With everyone going dark, we are going to be sneaky and take an early mark with the blog for the day.
But don’t worry – we will be back on Sunday, for the Liberal party launch, because we know that, much like us, you can not get enough of auspol at the moment (there really does need to be a sarcasm punctuation mark).
In all seriousness, we hit the seven day mark tomorrow. Which means every single moment from Sunday on-wards is absolutely crucial to the campaign. There are a lot of voters who are still very undecided, at least according to the polls. This is the week those voters switch on.
We’ve got the big stuff out of the way with the costings. The Liberal launch is the last formality. Pay very close attention to where both campaigns head this week. The Liberals spent most of this week in their own seats. Including seats like Farrer which they hold with about a 20% buffer.
That says a lot, just in optics.
In the meantime, I hope you all get to look at something pretty and calming, and enjoy some outside time. Thank you for all the time you have spent with us this week.
I’m going to make like Lucy Gichuhi and say see ya until Sunday morning.
I know it is not my place to judge. Until you have walked in someone else's life, you don't know where they are coming from pic.twitter.com/iit9ckx1VM
— Lucy Gichuhi (@senatorlucy) May 10, 2019
But as always - take care of you.
Both campaigns have gone quiet. It is a Friday afternoon after all, and they know you have switched off. They are both making their way south to Melbourne.
Bill Shorten has a birthday on Sunday and will be on Insiders.
Scott Morrison, who has a birthday on Monday, has the Liberal party campaign launch on Sunday morning, which is also being held in Melbourne.
Sunday is also Mothers’ Day, for anyone who needs to be reminded.
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And the prime minister helped make some plastic.
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For those who missed it, here is Kristina Keneally having some fun at Bill Shorten’s press conference earlier today.
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Both political parties have been hitting the DMs hard this election
Been getting an addressed letter a day from @MichaelSukkarMP - today I got 2. Smacks of desperation. #auspol2019 #AUSVote2019 pic.twitter.com/V7HXHl999r
— Susan Maury (@SusanMaury) May 10, 2019
There is no promise to increase Newstart, but Acoss is pleased with Labor’s costing plans:
Closing high-end tax shelters, as Labor has committed to doing, will give us peace of mind that we can begin to restore funding for the services we need, such as quality education, health, aged care, childcare and a decent income support system, CEO Cassandra Goldie said.
“Currently, we have people waiting more than a year for dental care and for in-home aged care. And we must not forget that we still have 3 million people, including 740 000 children, living below the poverty line or that the most effective way to tackle our consistent poverty rates is by increasing Newstart and Youth Allowance.
“In a country that has the eighth lowest tax revenue in the OECD, we cannot afford more large tax cuts like those that undermined the commonwealth budget in the 2000s.
“While the Coalition government says it will ‘guarantee’ funding for essential services, its rejection of action to close high-end tax shelters together with its unprecedented tax cuts will make this difficult. Instead, the government relies on budget projections that real growth in the cost of the services governments provide will fall by half over the next four years, including just 0.7% real growth in health funding each year. This makes its promise of $35bn in tax cuts in 2024 – five years into the future – a very risky proposition.
“The opposition’s costings show that by reforming the tax system to make it more equitable, we can improve our essential services and better safeguard their future.
“However, our main concern with the opposition’s costings is the arbitrary assumption that tax revenue will remain below 24.3% of GDP, the level reached under the Howard governments.
This ‘assumption’ must not become a hard ‘cap’ on revenue like the government’s policy to limit tax to 23.9% of GDP. Arbitrary caps on budget revenue or expenditure are dangerous because they confine future ability to provide the services people need. Labor sensibly rejected the government’s 2022 and 2024 tax cuts on the grounds that it was too risky to lock large tax cuts in so far in advance. Hard revenue or expenditure caps should be rejected for the same reason,” Dr Goldie said.
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World Vision has welcomed Labor’s foreign aid spend. From it’s statement:
Chief Executive Officer Claire Rogers said pledging to raise aid spending as a proportion of Gross National Income (GNI) every year over the next four years was an important first step toward ending the nation’s devastating era of aid cuts.
“Churches, business leaders and everyday Australians have been pleading with both the major parties to start rebuilding the aid budget and restore Australia’s reputation as a generous nation,” Ms Rogers said.
“The damage caused by successive cuts to the Australian aid budget will take years to undo,” Ms Rogers said. “While today’s pledge is a good start to rebuilding the aid budget we have a long way to go before Australia is doing its fair share.”
Ms Rogers also praised the Australian Labor Party’s pledge to appoint an independent children’s advocate to represent the interests of children seeking asylum.
“Children represent more than 50 per cent of refugees. Today’s pledge would give some of the world’s most vulnerable people a fair chance,” Ms Rogers said.
In a further sign that Tony Abbott is encountering significant difficulties in his attempt to retain his northern Sydney seat of Warringah, not one but two Liberal prime ministers have written to locals on his behalf. Each letter was individually addressed to a particular person, not just a generic “householder”.
The first letter, from John Howard, opened with “Tony Abbott has been a friend of mine for 30 years”, adding that “He was a great health minister in my government, always arguing for the strengthening of Medicare”. In bold type, it goes on to say “There is only one candidate in the Warringah electorate and that’s Tony Abbott”, before finishing with – again all in bold – “Tony Abbott is the person you should support.”
The second letter, from Scott Morrison, warns that “The danger of a protest vote in Warringah is that it could lead to a Shorten government”. Though lacking the bold type of Howard’s letter, Morrison’s does underline one sentence: “The only way to avoid a Shorten government and its higher taxes is to vote Liberal.”
The prime minister does, however, assure locals that he feels their pain. “I understand that many people in Warringah have strong opinions about your local MP, Tony Abbott,” he writes, before finishing with “Only by reelecting Tony Abbott in Warringah can you ensure our government can continue to get on with the job of building our economy to secure our future.”
We won’t know until 18 May if this has had the required effect. One person pre-polling in Manly was overheard asking those handing out how-to-votes how he could “vote for the Liberals, but not vote for Tony Abbott”.
A very Warringah conundrum.
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Wayne Swan is always listening
The Libs are the very last people to trust with a slowing economy. They opposed everything Labor did to prevent a recession during the GFC. If the Libs had their way Oz would have suffered 100s of thousands of job losses. #auspol #ausvotes
— Wayne Swan (@SwannyQLD) May 10, 2019
The main take away from that response to the Labor costings?
Australia’s finance dads aren’t angry – they are just really, really disappointed.
Question: You’re using this $387bn figure. The Parliamentary Office says Labor’s costings will come in at less than half of that, at $154m ...
Frydenberg: No, that’s not right.
Question: What’s the discrepancy?
Frydenberg: Well, 154, that only covers, the retiree tax, the housing tax, and a number of other taxes.
Labor have been very clear that they oppose $230bn worth of personal income tax relief, which we have either already legislated or which is part of our 2019-20 budget.
That already takes it to $384bn. There’s another $3bn tax measure which they say would target multinationals on top of what we’ve already factored in. That’s $387bn.
This is $387bn in higher taxes under Labor compared to what the tax burden would be under a Liberal-National government.
The numbers are up there very clearly for all to see.
But the important point is there’s several hundred billion dollars’ worth of spending that Labor has already promised which has not been factored into their costings, which they will have to find a way to pay for.
And the way they will pay for it is by coming after you, after your money, with higher taxes, even higher taxes. With $387bn in higher taxes under Labor, it’s just the beginning.
Question: And so these numbers, in their costings, and from the PBO, are pretty similar to what Treasury costed ...
Frydenberg: That’s right.
... in terms of Labor’s $387bn of higher taxes. And I do point out to you that Labor is saying they’re going to raise an extra $2bn from multinationals. And they make a big song and dance about that – $2bn from multinationals, they’re raising $57bn from retirees.
They’re raising $34bn from superannuants. They’re raising billions of dollars from family businesses. And they’re raising billions of dollars from income earners and from homeowners. So, the Labor Party’s policy is not targeting the well-off in the community.
The Labor Party’s policy is targeting those who are aspirational in our community, those people that put aside a little bit every month in order to invest in a property, like 58,000 teachers, or 42,000 nurses, or 20,000 emergency personnel and police who have a negatively geared property.
Or retirees who, by and large, have a taxable income under $37,000, who have done nothing wrong except save for their retirement, but Bill Shorten is making them feel like tax cheats.
And Chris Bowen says to them, if they don’t like Labor’s policy, then vote against the Labor Party.
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Question: They’re promising bigger surpluses to deal with that. Are you saying that’s the wrong approach?
