate change mechanism.
Butler:
A range of businesses already have these legal obligations under this policy and we’ve heard the calls from the Australian business community for investor confidence to continue working with the mechanism that already exists. What that also does is allow a platform for potential bipartisanship if the Liberal party ever gets over its allergy to climate change action.
In the same way that we have said in response to a unanimous request from business organisations that we would move forward with the national energy guarantee, a policy which Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg said would deliver $550 in power bill cuts for Australian households but Scott Morrison then walked away from.
As a result, as was modelled last year by Scott Morrison, power bills are going up and up and up again.
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Question: With your emissions reduction target, you say that businesses will take the reins with how they choose to reduce pollution. How can you be sure that they will do that? Would you introduce civil penalties for non-compliance?
Mark Butler takes this one:
As Bill pointed out, we’ve decided after deep engagement with the business community to accept their request to continue working with the safeguards mechanism, that introduced by Malcolm Turnbull. That will set particular limits on pollution for the 250 biggest polluters in the country. Now, that is 0.01% of Australian businesses.
99.99% of Australian businesses won’t be touched at all by this policy. Companies will have to abide by those limits, but they will be given, as they do under the safeguards mechanism now, as they do under the mechanism introduced by Malcolm Turnbull, but what we will do is give them the broadest array of possible options for upsetting any breach of those limits.
Every single request by the business community, for example, to allow them to continue engaging in international trading, which every business organisation in the country has asked for, to allow offsets to a reinvigorated carbon farming market, to allow access potentially for electricity offsets, to allow businesses that beat their baselines to be able to create credits that they can either move within their business, sell to other businesses or bank for future years.
All of these requests, after 12 to 18 months of deep engagement with the business community, are featured in the Australian Labor party policy.
Updated
Question: You said you want 50% electric cars by 2030. If a Labor government wins the election, would you provide subsidies for, you know, electric cars or other providers?
Shorten:
What I’ve actually said is that we’d like to see 50% of new car sales be electric vehicles. What Labor will do to help create ... we want a network of charging stations so it’s a real option for people. We’ve also said that government fleet purchasing requirements over that time will move towards more electric vehicles as part of our mix. The reason why we’re doing this is twofold.
One is I know that around the world other people in other countries are getting access to cheaper electric vehicles which, of course, save your petrol bills, but in Australia, because we’ve got such a backward, technophobic, anti-climate change government, motorists are being denied cheaper options for their motor vehicles.
So we think this is good on climate, because it will help reduce emissions. We think it’s also appropriate that Australia shouldn’t become this sort of, you know, Albania of the southern hemisphere, where, in fact, we are blocked away from new technology, because we’ve got an ignorant, antiscientific, anti-climate change, anti-technology government.
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Question: Clive Palmer is going to be in town tomorrow. So is Mark Latham from One Nation. They’re expected to announce Murray-Darling river plans. Will Labor have anything in addition to say about the Murray-Darling basin plan before the election.
Shorten:
First of all, I think Mr Palmer said he wants to rip up the plan … That’s a disaster for South Australia. Palmer is basically a billboard with no substance, a text message with no follow-through. What’s happening here is Australian democracy is under threat.
Mr Palmer is trying to buy the Australian democratic system with $70m or $80m and, unfortunately, Mr Morrison is his accomplice. I’ve got to say again … Palmer can’t pay for his promises. You know he makes it up. You all know that what he’s done is basically hooked Morrison into whatever madcap schemes Palmer is going to run around and promise.
People can sniff a fake a long way away and, in terms of Mr Morrison, what was he thinking, letting himself be taken hostage to Mr Palmer or the extremists of One Nation? You know, you don’t need to have a Rhodes scholarship to work out that Clive Palmer never does anything for free. If Clive Palmer promises to do something for you, you can be reasonably sure strings are attached.
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Question: I get that it’s uncomfortable for you in an election campaign to say that you would go into a deal with the Greens, but doesn’t everybody in this country know that you can’t get your climate deal through any parliament we could imagine without coalitions of some sort. So if you’re not getting into bed with the Greens, who are you going to get into bed with to carry your climate plans?
Bill Shorten:
Trust in politics is at an all-time low and one of ways Labor will rebuild trust in Australian politics is we’ll tell people before an election what we intend to do after an election.
The good news for us is if we’re elected, we’re elected to implement our policies. I do not expect the Senate to stand in the way of our government if we are elected, when we clearly outlined all our policies and have such a strong mandate in the event that we are elected.