Frydenberg: They’re promising higher taxes ...
Question: And a bigger surplus ...
Frydenberg: Supposedly bigger surpluses because they’re hiding the fiscal impact of the spending promises they’ve made to the tune of several hundred billions dollars.
Labor’s costings are a con job from a party that can’t manage money and their record in government shows exactly that. And today’s announcement by the Labor Party leaves a big, black hole and doesn’t explain the negative economic impact that $387bn of higher taxes will have on the economy.
Question: There is $10bn set aside for the childcare works’ funding – how can you say it is not costed over that period?
Cormann: It doesn’t cover what they say it covers. Here is a question for the Labor Party – will they halve the wage rise or halve the number of people to whom the wage rise applies? Because on what they say they’ve promised the childcare workers, the numbers just don’t work up. The actual costs should be double to what they’ve included in their costings. So this is just another black hole.
Question: $20bn, you’re saying, not $10bn?
Cormann: About, yes.
Frydenberg: Let’s put it in perspective here. The Labor Party promises $10bn for a 20% increase in wages for 100,000 childcare workers.
Now, there are 200,000 childcare workers. To Mathias’s points, which childcare workers will miss out from Labor’s cash splash from the taxpayer? And this notion that the Labor Party is using your money, taxpayers’ money, to fund wages in the private sector is one that is a very bad precedent. And when they tried this on a smaller scale when they were last in government, an independent review found that Labor’s policy was nothing more than just a means to increase union membership among the childcare workforce.
Again, Labor’s creating false hope, and in the process they’re going to weaken the Australian economy.
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Mathias Cormann jumps in on that:
And this is a very important point – so there are global economic headwinds. We are facing some downside risks in the economy, after droughts, floods – which is why this is the worst possible time for Labor’s high-taxing, reckless agenda.
If Labor agrees with us that there are some global economic headwinds ahead of us and we have to deal with some downside risks in the economy, why do they believe that imposing $387bn in higher taxes and probably more is the right prescription for the economy? They’ve tried that before. What Chris Bowen left behind in 2013 was a weakening economy, rising unemployment and rapidly deteriorating budget, even though they had a substantially higher trade position.
(Chris Bowen never handed down a budget)
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Question: Labor dealt with a global financial crisis though in 2007-08 and they still grew the economy. You had a global economic boom and the Reserve Bank is coming out saying we’re looking at cuts in consumption and zero inflation growth. How can you say you’ll manage it better given those circumstances?
Frydenberg: Firstly, let me correct you on something. When Wayne Swan was treasurer, he was enjoying iron ore prices at $175 a tonne. We have it in the budget at $55 a tonne, and it is now at $80 in the spot market.
Cormann: That’s right.
Frydenberg: The fact of the matter is, when we came to government, unemployment was higher, growth was lower, investment was weaker than it is today. We have been able to strengthen the Australian economy and it has taken us the time that we’ve been in government, the six years, in order to get the budget back in the black and back on track.
Now, we got to that point through disciplined fiscal management, through difficult and necessary decisions. The Labor Party simply cannot be believed when it comes to the economy.
Their track record is of record deficits, reckless spending, higher taxes and mythical surpluses. Our record is of more jobs, higher growth, more investment and budget surpluses.
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Question: Are you saying all that has been omitted or not included?
Cormann: They’ve not included in their costings. They’ve left it out. Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen are walking around the countryside saying, “We’re going to increase funding for hospitals by restoring the 50-50 sharing with the states”, but they’re not putting any money in the costings for it.
They’re saying anything ... they’re going to increase the refugee intake to 32,000 every year. They’re not paying for it in their costings. They’re saying they would increase science spending to 3% of a share of GDP by 2030. It is not factored into their costings.
So people cannot believe the paper – they cannot believe these costings in any way, shape or form. This is more of the same Labor deception that we’ve seen in the past and that has led us to budget deficit after budget deficit under Labor in the past.
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Question: Have you been out-surplused, Josh?
Frydenberg: Well, Labor’s surpluses cannot be believed and the Australian people know that.
They know the last time Labor delivered a surplus was 1989 and the Berlin Wall was still standing. Wayne Swan promised surpluses that never eventuated.
The Coalition, in contrast, I congratulate Mathias, and Scott Morrison, for setting up when he was Treasurer, we have spending under control and our spending is much more targeted.
But the reason why we have delivered surpluses is we have a record number of people in work. The Labor Party, with $387bn of higher taxes, will only hurt the economy and, therefore, their surpluses will never eventuate.
Cormann: Wayne Swan promised a surplus on 366 occasions, and Dr ... Jim Chalmers was Wayne Swan’s chief of staff...
Frydenberg: His brain.
Cormann: ... when Wayne Swan promised a surplus on 366 occasions. Labor has not learned from their lessons of the past.
They’re going back to what they did in the past – high taxing, high spending but with numbers that don’t add up. Their numbers here can just not be believed. Just remember, last time in government, promises of surpluses, $240bn worth of accumulated deficits.
That is what they will do again. We’ve shown you here hundreds of billions of dollars of additional spending that they’re hiding, hiding from their costings. That is not the way to deliver a believable surplus. That is a recipe for the same fiscal chaos and dysfunction that Labor delivered last time in government.
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Cormann continued:
So, today, we have a Labor Party which, after denying it over the last four weeks, has now fessed up that as a result of their decisions, so far, the tax burden on the economy would be $387bn higher than under the Coalition, which would harm the economy, cost jobs and leave families worse off.
But that is without even focusing on what needs to be done to pay for all of this other spending promises that Labor has made and which have not been factored into their costings document today.
So the Australian people know that Labor doesn’t know how to manage money.
The Australian people know that what Labor is suggesting here today sounds too good to be true, which is why it is.
The Australian people know that in the end, when Labor runs out of money, they come after yours.
There is billions and billions of expenditure that Labor has hidden from their costings document today, which is why the Australian people cannot trust that information that has been released today, as the Treasurer said – today was the opportunity for Chris Bowen and for Jim Chalmers to be honest with the Australian people.
The Labor Party failed and the Australian people should be very, very concerned about the fact that the higher taxes that would be required, the even higher taxes that would be required, to fund their reckless spending would weaken our economy, would cost jobs and would leave all families around Australia worse off.
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Mathias Cormann:
Labor’s numbers just don’t add up. There’s a reason why federal Labor has not delivered a budget surplus since 1989 and that is because they do not know how to manage money. Australians just cannot trust Labor.
To just look through this so-called costings document today, it is very clear that Labor has not properly accounted for a number of key, very expensive spending promises which would increase the expenditure on a structural basis for – over the next decade. For example, their promise to increase the foreign aid budget, lifting federal foreign aid funding to 0.5% of GNA which would cost between $60bn and $82bn over the next decade, not been accounted for.
Their promise to increase the refugee intake to 32,000 per year, which would cost almost $6.2bn over the medium term, the document is silent on the medium term impact of that measure.
Their promise to increase science spending at the end of the current medium term which would cost about$36bn over that period, the costings document is completely silent about that number.
Their promise to increase Newstart allowance, which would cost about $39bn over the next decade – nothing in Labor’s costings document about that Bill Shorten promised.
Their promise to lift the federal share of funding for state hospitals to 50-50 and remove the 6.5% growth cut, which would cost $33.7bn over the medium term – not included in Labor’s costings today.
And they have not properly factored in the cost of their proposal to have the taxpayer pay for wage increases for child care workers – it is not properly factored into their costings.
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Foreign aid is in the costings - as Paul Karp reported:
Labor is increasing foreign aid by a total of $1.6bn over four years, of which $1.18bn is overseas development assistance and another $380m is increased funding for the UNHCR.
Labor has a policy to increase foreign aid to 0.5% of gross national income. Government costings provided to the Australian suggest that to do that in a decade would cost an extra $68bn.
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Josh Frydenberg:
And the second major flaw is the big black hole in Labor’s costings, with their failure to account for the increase in spending that they have promised with changes to Newstart, to aid, to research and development, which Chris Bowen said at the Press Club just a couple of days ago would be there in their costings, which is nowhere to be found.
And the Finance Minister will explain that in more detail. But the bottom line is, the Labor Party can’t manage money and so, therefore, they come after yours.
The last time they delivered a budget surplus was in 1989 and these promises of Labor budget surpluses simply cannot be believed.
And these higher taxes will mean that the Labor Party, under Bill Shorten, if given the chance in government, would be the highest taxing government in Australia’s history with a tax-to-GDP ratio of 25.9%, and the impact on jobs, on wages on economic growth will be very, very bad for our country.
You get the feeling Josh Frydenberg may have written some of this before the costings were released:
Even before Labor released its costings today, Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen belled the cat.
When asked on radio this morning, the Australian economy is not a magic pudding and all these promises from Labor seem too good to be true, he didn’t police a beat, he -- miss a beat, he looked down the camera and he said, “Well, that’s what you’ll get from a Shorten Labor Government.”
Indeed, in these costings released by the Shadow Treasurer and the Shadow Finance Minister, there’s two major flaws.
First, Labor confirms the $387bn in higher taxes - higher taxes on retirees, higher taxes on superannuation, higher taxes on family businesses, on homeowners and renters and low-income earners.
But what the Labor Party fails to do in these costings is explain the major and detrimental economic impact these higher taxes will have across the economy.
Now, Chris Bowen couldn’t answer the simple questions earlier today and now Bill Shorten needs to answer these very simple but absolutely critical questions.
How many retirees will now be forced on to the pension as a result of Labor’s retirees tax? How much less super will Australians be retiring on, given Labor is imposing higher taxes on super?
How many family businesses will be forced to close because of Labor’s higher taxes on family business?
How much will Australians’ housing prices fall as a result of Labor’s housing tax, and how much will their rents increase as a result of Labor’s changes to negative gearing and their 50% increase in capital gains tax? And the most critical question of all – how many Australians will lose their jobs, how much will their wages fall, and how much will economic growth and economic activity be affected by Labor’s $387bn of higher taxes?
This was the detail that was missing from Labor’s costings today.
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For those wondering, it is a two flag press conference.
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Liberals respond to Labor's costings
Josh Frydenberg, entirely surprisingly, is not impressed with Labor’s costings:
Labor had an opportunity to be honest with the Australian people. And they failed. It was a con job, from a party that can’t manage money.
Australians have seen the damage that the Labor Party have done to the Australian economy and they know that if given another chance they will do it again.
Reckless spending, record deficits, higher taxes and mythical surpluses that Wayne Swan is still searching for.
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We are still just waiting on Josh Frydenberg and Mathias Cormann.
The campaigns are on the move as well.
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Speaking of just eight days to go, we are all very, very tired.
Including the poor soul who sent out the Coalition campaign media alert for Josh Frydenberg and Mathias Cormann:
Friday, 10 May 2019
The Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and the Finance Minister Mathias Corman(sic) are in Melbourne and have the following media engagement
Or maybe Cormann has decided to take his points even further and give one of those ‘n’s back to the Australian people.
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I totally missed this, until I saw it in the comments, so I thought I would bring it above the line:
Christians from across Australia are being asked to join with Christian leaders and churches of all denominations as they Pray and Fast for 21 days up to the Federal Election, Saturday 18 May 2019.
This prayer call was inspired by Ps Margaret Court’s love for Australia, her passion “for the church to arise and be a strong voice for righteousness, truth and justice” and her love for the word of God which says that, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” Proverbs 14:34. “Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that you are the LORD God, and that you have turned their heart back to you again.” 1 Kings 18:37.
The outline proposed is as follows:
- Pray that God would rule over this election that righteous leaders would be elected to govern this nation in truth and justice because, “When the righteous are in authority the people rejoice.” Proverbs 29:2
- Pray God’s blessing upon all our current parliamentarians and leaders, including their families and all the candidates of all the parties standing for this federal election. 1 Timothy 2:1-3
- Pray for a multiplication of prayer and unity across the Body of Christ in Australia that people will wake up to the dangers facing our nation and respond in prayer. Ephesians 5:14
- Pray for a Spiritual Awakening for Australia, Revival and Transformation for our nation and the proclamation of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. John 3:16
Just eight days to go
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Labor’s costings also shows the opposition would:
- Spend just $30m over three years from 2020-21 on its proposed environmental protection agency
- Save $2.6bn from reduced spending on contractors, consultants and travel
- Raise $353m from increasing penalty units for law breaches from $210 to $300.
- Spend $96m to increase the humanitarian intake of refugees.
So where is the money coming from?
Most of it is coming from Labor not agreeing to all of the Coalition’s tax cut plan.
From that, which Labor has labelled “reversing the never-never tax cuts” the PBO anticipates Labor saving $285,760bn up until 2030.
Negative gearing and capital gains changes are set to raise $32,476bn in revenue over the same time period, while franking credit changes are budgeted to raise $58,197bn.
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Establishing the Parliamentary Budget Office was one of the requests of the crossbench MPs during the 2010 minority government negotiations. Before that, oppositions had their accounting firm of choice cost policies, but the numbers were always seen as less than credible.
The PBO has to use the budget assumptions. So it carries the same weight as Treasury. It is an independent, statutory office, designed to give proper costings of opposition policies. Which is why Scott Morrison was careful to say he wasn’t criticising the PBO costings or numbers, while criticising Labor for being “fishy”.
Because it’s using the same numbers.
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Well that was quite the busy few hours. In Friday hours, that was a week!
Alan Tudge has responded to the latest high-speed rail promise:
It wouldn’t be an election without Labor promising fast rail from Melbourne to Brisbane.
This time they’ve committed less than one percent of the cost of the project, which is expected to be $150 billion to $200 billion (based on inflation-adjusted estimates from the 2012 figure in their own study – High Speed Rail Phase 2).
This would not even get a train out of Melbourne’s CBD!
Even the cost required to purchase properties along the route was estimated in 2016 by Infrastructure Australia as costing $2.8 billion.
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Labor is increasing foreign aid by a total of $1.6bn over four years, of which $1.18bn is overseas development assistance and another $380m is increased funding for the UNHCR.
Labor has a policy to increase foreign aid to 0.5% of gross national income. Government costings provided to the Australian suggest to do that in a decade would cost an extra $68bn.
Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said:
Labor has made clear we will not be able to undo all of the damage caused by the Liberals’ $11 billion in aid cuts in our first term.
What we have committed to, and what we will deliver, is to raise aid spending as a proportion of GNI every year that we are in office, starting with our first budget.
A Shorten Labor government will contribute more to international development assistance than the current government. And we will ensure more of it gets to the people who it is meant to be assisting.
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Question: Did Kelly O’Dwyer’s office or any member ever meet with a labour hire form which contracts to local mines? Did they ever discuss legislative changes to make casual miners not - I guess prolong permanent workers as casual workers?
Morrison:
We actually introduced legislation which provided a definition - a reasonableness definition about what a casual worker who was being employed on a casual basis, but on a reasonable definition actually was a full-time worker. And we put that legislation in the parliament. We wanted to pass it. We actually wanted to ensure that people who are casuals, that were actually full-time workers, had the support of the law, based on that definition that they would be treated as permanent staff.
That is what Kelly O’Dwyer put into the parliament. You know who voted against it? And stopped it going ahead, I should say. The Labor party.
The numbers are the same - it hovers around the same. It is a big issue here in Queensland. Whether it was George [Christensen], Michelle [Landry] or Kelly [O’Dwyer].
She was talking to people.
We put into the parliament a bill, we drafted a law, to ensure that casual workers had the protection when they were really full-time workers. The Labor party didn’t support it. It was like - they run around talking about multinational tax. You know what someone really believe when you ask them to vote on it.
I had a bill drafted by the former treasurer before me, Joe Hockey, who had been - it had been worked up through the G20 process.
We put it into the parliament. I had carriage of that bill. It’s raised $7.7 billion in tax liabilities from multinationals in less than three years. And the Labor party voted against it.
So, we have been able to get these things, despite the Labor party. So, don’t listen to what they say. Look at what they do. When they were in government, they blew the budget. They increased the debt. They lost control of the borders.
They wasted your money. And they left a legacy that we have been spending the last 5.5 years cleaning up.
And so I would say - you vote Labor once, you pay for it for a decade. That’s what we saw when Kevin Rudd was elected. The budget is going back into surplus next year. Through hard work.
Hard work of Australians. We can’t put that at risk. The work that they have done and the work that they want to do in the future. And, particularly here in central Queensland. This is a real engine of our economy.
I want [to] continue to fire on all cylinders. I want the young people who are here to have the jobs that central Queenslanders have today. And that won’t happen under a Labor government, because they sneer at the jobs of central Queenslanders and they sneer at their future.
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Question: Larissa Waters is in town talking about the almost 50,000 jobs she said she would deliver under Greens’ renewable plans. What do you make of the numbers? Do you have any plans to skill workers here into clean energy jobs?
Morrison:
Under our government we see record investment in renewable energy. We have $25 billion worth of investments going into renewables in Australia, between 2018 and 2020. In 2017 there was $11 billion that went into renewables alone. That was the third highest per capita in the world and it was the 7th highest in absolute value in the world.