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Question: A few months ago, Chris Bowen said voters unconvinced about your plans for taxation were entitled to vote for other parties. What about voters unconvinced by your answers about climate changes and working with the Greens? What should they do?
Bill Shorten:
We want as many people as possible to vote for us. Again, to not push your patience, I will repeat – no coalition with the Greens. Sorry, Richard, it’s not happening. And in terms of taxation policies, you can do the maths yourself.
We’re offering a million Australian households help with their childcare, a subsidy to working parents, an additional $1,500 to $2,100 for every child in the system every year. We’re going to look after the pensioners. It’s long overdue that someone did something for the pensioners. You don’t have to put a wraparound ad on your bus. That’s not action. It’s propaganda. You need to really help the pensioners. We’re doing that by providing additional systems in dental care.
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Question: On health, you’ve announced a range of health policies. Do you rule out lifting the Medicare levy for high-income earners?
Shorten:
We have no plan to lift the Medicare levy … The reason why I can say that with such confidence is because we’re making the hard economic decisions. We’re clamping down on the multinationals, we’re not going to spend millions of dollars on tax cuts as this government is promising. If you’re a pensioner, a commonwealth seniors card holder, you’re going to get $1,000 assistance through Medicare every year with your teeth.
What our health promises mean is that if you are one of the two Australians who will be diagnosed by cancer by the time you’re in your mid-80s, Labor is going to virtually reduce your out-of-pocket costs to as low as we possibly can. It means if you lose hospitals and you’re waiting for arthroscopies, knee surgeries, hip replacements, cataracts, Labor’s got your back and we’ll reduce the out-of-pocket costs for those too.
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Question: Would you rule out another climate deal with the Greens? And do you think that the Gillard-Greens deal in 2011 was a success?
Bill Shorten:
Well, I see that the Greens are sort of trailing their coat and saying, “Look at me.” The fact of the matter is that if we get elected we’ll be making decisions in a Labor cabinet and the decisions will be made by members of parliament of the Labor party.
What we will do is we will implement the policies we’ve put forward. I think even our harshest critics would agree we’re the party putting forward policies in this election and outlining what we mean to do. We’re not for switching because some independent or Greens MP is suffering relevance deprivation and wants their name in the paper.
The only coalition in Canberra is that of Mr Morrison, Ms Hanson and Mr Palmer and this is a coalition of chaos and cuts. If people are rooking for stability at the next election, if they just want to be sure that who they vote for is who they get, vote one Labor.
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Question: On climate change, yesterday you said it was impossible to model Labor’s policies but Labor has promised the details will be released before the election. Which is it? Impossible to cost? Or will costings be released?
Butler:
Yesterday I was asked whether the Parliamentary Budget Office had costed our program and it’s clear that the PBO is responsible for costing and modelling programs that involve revenue and spending by government.
This does not involve any revenue or spending by government, any more than Scott Morrison’s application of this safeguards mechanism, designed and introduced by Malcolm Turnbull, involves any revenue or spending by government. Scott Morrison would give exactly the same response that I gave yesterday.
Their safeguards mechanism, that’s been in operation for some years, has never been subject to any costing by the Parliamentary Budget Office because it does not involve pricing of carbon. It does not involve any revenue and it does not involve any spending by the government.
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Question: Some of the issue was getting workers to the upper Spencer area. How are you going to solve that problem with your plan?
Mark Butler:
You need a long-term plan. At the moment under this government you have a plan, the renewable energy target that Penny Wong put in place in 2009 that ends this year. It’s still in existence because of Labor’s opposition to their attempts to abolish it.
What you don’t have is any investor confidence beyond next year and that’s what Labor’s 50% renewable energy target will do. It will give people the confidence to move to areas like these renewable energy zones, because there will be long-term jobs there.
Updated
Mark Butler is on the campaign trail again – he talks more about the renewable policy being announced today:
We’re announcing our third renewable energy development, in the Spencer Gulf region. The purpose behind these announcements is to provide a clear investor signal about where the best renewable energy resources are in Australia, as identified by the Energy Market Operator.
These renewable energy zones come from recommendations contained in the integrated systems plan, which has been the subject of very deep engagement by Aemo with the sector and by scientific experts and we intend to really boost investor confidence there.
What it also means is we’re starting to identify areas in the country which will be particular focuses of our energy security modernisation fund, a $5bn fund that Bill and Chris Bowen and I announced late last year, that will help underpin the new investment we need to connect up the load centres, like the big cities and the manufacturing centres, with the new areas of energy generation, which will include the Spencer Gulf.