You know, we’ve 2.1 million homes today with solar panels on their roof that weren’t there 5. 5 year ago. There was 980,000, about, at that time. So, under our government’s policies we have seen a boom, if you like, in renewable energy investment. That will be playing an important role in our energy future.
Of course it will.
That is what we wanted it to do. That is why we have done what we’ve done, I think, to get those sorts of outcomes. But when the Greens come up here today … remember, you know, the Greens are supported by Labor.
Labor are preferencing the Greens, right here in Capricornia.
When the Greens come here, they will sneer at your jobs, say they are not proper jobs, they are not jobs that you should have any respect in holding.
The Greens believe that the jobs of central Queenslanders are tarnished. I think that’s appalling. I will stand with Queenslanders and the jobs that they do honestly and decently every day of the week, and so will Michelle [Landry].
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Question: Do you think the Adani project has been stalled by the Queensland government? Do you think they are doing that for political reasons and would you like this to be fast-tracked?
Morrison: Well, only the Queensland government can really answer what their delay is.
Our government has just gone through the normal, environmental scientific process of applying the regulations in the rules to this project, and that’s what should be done. One project or another shouldn’t be treated differently under our regulation simply because it has become a topic of a popular branding.
It should just be treated on its merits and the rules should be applied and the environmental laws should be upheld and scientific advice should be received and that’s what’s happened, and we’ve provided those consents.
Question: The black-finch study ...
Morrison: The Queensland government, I assume, is doing the same thing. Others have made the commentary about whether they are dragging their feet.
I couldn’t tell you, because I’m not in the Queensland government.
I’m responsible for our government and the decisions that we make, but I do know that resources sector jobs and the certainty of investment in the resources sector is critical to Queensland’s future and it’s critical to Australia’s future.
And so on every occasion, I’m going to make decisions, as a prime minister, that increases investment certainty, and that supports jobs. Not that sneers at the jobs that are created by important investments here in central Queensland.
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Question: Have any refugees in offshore processing declined resettlement to the United States, saying that they were waiting for a potential change in government and the opportunity to go to New Zealand? Has anyone done that?
Morrison: My understanding ... look, whether someone specifically has used those words. .. What I do know is this, is that people on Nauru have rejected settlement in the US. That actually has happened.
Question: Has anyone - waiting for a potential change in government for the opportunity to go to New Zealand?
Morrison: I do know that they have expressed interest in going to New Zealand, yes.
Question: Waiting for a change in government, Prime Minister?
Morrison: I don’t see the transcripts of what they say when they do this so I couldn’t give you an exact formula of words. But what I can confirm is that people have been knocking back the deal to go to the United States. Now, why they would want to remain where they currently are, only they could explain, unless they thought they would have a better opportunity somewhere else. Well, I can draw that conclusion.
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Question: Why Mr Morrison was it OK for Gurpal Singh to link same-sex marriage to paedophilia but not OK to dismay a rape claim? What was the difference between those two comments in terms of his dismissal as a candidate?
Morrison: I’m not going to get distracted by these issues. The party in Victoria was handling that matter. The candidate has resigned. I welcome his resignation.
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Question: The government announced a plan to reduce energy prices by 25%. The government has gone six years without a coherent energy policy. How can voters and taxpayers believe that energy prices will come down 25%?
Morrison:
Well, I don’t accept the premise. Let me explain what Minister Taylor is talking about today. What Minister Taylor is announcing today - we have announced it previously, so it isn’t a new announcement - is there will be a target of reducing those wholesale prices by 25%.
And that is being achieved by the number of mechanisms that we’ve already announced. Now, one of those is the underwriting mechanism, and the projects we identified, which are a range of gas projects and others. There was one existing coal fire project - it wasn’t large, but it involved a refit to extend its life.
The way we would price those underwrites would be so as to target them in a price, getting down to a $70 figure, which would then be a price leader in the market.
And by bringing on about $4,000 megawatt hours into the system, additional supply I believe to the market, and pitching through our underwriting - the price to get that level, then it can lead the market in that way.
Now, the other thing we’ve done is the market liquidity initiative. Now, the market liquidity initiative is the one which forces the big reliable power base stations to bid their energy in the market. See, what happens - until we’re making these changes - is they hold it back.
They would hold the back and wait for the price to go up and then bid. We have changed the rules which forces the companies to bid their reliable energy into the system and that means it puts downward pressure on the price, because you’re not constraining supply.
... This is the plan. These are the things we’ve done. I didn’t get to the third one. The third one is really good too. And that’s the reliability guarantee. The reliability guarantee was part of the - and in my view, it was the most important part of the National Energy Guarantee and that was actually passed through the states and territories at the end of last year.
What that does is requires retailers to put a set amount of reliable power and sell that into the market.
That was the big reform in the National Energy Guarantee. That’s been done. So, in concert with all of those measures, and all the other things we’ve done, that is what helps us say to you that’s how we will target getting that price down, to 70. Now, there is an alternative to that. And it’s the 45% emissions reduction target, which has shown wholesale prices will increase by 58%.
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Question: What do you think you can do for the region? Secondly, the company behind [Collinsville] has asked for legal protection. They say the only way it can stack up is they - if they get legal protection for future emissions - increases in emissions targets.
Would you be willing to offer them that?
Morrison:
Well, we’ve done with that project that we initiated before we went into caretaker mode - some couple of months ago - Michelle was involved in the process ... in getting to that point, was ensuring we had a project which identified how feasibly we can support the power needs of electoral Queensland.
The study … which we’re supported and funding, is designed to answer the very questions you’re asking.
Because they are the right questions to ask. What is the best way to achieve reliable, sustainable power to support industries here in central and north Queensland?
Whether it be at Collinsville, or whether it be through other methods, that is what the study is looking into.
And my view is once we have those answers, then why wouldn’t you proceed with the recommendations that would actually enable that to be achieved? See, this isn’t about any source of power, it’s actually about jobs and industries.
What we want to see is industries, whether it’s the resources industry or the cement industries or the meat processing industries or it’s the gas industries. It’s the aluminium smelter, the heavy industries that are here up in central Queensland and in north Queensland.
We want them to get cheap, reliable affordable power so they can employ people. We have asked the question - what’s the best way to achieve that? Collinsville is an option that’s been considered.
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Question: Can you give us a figure on how much your tax cuts to high-income earners will cost the budget?
Morrison:
I have been through this several times. We didn’t ask Treasury to break this out by income group.
I’ll tell you why - because it hasn’t been our goal to move money between different income groups. We’re providing tax relief for all Australians.
See, we have a plan for tax relief. That plan is to provide immediately tax relief for those on low and middle-incomes.
We started that in last year’s budget.
We extended it in this year’s budget. Extending the low- and middle-income tax offset will cost $15 billion over the forward estimates and out over the next 10 years.
The second part of that plan was actually to increase the threshold from 41,000 to 45,000 for people to remain on the 19 cent tax rate.
So, we’re talking about people earning less than $45,000 a year. That going to cost $48 billion.
And then the third change we made in the budget was to reduce the 32.5 cent tax rate, not for people who are on the top rate of tax. That’s the second highest top rate of tax under our government.
Under the Labor party, they want it to be 37 cents, by the way. So, for those earning between $45,000 and $200,000, the 32.5 cent will be taken down to 30 cents.
Now, that’s for people earning less than the top marginal rate of tax. And the cost of that is around $95 billion.
Now, at the end of that entire plan, the percentage of people on the top rate of tax - about the same: 6%.
They will be paying 36% of all income tax in this country. That is up from 31% now.
So, the share of tax paid by people on the highest income, under our plan, on the highest rate of tax, will actually be greater under our plan than it is today.
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Question: Does he doubt the figures from the PBO?
Morrison: (No, of course not, he says)
.... So Labor will tax you more and they will spend you more, but you know what? I reckon Australians have wised up to this.
This idea that politicians come to you and say, ‘You give me all your money and I’ll solve all your problems.’
That’s what Bill Shorten is saying at the election. That is what he is saying. I think Australians know that that doesn’t add up, and I think they know at the end of the day that the responsible economic management of a government that got spending under control, that got debt growth and now reducing debt, taking the budget into surplus next year, next year, for the first time in 12 years.
The government that has demonstrated its ability to manage money, and get things back on track. That’s what people can trust. They can’t trust a Labor party when every time they have had the opportunity they’ve fallen over when it comes to financial management. Last time they delivered a surplus: 1989.
(Your regular reminder there was the GFC)
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Question: (I miss the beginning, but it is about Labor’s promise of bigger surpluses).
Scott Morrison:
Yes, ‘the four surpluses I announce tonight’ - that’s what Wayne Swan said. The four surpluses. And Kevin Rudd said he would be a fiscal conservative, and he took around $20 billion surplus in a $27 billion deficit in the space of one year.
And, of course, good old Paul Keating and the recession that we had to have. There’s always something very fishy when it comes to Labor’s claims about how to manage money.
And I think that’s what we’re seeing here again today. Because what we haven’t seen today, we haven’t seen anything in there - they talk about increasing Newstart. Was there any money in there for Newstart? No, there’s not. They talk about they’re going to pay extra money for childcare workers, but apparently only half of them.
But what about the superannuation, what about the payroll tax? See, this is the thing with Labor.
When you can’t manage money, you always end up spending more.
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Scott Morrison press conference
The prime minister is in Rockhampton to make this announcement:
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Liberal National government would deliver $30 million for the new CQUniversity School of Mines and Manufacturing – Gladstone and Rockhampton.
The prime minister said the new school was part of the government’s plan for a stronger economy that would help central Queenslanders train locally in industries supporting more local jobs, as well as helping create up to 320 jobs in the construction phase. The prime minister said the investment would also benefit workers in the Mackay region and Bowen Basin.
‘The $30 million we’ve committed to this new school is about creating pathways for central Queenslanders to get the skills they need to succeed,” the prime minister said.
‘We want to be a country that manufactures things like aluminium and develop world class resources so we need to invest in regional jobs and skills. This new school will give workers and young people the skills across traditional trades and emerging technologies that are so important.
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Question: There’s 195,000 workers in the childcare sector which you’ve promised a significant pay rise to … I think [an] $11,300 annual pay rise. The figures today hardly show that it comes anywhere close to that. How do you respond?
Bowen: I will answer your question. I know the treasurer has got himself excited about this. I wish he would show as much interest his own policy and costing as he does ours.
He might want to answer questions about the $77 billion on high-income earners. I’m just making that point on the way through, because he’s the one who’s raised the issue. On the matter of substance, do we want our early childhood educators paid more? Yes, we do.
Question: How much?
Bowen: We’ve outlined that policy. The policy applies to early childhood educators - as I said before, not everybody in childcare is an early childhood educator. You need to have a level of qualification, it applies to long daycare. The costing is rigorous, the treasurer just doesn’t want to do it.
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Question: In your first budget, assuming you win May 18, will you change, or will you get Treasury to change the assumptions they use for wages? Because each year they’re going 3.5% or higher, which, you know, are not realistic.
Bowen: Well, look, as you know, our longer-term policy is to refer that to the Parliamentary Budget Office to take over, but that will take some time to implement. I will ask the Treasury to provide the most realistic assumptions going forward, and I will ask them, obviously, to provide me with the most up-to-date and realistic forecast going forward, and I will question them about whether those forecasts, any of them - not just wages, but any forecast in the budget - is too optimistic.
At the end of the day, they will provide the best advice they can. But when I do bring down the budget, you will be able to see what the forecasts are and you will be able to ask me at that point.
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Question: [Will you] model the impact of those policies collectively, as opposed to the quantum total?
Chalmers: That sort of modelling is not available to oppositions. It’s not part of the Parliamentary Budget Office process. But what we are proposing today is in the economic orthodoxy more likely to grow the economy than what the government is proposing.
If you look at the challenges that I’ve just outlined, the worst possible thing that you should do is smash the budget with big tax loopholes which won’t be spent in the economy, at the same time as you identify tens of billions of dollars of cuts to health and education and other services.
That would be a disastrous approach to take to the economy. It’s consistent with the economic failures that we’ve seen over the last six years, and it’s a key reason why we’ve got a floundering economy.
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Question: In your press conference today you’ve talked about a possible downturn and needing a fighting fund. You’ve talked a lot about the sluggish nature of the economy. And you’ve talked about getting the economy going the right way.
My question to you is about the macroeconomic [impact] over the next term of the parliament of your budget measures. It does involve a big change in spending and taxing. Have you modelled what impact it will actually have? And will it address that central issue that you say reflects badly on the current government?
Bowen: Jim might want to add - there’s the impact of the budget, of course. We believe that [the] budget surplus being bigger is prudent. But there’s also the impact of our policies.
Now, as I talked about the Australian Investment Guarantee, for example, a spur to investment, I also talked about the impact of consumption from our bigger tax cuts for low-income earners.
The propensity to spend a tax cut if you’re a high-income earner is pretty low. If you’re a low-income earner and you get tax relief, you spend every dollar. That impacts on the economy.
Same as childcare subsidies, and those hundreds of thousands of families that are better off under us. That’s money they can spend and stimulate the economy. So the quantum impact is a legitimate question, but I’d also point to the stimulatory impact of several of our specific policies and the propensity to spend of those who benefit from them.
Chalmers: It’s partly about the quantum, but it’s more in fiscal policy about the nature and quality of your spends, and the nature and the impact of your tax changes. And I think one of the defining features of what we’re doing, or proposing to do, in tax will impact on such a tiny sliver of the Australian population, who aren’t, as Chris said, you know, as sensitive to big changes in tax as people on low incomes.
Because the people on low incomes spend all of their disposable income. The big macro challenge we have is consumption. We’ve got that problem because wages have been sluggish, people are running down their savings to pay for the essentials of life. These aren’t opinions, these are in all of the economic data that the RBA has been dealing with.
They’re in the pages of the government’s own budget. We’ve got a huge challenge here which stems from a lot of household insecurity. People have got insecure work and sluggish wages and they’re running down their savings.
It’s a big problem for them, but it’s a massive problem for our economy that relies heavily on consumption.
Our responsibility and objective is to get consumption going again. Our tax cuts are directed towards people on low- and middle-income, not people at the top. Our tax changes impact, you know, a handful of percentage points at the top of the income scale.
This is quite deliberate, because if we are to get the economy growing the right way, which is a sustainable way and inclusive way, a way that gives everybody a stake in our national economic success, then we have to do things differently. And this election is really about what kind of change we want to see in this country. Australians are crying out for change, and all this government in the economy is promising more of the same - same sluggish wages, sluggish growth, same weak consumption. It’s a massive problem.
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Question: Just as a matter of prudence, will you put your plans to raise money … before you put your spending plans to parliament? Because we know that [Labor] in the past has been quite happy to spend money but unlikely to raise tax?
Bowen: We’ll prioritise our legislative program when and if we win the election. There will be a budget in the third quarter of this year. I and Jim and we will collectively seek to get our program through the parliament.
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Question: You touched on net debt. What is your assessment as to what gross debt [is] - gross debt at the moment is about $537 billion, and it is unlikely to change a great deal over the next 10 years under the government’s books. Under your plans, where you’re running your larger surpluses, how much lower do you expect that to be? And what does that do to your interest payment assumptions?
Chalmers: You’re quite right that there’s been a big increase in gross debt as well. I think the government inherited about $280 billion worth of gross debt. And it’s around the level that you just indicated.
So almost double on gross debt. What we’re saying is that the interest saving that we expect to make is something like $13 billion. Which is a substantial sum that can be spent on budget repair, or it can be spent on hospitals or schools or childcare and the like. And that is one of the dividends of those substantially bigger surpluses that we have.
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Question: Just on the spending side, in the medium to long term, what do you expect your GDP ratio to get to, given that some of the larger costs of those programs don’t really kick in until beyond the forward estimates? I ask that in the context in that you said you’ve used the government’s baseline. You’ve said the spending-to-GDP is unrealistic. Doesn’t that make your spending-to-GDP ratio just as unrealistic as theirs?
Bowen: As I said, we use the budget as a baseline, then add in our spending. A very considerable - you indicate, and I agree with you - considerable investments in health and education being primary amongst them.
So, we will invest more in health and education, particularly, and other things than the government. In terms of spending-to-GDP, it would peak under us at 25%.
That’s the average under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government. It would peak under us in 2022-23.
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Question: Obviously it’s a costings document, not a budget, but do you intend to release any of the assumptions underlying some of your policies – negative gearing, for example, what happens to house prices, because we have none of those assumptions available to us in this document. And also, do you accept that, given you’ve got a couple of floating commitments that you haven’t costed - like, for example, an increase to Newstart, based on everything you guys have said through the campaign, that is coming, that is clearly coming - the only thing that’s missing is the quantum and it’s likely to be several billion, that’s not in the document. Also, your climate policies have not yet been finalised, and therefore are not costed, to some degree. So, those floaters are sort of sitting above this. Do you accept that those things are not identified here ...?