The concern in the investor community in renewable energy is that the Coalition government has made it clear there will be no support from the Liberal and National parties for any renewable energy development beyond next year. This is ... really dashing investor confidence in this industry that has been responsible for so much job creation and investment over the last few years.
So what Labor wants to do with its 50% renewable energy target, its energy security modernisation fund and its response to the clear recommendations from Aemo about renewable energy zones, is continue to boost investor confidence which will, according to independent modelling, result in 70,000 additional jobs, just as a result of our 50% renewable energy target through the 2020s.
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Tanya Plibersek takes aim at 'coalition of creeps, crackpots and cranks'
Tanya Plibersek says the election choice is between a “united Labor team” and a “coalition of creeps, crackpots and cranks”.
“I think the choice is clear – if people want stability, they should vote Labor.”
Looks as though Labor has found the campaign line it will take to the end of this thing.
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Labor press conference
Bill Shorten is in Somerton in South Australia making a renewables announcement.
The official announcement is this:
Labor will make the Spencer Gulf region a Renewable Energy Zone (REZ), encompassing the stretch from the north of Adelaide, along the Yorke Peninsula, and around the top of the Spencer Gulf down to Whyalla.
But the press conference is mostly to talk about the Jeremy Hearn and Andrew Hastie stories, as well as the Clive Palmer preference deal.
Updated
The Greens and Labor’s face off over environmental policy continues.
The Greens are accusing Labor of “abandoning support for more native forest reserves in Tasmania, including 356,000ha of permanent reserves,” following this announcement
“Labor talks tall about overhauling environment laws and taking strong action on climate change, but has now backflipped on protecting vast areas of Tasmania’s native forests,” Janet Rice said in a statement.
“Labor still won’t rule out support for the Adani mine, plans to open up the Northern Territory to fracking, and just yesterday backtracked on their electric vehicle target.”
“This decision shows Labor will buckle under the slightest pressure from their industry mates and corporate donors.”
“You just cannot trust Labor when it comes to protecting our environment or climate.”
“The Greens plan would end native forest logging immediately, and transition the industry to 100% plantations from the current 88%.”
“Labor is willfully allowing the destruction of our forests, which are hugely important for storing carbon, for threatened animals and for our water security. To log them, mainly for woodchips, is just madness.”
“Labor are reverting to type as they always do when the pressure comes on from the loggers,” Nick McKim said in the same statement.
“Trashing and burning carbon rich forests like takayna/Tarkine, the Blue Tier and the Styx is unacceptable while the world is in a climate emergency and a biodiversity crisis.”
“The Greens will fight to protect these beautiful places, the carbon they store and the wildlife they support.”
But this might be my favourite of the Michael McCormack quotes, on young voters:
One of the biggest problems we’ve got in this election is the fact that we’ve got a lot of young people voting for the first time – and this sounds dreadful – who have probably never known how good they’ve got it.
Yes, you damn yoof, with you all wanting affordable housing and career pathways and wage rises and the planet surviving and probably food that you’re just going to post on the social media whatsit. How about you spend less time trying to smash the system and just stick to smashing avocado, huh?!
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The Nationals leader continued, including a nice little swipe at this publication. I guess even white bread contains some fibre:
Climate change and energy policy
• “Climate has been very difficult, not just for our side of politics, but it probably has led to the downfall of – let’s face it – K Rudd, J Gillard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull. They’ve all grappled with it. Nobody’s got all the answers.”
• “If we can prove that a coal-fired power station can work just to service Gladstone, then hopefully that can be replicated around the nation.”
• “The other day the Guardian wrote a story and, at the bottom of the story, which was about the weather, put this thing ‘if you are experiencing difficulty ring Lifeline’. I mean, for God’s sake, they are just scaring people beyond all hysteria.”
(I can’t find the story, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.)
The Senate
• “Most of them [the senators] you’ve never heard of, most of them you wouldn’t have come for a barbecue. I didn’t agree with much Paul Keating said but he did call it unrepresentative swill. He was probably right then, it’s probably true today.”
• “It does my head in and we don’t run good Senate and Legislative Council [campaigns] because it would confuse people even more. But we don’t run campaigns to make people think about their upper house choices, and that is such a pity.”
Bill Shorten
• “Bill Shorten’s initials aren’t BS for no good reason.”
• “He could make Julia Gillard look like a Sunday school teacher if he gets in. Honestly, at least Julia was principled.”