Chris Bowen: No, no, I don’t ...
Question: And is it prudent to point to tax relief when you’ve got some expenditures that have not been accounted for?
Bowen: I don’t accept all of that, with respect. Newstart, we made very clear, we’ll have a review. Now, the choice between the Australian people is the government, who says “No problem, nothing to see here, we’ll keep it the same”, and us who say there are legitimate issues.
We haven’t announced many reviews. Often oppositions will hit the ground reviewing. We’ve announced a couple of reviews. Newstart is one of them, because it’s complicated.
But these documents reflect our policy commitments. And as we’ve said, we think there are issues with Newstart.
But we’re not going to the election promising a quantum of an increase, and so it’s not reflected here, and nor should it be. It’s not dissimilar, if you like, to Scott Morrison at the debate. Bill Shorten asked him, “Will you adopt our cancer plan?”
He said, “I’ll think about it in the next budget”.
I wouldn’t expect him to incorporate those budget figures in his election commitments.
He’s just said he recognises there are issues and he will contemplate.
We have a firm commitment to deal with cancer. The numbers are in our document.
He doesn’t, he’s gonna review it or think about it. That’s fair enough.
I understand some people would want us to commit to a particular Newstart increase, we’re not, we’re not. Although, we are committing to a review and we’ll consider the impacts of that review. I can’t agree with you on climate change and the climate change impact is here in the budget - the impact of our climate change policies is outlined in some detail.
Question: What’s been decided is here, but there’s a bunch of things that have not been decided in relation to how the safeguard mechanism works ...
Bowen: We’ve said that the safeguard mechanism will apply to the 250 biggest emitters, for example. I mean, 250 biggest emitters will be brought into the safeguards mechanism. We’ll abolish the climate solutions fund. That’s a $1.7 billion save over the decade. We’ll make contributions to the CFC, and we’ll have an energy security modernisation fund. We’ll have a strategic industries fund. All those costings are there. Outlined in very considerable detail.
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Question: You said 23.4% is not a cap. Can you explain the difference?
Jim Chalmers: Really, the difference is the Liberals in the last two years have introduced what is an arbitrary cap. In their case, a relatively, you know, meaningless arbitrary cap.
What we’ve said is that a budget requires some kind of technical assumption about the future trajectory of tax. You need to provide some kind of assumption, some kind of, you know, technical working figure so that you can present a realistic set of books. And that’s the difference between us and them.
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Question: This is a government that you repeatedly criticised as the highest taxing government in history, the Costello/Howard government. Why would you set your target as the Howard/Costello years, given that record, particularly when the 24% is at the height. I mean, I think they started off at 21%, it was fuelled at the time with big mining revenues and so on, and this time you are not getting a mining industry. The biggest chunk, according to those figures, is coming from retirees.
Bowen: I can’t accept your language of a target. It is an assumption. It is a realistic assumption. It reflects the policies which we have laid out. The government has a cap of 23.9. It is arbitrary, they have chosen 23.9. We have indicated 24.3.
Over the decade, there is going to be trillions of dollars of tax raised. Regardless of who is in office. We are providing a roadmap, a guideline, an assumption, as to how or when the tax relief will be provided. Mr Morrison and Josh Frydenberg are saying it is terrible … We made the point of the Howard government and how they had the tax-GDP ratio as a historical point.
We are outlining how we can provide tax relief and when we should do so.
Question: First, from what you said before, are your wage growth assumptions identical to those in the budget?
Bowen: The budget is the baseline. That’s the way these things work. If the Liberal party were in opposition to us, they would take the budget to baseline and then it’s the impact of our decisions on the budget.
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Chris Bowen: 'We will provide tax relief when it is prudent to do so'
Question: I want to clarify this. You have got the assumption … but you also have a strong statement that you have been making, that tax cuts would only come when it was economically responsible to do that.
Is that the primary commitment, the economic responsibility, rather than this assumption, which could change in later times?
Bowen: We have been consistent. Bill, Jim and I have consistently said we will provide tax relief when it is prudent to do so, when – when we are back in healthy surplus.
We will do that in the responsible way of being able to assess economic circumstances at the time. Making tax cuts now, off in the never-never, two elections away when we don’t know what the economy will be like, trying to legislate them. In our view, that is irresponsible.
Particularly when a lot of it goes to high income earners. We are, if you like, providing a roadmap as to when that tax relief will be provided by the tax to GDP assumption and keeping tax to GDP no higher than the Howard government.
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Question: On the 24.3%, in what year do you reach 24.3. You project bigger surpluses of $87 billion over the decade. How big are those surpluses if you don’t have 24.3?
Bowen: We reach the assumption in 20 to 23. Sorry, 23-24. The surpluses would be a lot bigger. A lot bigger.
It is really, with respect, we are not going to get bigger. It is not our assumption we will go over that. Jim and I could not honestly present them to the Australian people and say they were realistic unless we had that assumption.
Question: The reason for the question is we have been hearing rhetoric about urgent emergencies and the state of the need to pay down debt for a long time now. Why isn’t there an argument to ignore completely an artificial revenue to GDP?
Bowen: I will get Jim to add to my comments but with respect, here we are, the alternative government going with bigger budget forecasts. Bigger in every single year. We have the more responsible set of rules. But we recognise with wages growth so low there is case for tax relief.
Jim Chalmers: It is ... important to remind you that in our case it is not a cap. It is in every budget, there needs to be some sort of assumption.
The point that Chris has made and the point that I have made before is that tax relief matters where it is directed to.
It matters whether you can afford it at the time and what we won’t be doing is the irresponsible thing that the government is doing, which is to commit hundreds of billions of dollars of tax cuts on the never-never without knowing what the fiscal and economic circumstances are.
What we have done it struck the best possible balance. We have said here is an assumption that we have built into our budget.
We have given ourselves room for future tax cuts to return bracket creep. The other thing is the debt emergency.
That is a crucial point. When the government was talking about a debt emergency, their debt was $175 billion. Is now $377 billion. Right? This is under a Liberal watch. We want to pay down debt.
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Question: Are you able to say what will happen to economic growth as a result of the policies that you have costed? Is that 24.3% now your tax to GDP?
Bowen:
I think I explained how the assumptions work. It’s the same budgetary process that the previous Labor government had, the previous Liberal government had, before 2017.
Otherwise the forecast surplus would not be realistic … No government is, under us, not going to provide tax relief at that point. That is the assumption we built into the figures and it is in keeping with the traditional budget, prudent budgeting.
This government has changed the approach slightly but we are adopting the traditional budgetary approach.
Now, in terms of economic growth, our policies, I mean, our Australian investment guarantee, the government hasn’t matched. Businesses small, medium and large say there is a material impact.
Over the longer term, they will have a longer time to pay it back but they are pro growth.
We have had low productivity growth on this government’s watch and it has become a trend. This government has absolutely nothing to crow about.
We have designed our policies carefully to ensure the investments we believe are important priorities will stop we have the budget repair which we believe is important and particularly in relation to the investment guarantee, tax relief on initial investment which reduces the tax on new investment by economic models, it determines about 26%. It is a pro-growth policy.
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Question: There is always a degree of uncertainty. If everything doesn’t materialise as planned, is it the high surpluses or keeping election promises?
Chris Bowen:
We will keep our election promises. Every forecast, whether it be a PBO forecast or a Treasury forecast, is subject to obviously the impact of changing economic circumstances.
I don’t hold the government to any higher account than I hold ourselves to make the best possible forecast with all the evidence available at the time. In each election, the political parties outlined their budget impact. That’s what we’re doing today. These are our commitments.
These other projections of impact on the budget and that’s what will be, that’s the best forecast based on all the work, as Mr McKenzie outlined, and the rigorous process and costings that have been provided.
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Jim Chalmers finishes with a “show us yours” attack on the government:
The other point I would make about our opponents, we have released our costings now.
You have them in your hands. We have released a whole bunch of detail very early.
We have done what is expected of us.
26 days ago now, Matthias Cormann told David Speers that he would provide a dollar figure, the total amount of dollars that would be provided to Australians in the top tax bracket, in the government’s tax plan.
26 days have passed. They have been asked repeatedly. Matthias Cormann was asked again this morning. Josh Frydenberg in the last few days.
They refused to tell the Australian people what the total billions of dollars amount they are providing the highest income earners.
Independent modelling has it somewhere between $77 and $89 billion.
They cannot go to the election without facing up [to] about how much they want to give to the highest income earners in this country.
They say it is their highest legislative priority if they are elected but they won’t tell Australians how much goes to their highest income earners and what cuts to hospitals and schools will be necessary to to pay for it.