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AAP’s Matt Coughlan went along to a Michael McCormack branch meeting in Cowra. He’s complied some of McCormack’s McCormackisms:
On preferences
• “I’ve always put the Greens last. I’ve put Labor above them unless there’s a complete nutjob of a candidate above me.”
• “In the seat of Gilmore [NSW], the Libs have parachuted Warren Mundine in from the eastern suburbs of Sydney despite the fact the Liberals pre-selected at a local level Grant Schultz.”
• “Then we end up with the likes of Adam Bandt, who wants to shut down everything, and Sarah Hanson-Young – what a complete loser she is.” – on preferencing the Greens above Clive Palmer and One Nation.
• “Why be all ideological and pure and sit in opposition for three years? I’ve been in opposition and I know how lonely and desolate it is when you have to march cap in hand to someone like Chris Bowen and ask for funds. I want to dictate where the regional funds are going, not some grubby Labor person.”
• “I’ll cop the criticism and I’ve copped plenty over the past few days: ‘Oh, you’re voting in racists, how can you do it?’ Well, you know what, it’s only a journalist obsession.”
His leadership
• “A lot of people look at me and sometimes I get accused in the media of not being public enough, well, let me tell you there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t do at least two or three press conferences.”
• “I probably don’t get as much cut-through as predecessors because I don’t say silly stuff.”
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Andrew Hastie is apparently posting lines from Rudyard Kipling’s If poem on his Facebook (the lines in bold are those he is posting):
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
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On Andrew Hastie’s denial he met with far-right extremist Neil Erikson, Dreyfus says:
Well, they’re a bit more reports that Mr Hastie met with Neil Erikson, who is, someone else, with repulsive, Islamophobic views. Someone who is a convicted criminal. They’re more than reports, because Mr Hastie’s colleague, Mr Ian Goodenough, has said that he and Mr Hastie met with Mr Erikson.
I think both Mr Hastie and Mr Goodenough have to explain about their meeting with Mr Erikson, and also have to explain what they were doing at the rally that Mr Erikson was at, which was something to do with wanting to change Australia’s immigration policy, so as to give preference on the basis of race to white people. As I understand, that was the basis of the rally in Perth.
Mark Dreyfus is holding a press conference (it’s a two flagger) to call on the Liberal party to address far-right rhetoric. He walked in not knowing his Liberal challenger, Jeremy Hearn, was to be sacked by the Victorian Liberals for his anti-Muslim comments, and, learning of it in the press conference, “congratulated” the party for making “the right decision”.
But he says Hearn should never have been pre-selected in the first place.
It’s extraordinary that this Liberal party thinks that someone who has expressed the kind of views that Mr Hearn has expressed, could ever be regarded as suitable for election to the House of Representatives. It’s absolutely symptomatic of the chaos that’s engulfed Scott Morrison’s Liberal party.
Mr Morrison has a choice today. His choice is between showing that his party has shifted far to the right of Australian politic. Has become a party that thinks cosying up to Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson is the right thing to do. That his party is a party which tolerates Islamophobia, or, he can show that, perhaps, the Liberal party of Australia is still something approaching a mainstream party. That’s his choice today, and I call on Scott Morrison to make the right choice.
For much too long, for some years now, we’ve seen the Liberal party of Australia tolerating this kind of hate speech. In fact, wanting to allow more hate speech, and that’s what’s represented by the attacks that the Liberal party of Australia has made on section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
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Warren Entsch is in a pretty big fight to hold on to the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt. He is only running again because he was pretty much the LNP’s only chance of holding the seat. It’s not traditionally LNP territory.
Despite a lot of the rhetoric about Queensland, particularly in the north, Cairns is quite environmentally focused. After all, it has the Great Barrier Reef literally on its doorstop. It relies on the multibillion-dollar tourism industry the reef generates, so the whole “support Adani” shtick a lot of MPs and candidates are running with doesn’t play so well in Cairns.
Which puts this story from the Courier-Mail’s Steven Scott into perspective:
Liberal National MP Warren Entsch has shunned Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s warning that the Greens are an extreme party, handing them preferences as an olive branch to show he cares about the environment.
The Cairns-based Member for Leichhardt has urged his supporters to preference the Greens above Labor despite Mr Morrison’s claim that this would equate to supporting their policies on death taxes and taking Queenslanders’ jobs.
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Meanwhile, the independent bloc are making their demands known, in the event of a minority government:
Seven potential lower-house independents have signed a joint statement pledging to pursue a number of climate change actions in the event the election makes them kingmakers in the next parliament – including working to stop the controversial Adani coalmine.
Andrew Wilkie in Denison, Kerryn Phelps in Wentworth, Julia Banks in Flinders, Helen Haines in Indi, Zali Steggall in Warringah, Rob Oakeshott in Cowper, and Oliver Yates in Kooyong have signed a pledge coordinated by the Australian Conservation Foundation setting out 10 measures they will pursue in the next parliament in the event they win their seats, putting the major parties on notice in the event either has to form a minority government.
The statement contains explicit commitments to oppose the development of the proposed Adani coalmine; to “reinvigorate and restore funding to the national Climate Change Authority to be the independent, credible science-based advisory body it was originally intended to be”; work to exceed the current Paris target and ensure Kyoto credits are not used to meet the emissions reduction commitment; and to “develop a roadmap to power Australia from 100% renewable energy, aiming to achieve at least 50% by 2030”.
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Richard Di Natale is giving his press club address today. He’s expected to repeat what he told Katharine Murphy on 18 April, saying the Greens could vote down Labor’s climate policy, if it wins the election, if it believes it not to be ambitious enough.
As Murph reported at the time:
In the event it’s not a minority government scenario, if Labor wins outright and the Greens are in balance of power in the Senate, Di Natale also wants it known that his party is prepared to vote against a climate policy it regards as insufficiently ambitious, as the Greens did once before, controversially, in 2009.
Ahead of the election, the shadow climate change minister, Mark Butler, warned the Greens against a repeat of 2009. Butler told Guardian Australia the Greens voting with Tony Abbott against Labor’s first climate policy mechanism during the last period in government was one of the factors in shattering the political consensus at the federal level, which has prevented policy action for the best part of a decade.
The Greens leader says it is impossible to be definitive about a post-election decision right now, given Labor’s policy still contains several unknowns, but he says the policy Shorten and Butler are taking to the 2019 election is weaker than the policy of 2016 and “now is the time to base a policy on science”.
Di Natale says if Labor’s climate policy, post-election, meets the Greens’ test of ambition, and one of the relevant tests of ambition is “a plan to phase out coal”, then Shorten can expect support.
“But if it’s going to lock in failure, then we won’t support it. We will make a decision based on the policy.”
Bill Shorten, in an interview with Murph shortly after, immediately ruled out working with the Greens in a Gillard-style roundtable, because, well, we all know how that ended. From the interview:
Richard would say that, wouldn’t he? So, who cares? Richard is looking for relevance at the moment,” Shorten said. “I don’t blame him for doing that, it’s legitimate, but I’m going to lead a Labor government”.
Asked what he would do if the Greens made a joint policy process the price of supporting a Labor government in the next parliament, Shorten said: “Well [Di Natale] has to face progressive voters.
“The Greens cost us action on climate change in 2009. I didn’t come down in the last shower. Just because Richard Di Natale proposes a sequence of events doesn’t not make those events inevitable.”
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Andrew Hastie 'categorically' denies meeting far-right extremist
Alan Tudge says he has been in contact with Andrew Hastie who told him he “categorically” did not meet the far-right activist leader and convicted criminal Neil Erikson.
This is despite Ian Goodenough telling Sarah Martin they had both met him at a rally for white South African famers and had a brief conversation, although nothing had been agreed to.
Erikson himself claims that he met with Hastie.
But Tudge says his Western Australian colleague and the chair of the joint intelligence and security committee is sure he did not meet him. This is after Hastie responded to reporter Angus Livingston’s question about whether he had met Erikson as “defamatory”.
But Andrew Hastie did not meet that person.
The answer seems to take the Sky News hosts Laura Jayes and Kieran Gilbert by surprise. Which is understandable. Given that Goodenough is on the record. And, well, it’s not a stretch to think that Erikson was at a rally in support of white South African farmers (because we all remember what that particular low point in Australian discourse was like).
LJ: OK, but he was asked about this yesterday and he said the question was defamatory, so do you have other information?
AT: Well, I have been in contact with Andrew Hastie and he categorically says he did not meet that person.
KG: His colleague, Ian Goodenough, said that he did. So either one of them has got something wrong here – the extremist himself says that he met him, so should they provide a bit more clarity around this situation? It’s just about being a bit more upfront.