We have some big challenges in the economy. Global uncertainty, household insecurity, slowing growth, stagnant wages, sluggish consumption, flagging confidence.
There are two ways to respond to this. This goes to the choices which are at play in this election as well. First wages – prioritise people in lower and middle incomes when it comes to tax relief because they are more likely to spend in the economy and you get consumption going again.
Invest in infrastructure and human capital and strengthen the budget in case of a global downturn.
The worst thing you can do in these conditions is what the government is proposing to do. $88 billion or thereabouts for people who won’t spend it, funded by another $40 billion of cuts, as the Grattan Institute has revealed.
We will get the economy growing the right way, whereas theirs is a recipe for more of the same stagnant wages and floundering economy that we have had.
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Chalmers continues with some (niche) zingers in his speech:
Saying that the Liberals have done a good job managing the economy is like saying Clive Palmer did a good job of building a dinosaur park.
Lots of rhetoric, lots of promising, lots of fanfare, lots of hyperbole, but when you look at the reality of the situation of what they actually delivered, it falls far short of what was promised.
The Liberals said they would pay down debt – instead, they have more than doubled their debt on their watch.
They inherited $175 billion of net debt and they turned it into $377 billion.
Whoever wins this election, whether it is us all the other mob, they will inherit a budget which is currently in deficit.
Scott Morrison finally admitted that to Leigh Sales over the course of this week.
Whoever wins this election will inherit a budget deficit so there are big challenges for either side to deal with.
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Jim Chalmers is up next:
In some cases years ago we announced the policies. We released our numbers.
We are releasing our numbers early.
As Chris said, far earlier than has traditionally been the case.
The other important thing is we have worked as a team in the Labor party. We have worked as a team to settle our priorities and to find them sensibly.
That is where the experience and team culture that Bill Shorten has built in our show has really paid dividends.
You couldn’t make the same point about our political opponents.
That’s not the only contrast about how we have gone about this and what we are proposing and what our opponents have gone about and what they are proposing at this election.
Our surpluses are $17 billion better over the forwards.
They are substantially better over the medium term. We do get to that substantial surplus of 1% of GDP.
In doing so and making those contrasts and points, what we’re doing today is exposing what is arguably the biggest lie of this entire campaign.
That is that the Liberals have done a good job of managing the economy.
Of all the many lies they have told, that is arguably the most significant one.
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Chris Bowen finishes his speech with:
We have done our hard work. There are bigger investments in health and education, bigger urgent surpluses and we are ready for government. We have got the team, the experience, the policies, the program and the rigour. To show that we are ready for government.
We are ready to serve the Australian people as the government.
Chris Bowen:
Australia remains a low taxing government under the Shorten Labor government.
As you know, we have adopted a proactive approach when it comes to policy of closing down and reforming tax loopholes and concessions which overwhelmingly benefit high wealth individuals.
Australia has a two-class tax system. If your income comes from a certain place, you have good accounting advice, you get access to the first-class tax system.
If you are a normal payer, is the very basic deductions, economy class for you. We are reforming the tax system.
These reforms raise $154 billion over the next decade. I know there is a lot of figures the government would have you believe.
These are the figures will stop the verified costed figures of Labor’s decision of closing down loopholes.
The Liberals will run a dishonest campaign about who is impacted. It is worth running through it. 96% of Australians won’t be impacted by the abolition of franking current refunds.
It won’t be affected by our current changes will stop 98% of taxpayers won’t be affected. 99% of taxpayers won’t be affected by our reforms to limit the tax deductions for limiting tax affairs and 100% of people who currently negatively gear won’t be impacted because of the grandfathering of our policy.
I know it is unusual about the Labor party, going and promising bigger budget surpluses … we can do so because it is underpinned by these policies.
It is the hard work of the Labor team identifying and modernising our tax system. Making it fairer, making it better.
Hence our surplus promise is not just a promise, it is underpinned by policy.
Bill Shorten and I and Jim are leading this because Australia economy needs a buffer.
We need to replenish the buffers in case they are ever needed. We need bigger budget surpluses.
We get to 1% of GDP more quickly and we maintain the increase in the bigger budget surplus because we believe in defending the Triple-A credit rating.
We believe in reducing our interest bill.
We would rather spend it on health and education than debt interest and we believe in providing a bigger buffer going forward.
So the contrast is clear. By having a budget surplus of $86 billion figure than the Liberals over the next 10 years, 17 billion over the forward estimates, we will pay down debt faster, we will improve the capacity of the government.
We will provide more capability of investing in education.
We are providing a remedy, not a replica.
That is what the selection is all about.
The Liberals have spent the last six years fighting amongst themselves. The only thing they have agreed on is an $80 billion tax cut to big business.
We know that that will be back if they have the majority in the Senate with Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson.
Updated
Chris Bowen: 'Because of our policies, a Shorten Labor government will deliver a bigger budget surplus'
Chris Bowen:
This is the earliest any opposition has released what it costings ever.
Of course, in 2013, the last time the Liberal party was in opposition, they released their costings 36 hours before the people went to the pulse.
Here we are before the last week starts releasing our costings but of course the liberals released their true policies in their budget when they cut the pensions, ABC and SBS after giving a solemn promise not to do so.
This has been a rigorous process. The combination of working with a parliamentary budget office and our panel of experts in financial accounting and government accounting means we are able to provide a rigorous process.
Jim will talk more about that.
… Because of our policies, a Shorten Labor government will deliver a bigger budget surplus each and every year.
Next year and beyond.
Including all years over the forward estimates and the medium term. We are confirming bigger budget surpluses each and every year.
We will reach a surplus of 1% GDP four years earlier than the government is forecasting.
That is $21.7 billion surplus in that year.
These forecasts take into account all of Labor’s policies by spending and revenue and also taking into account an assumption that a Shorten Labor government will deliver relief when the tax ratio hits the same as the Howard government.
I will take a moment to explain it.
Just as the previous Labor’s governments had an assumption, just as the current Liberal budgets had an assumption, we have incorporated an assumption into our forecast to provide a realistic indication of the surpluses under us. It would be unrealistic not to assume tax relief at a certain level.
We have assumed that under a Shorten Labor government that we will provide tax relief when the tax GDP ratio hits 23.4% which is equivalent to that under the Howard government.
As Bill and I and Jim have consistently said, when the budget returns to sustainable surplus, that is when tax relief can prudently and sensibly been delivered.
I agree with Peter Costello, it should be delivered term by term, budget by budget. But it means our forecast surpluses are more realistic.
Under the Shorten Labor government, as I said, we will have bigger budget surpluses under the forward estimates. We will also have the budget surpluses over the decade. And each and every year.
The redline of course recognises the underlying cash balance of the Labor’s government.
The blue lines indicate the projections. These projections incorporate the assumption. We can deliver these bigger budget surpluses and the bigger investments of health and education while also assuming tax relief going forward. With a 24.3% assumption, Australia will of course remain a low tax income country.
Updated
Labor releases costings.
It’s Chris Bowen’s big campaign moment.
Here’s part of the statement:
A Shorten Labor government will provide genuine cost of living relief for working Australians and pensioners, not multinational tax avoidance.
We will make important social investments in Medicare, hospitals and schools, nation building infrastructure, and take real action on climate change.
And we will ease the cost of living pressures, including giving the same or bigger tax cuts for ten million Australians and delivering massive cost of living relief for nearly one million Australian families struggling with the costs of child care.
Based on the forecasts and projections in the 2019 Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook (Pefo), Labor will take to the election a budget that:
- Achieves a budget surplus in 2019-20, the same year as the government;
- Delivers budget surpluses over the forward estimates over 40 per cent larger than the government, and bigger surpluses over the medium-term;
- Achieves strong surpluses of 1 per cent of GDP by 2022-23, four years earlier than the current government trajectory; and
- Uses the $87 billion in bigger surplus over the medium term to pay down more debt.
This is the social and economic dividend of the tough decisions taken to end and rollback the tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy and the top end of town.
A Shorten Labor government will look to provide further tax relief to low and middle income Australians once the budget is back in a strong position and the economy can afford it.
Labor’s Fair Go Budget Plan includes a technical assumption that tax receipts will not rise above 24.3 per cent of GDP over the medium-term, meaning that around $200 billion will be available to return bracket creep and provide further tax relief, should circumstances allow.
We will keep taxes low by international standards, with Australia’s tax burden to remain in the bottom third of comparable advanced economies.