AT: Listen, I think it is. This was at a rally in Perth, in support of South African farmers who were being persecuted and it was attended by hundreds of people there and Andrew Hastie, his recollection is that he never even said hello to this person, the person didn’t meet him. Ian Goodenough believes that the person did approach him at the rally, but I can absolutely guarantee you this – is Ian Goodenough, Andrew Hastie, the Liberal party, do not share any of the values of that particular individual. That individual has extreme values which should be given no countenance, no oxygen, and we do not share his values, Ian Goodenough does not share his values, Andrew Hastie does not share his values, and nor does the Liberal party or the National party as a whole.
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Victorian Liberals to sack Jeremy Hearn over anti-Islam comments
Alan Tudge, speaking to Sky News, confirms that Jeremy Hearn will be sacked as the Liberal candidate for Isaacs by midday.
He said the reason was his anti-Islam comments, which he made to Quadrant, about Islam and Muslims.
Tudge said those views had “no place” in the Liberal party.
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The Victorian Liberal party is moving to disendorse its Isaacs candidate, Jeremy Hearns.
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When the former NSW Labor leader Michael Daley’s comments about “our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in and taking their jobs”, Scott Morrison had this to say:
I’m very disappointed about Michael Daley’s comments about Asian migration to Australia. I’m also very disappointed that not one federal Labor MP – not Anthony Albanese, Tanya Plibersek or Bill Shorten, none of them – have said anything about it and they’ve pretended it didn’t happen, and it shows a lack of leadership on their part.
Rob Harris, who broke the story about Jeremy Hearn, along with Anthony Galloway for the Herald Sun, is reporting that Josh Frydenberg is stepping in:
Update: Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has told the Herald Sun that Jeremy Hearn’s comments are “appalling” and says he should be disendorsed. “There is no place in the party for people with these views”. State admin committee expected to meet today. https://t.co/R299WMIXz4
— rob harris (@rharris334) April 30, 2019
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I think George Megalogenis might be right – I can’t think of a candidate who has been sacked for this behaviour since Pauline Hanson was sacked from the party back in 1996.
She was elected anyway, as an independent – and the rest is history.
Speaking of Hanson, she has held another emotional interview, crying while speaking to A Current Affair about the men in her party who have let her down. But given that she is president “for life” of her party, and is involved in absolutely everything it does, including preselections, the “poor me” routine seems a little old.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has admitted she has been “absolutely devastated” by the recent scandals. #9ACA https://t.co/TbGXBHVUF3
— A Current Affair (@ACurrentAffair9) April 30, 2019
I mean, I’ve never run a political party and never will, because I am not an entirely insane person, but I think the way to stop this stuff happening is to stop choosing the same type of person to represent your party.
It’s not as if Steve Dickson, James Ashby, Brian Burston, Rod Culleton – or anyone from the very, very, very, very long list of all the One Nation men she’s trusted before – don’t come with a history.
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Good morning
Well, we always said the election campaign wouldn’t properly begin until 29 April, when all the holidays were over, and that prediction is playing out in spades.
Labor is pushing for the Liberal candidate for Isaacs, Jeremy Hearn, to be sacked, after the Herald Sun revealed anti-Islam social media posts he made last year, where he said Muslims were people of “bad character” who should be denied Australian citizenship.
Hearn has apologised but the Liberals are refusing to sack him.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Liberals haven't sacked a federal candidate for making racist comments since Pauline Hanson in 1996.
— George Megalogenis (@GMegalogenis) April 30, 2019
Mark Dreyfus, who is battling Hearn to retain the Melbourne seat, is not holding back:
Refusing to sack him is incredibly weak. How can Scott Morrison excuse this? These disgusting and divisive comments have no place in Australia and they should have no place in a mainstream political party.
Jeremy Hearn is an Islamophobe. His comments are hate speech and they are abhorrent. An apology is not enough. Morrison must kick him out. If he doesn’t, he will confirm his party is a rightwing party which associates with Islamophobia, and the Liberal party will lose any right to speak for mainstream Victorians.
He is using the posts and revelations Andrew Hastie and Ian Goodenough spoke with the far-right extremist and convicted criminal Neil Erikson at a rally in support of white South African farmers in Perth last year as examples of the “far-right takeover” of the Liberal party.
Despite Goodenough confirming the meeting to Guardian Australia, Hastie says he is “confident” it didn’t occur. That all came up after Hastie tried to shut down journalists at a press conference with Morrison yesterday, by saying he didn’t answer “defamatory” questions when asked whether he had ever met Erikson.
We’ll have all of that and more – the campaigns are up and running, with Morrison still in Perth and Bill Shorten in Adelaide.
Ready?
Let’s get into it.
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