Labor’s policies are fully costed and we are funding our priorities through a package of measures to make multinationals pay their fair share and close down loopholes for the top end of town. These include reforms to managing tax affairs, trusts, negative gearing and dividend imputation refundability.
Updated
Question: But which will you choose?
Shorten:
You’re allowed to ask, I’m allowed to answer it. Don’t be smart. We haven’t won the election.
… How arrogant is that? My conversation is not with …the crazy right in the Senate who Mr Morrison is depending on for re-election.
I don’t care about them. I will tell you what I think. I’m interested in the voters, in the fact that people are waiting here in this hospital ward to get attention.
I’m interested not in your question about the Senate. I’m interested in a million Australian households who are battling with childcare.
I’m interested - wait a second. I will talk about the people that sometimes the media don’t ask about.
There’s 2. 6 million pensioners in Australia.
Have any of you got any idea how good their oral health is in; do you know what it’s like if you’re a pensioner not being able to get attention on your teeth?
I’m addressing young Australians. They are as forgotten in this election as pensioners by this government.
Young Australians are sick and tired of an anti-science, anti-climate change, anti-rational science-phobic government in Canberra.
We cannot afford to keep selling out the future by just pretending that more of the same is good enough.
What the Australian people deserve is a government as good as them.
I look forward to listening to Jim and Chris unveil our better set of books.
Updated
Question: Senate crossbenchers are threatening to block some revenue measures that underpin your set of books - what will you choose if the Senate makes you choose? Your spending promises or keeping the budget in surplus?
Shorten:
First of all, let’s win the election before we start talking about how we deal with the Senate crossbench. I think your question does highlight the danger and the risk of voting LNP or for the Palmer party, whatever his latest advertising company is called or, indeed, One Nation.
If you vote for the small parties or for the Liberal Nationals who rely upon them, chaos, chaos, chaos. The biggest single message - get real on climate change, real on cost of living, look after pensioners and end the chaos in Canberra.
A vote for Labor in the House and the Senate is the best way to make sure that the crazy chaos which you are alluding to just never happens.
Vote 1 Labor.
Updated
Question: Mr Shorten, if you are tackling the problem but workers are missing out, aren’t you then only tackling it by half? Who will miss out?
Shorten:
No, sorry, I used a word before, perhaps I should focus in on again - we have an envelope of funding. We have an envelope of funding. What Labor does with its envelope of funding is we will improve the wages of early childhood educators.
... The money is there. That’s the difference between me and the Liberals.
Let’s not forget it, ask the Liberals, or get your colleagues on the Liberal bus, to ask Mr Howard - sorry, he’s not even turning up, is he - Morrison. Mr Morrison, ask him what he will do to lift the wages of early childhood educators.
Do you think he has one plan, any plan? Of course not. He doesn’t get it. This government is stuck in the past when it comes to sorting out wages of low paid women workers. We’ve been able to do this.
What’s more is, we’ve been able to do something better for families.
Did you know that because of Labor and because we’ve got a better set of books, we can provide genuine no-nonsense cost of living relief for nearly a million Australian households.
I want to specifically right now for ten seconds address the working parents of Australia, the nearly million-households whose income is less than $140,000. Vote for Labor to end the chaos in childcare.
Mr Morrison, somewhat I think foolishly, said on Wednesday childcare costs are going down.
I don’t know what bill he’s paying. I tell you what, that’s not the experience of a million Australians. We will provide a subsidy of up to $2,000 because we have a better set of books.
Updated
Question: You said you will be subsidising the wages of childcare workers. I think you stated 100,000 workers. There are nearly 200,000 workers in the childcare industry. So which will miss out under Labor’s subsidy?
Shorten: I tell you who is missing out now - everyone.
Question: But under Labor’s plan?
Shorten:
Let’s not glibly rush off the problem we’re solving.
... If you think the status quo is fine, talk to an early childhood educator. The reality is that out of 96 occupations, they come in 92nd.
I know you’re a keen advocate for the rights of women. The reality is this is a 96% feminised industry. The market is broken when it comes to the payment of early childhood educators. I am sure that you and millions of other Australians agree we need to do more for our early childhood educators, the first people to whom we entrust the kids outside of the family unit. We’ve come up with an envelope of funding to improve wages.
We will work with the for-profit sector and with families and parents. We have an envelope of funding.
We have a plan over ten years. We are tackling a problem this government puts in the too-hard basket, which is a very big one. We will do the right thing for people who experience unique difficulties. It doesn’t cost parents because we will have price controls and make sure the money allocated goes to wages.
Updated
Question: Angus Taylor plans to reduce energy bills by 25%. What’s your reaction?
Shorten:
They will sell you the Harbour Bridge if you are silly enough to say you want to buy it.
This is their 14th policy. The one thing you can set your clock by in Australia is that when the Liberals say ‘hey presto, we will lower your power prices’ the next bill will go up. Have we heard this before?
How many times did the government call you into the courtyard – ‘Victory, peace in our time, gas will be cheaper, energy cheaper’. Had not they told us already they lowered power prices?
Now they will do it again. Reality is the single biggest driver of power prices in this country is a lack of an energy policy.
People won’t invest in extra generation needed to put the supply of energy in to lower the price.
So there is paralysis at the heart of this government on energy. So when they say they have their 14th policy, ask them how their previous 13 went. Ask them where Malcolm Turnbull is.
Ask them why they don’t take real action on climate change. I think people who pay their energy bills should take this latest breakthrough announcement as seriously as they’re still paying for the cost of the last 13 breakthrough announcements.
.... First of all, our energy policy will drive down prices.
... It won’t, because we’re driving down prices. The issue is, in terms of some of the individual levers, we have our $10 billion clean energy fund, but that delivers a return.
We will put $5 billion into energy modernisation, which will put downward pressure and create greater efficiency and reliability on our energy systems.
There are, I think – and again, you’re very cunningly getting me to talk about the detail which Jim and Chris will do in the next half hour.
That’s fair enough … We will put $300 million aside to make sure our trade-exposed aluminium steel cement sectors are not at a global disadvantage.
We have other modest measures. This argument about cost - we had the good chance to talk about it frequently, in terms of taxpayers, our plans are cheaper in terms of the environment, our plans are so much better than the government’s because their complete lack of ambition on reducing carbon emission is not funny.
In terms of corporate Australia, 250 companies are affected by our industrial safeguards and they have the option, with all of the tools we’re giving them, to choose least-cost abatement at individual companies.
Updated
Kristina Keneally:
We have seen in this campaign that Scott Morrison is willing to do a desperate deal with Clive Palmer in his desperate attempt to cling on to power.
We are seeing more and more evidence that this deal is not just a preference swap. It is actually - frankly, it’s an exchange of wardrobe, an exchange of workers.
We’ve seen the photos already.
Here we have photos of - we were at the aquarium and it puts me in a Dr Seuss frame of mind - ‘one fish, two fish, yellow fish, blue fish - from here to there, there to here, funny things are everywhere’.
These guys - they’re sharing shirts.
Think of the inefficiency of this campaign.
The volunteers have to go to some back room and change shirts and then come back out, having spent half the day handing out for the Libs, now handing out for Clive Palmer.
Maybe Mr Palmer could order some of the reversible shirts, like basketball players have, blue on one side, yellow on the other, probably more efficient. He could probably get them made in China. Check that out, Clive.
Don’t take my word for it.
Frankly, we have now the director of the Palmer United party, or whatever they call themselves, United Australia party, Clive Palmer’s party, in Victoria, putting on social media.
She says here, just this week, she says that actually where it is happening, where the Libs are helping us, the Libs are funding the workers.
Clive Palmer’s state director in Victoria put it out on social media. The Libs are funding the workers to hand out for Clive Palmer’s party.
Then she says - “Or it might be there are Lib volunteers helping us to help them”. She says, “Of course a volunteer is never paid, are they?”
You know who else hasn’t been paid for years by Clive Palmer? His workers. You know who will get a big payday if Scott Morrison wins?
Clive Palmer. Clive Palmer does nothing for free. He wants other people to pay. The commonwealth pays his workers, now he gets Liberals to pay people handing out for him.
She says, the state director of Clive Palmer’s party in Victoria, “The Lib volunteers are helping us to help them.”
What kind of help is Mr Palmer expecting? You can be sure he is not expecting just a handshake if he gets elected.
He’s expecting that $80 billion tax cut to the top end of town, that Scott Morrison has hundreds of times staked his word and his reputation on that he’s going to deliver, that Clive Palmer is waiting for that payday, if Scott Morrison is re-elected.
So, I look forward to those shirts, Clive. I’m sure you can get them on eBay, China, somewhere.
Updated
Question: How much [will] your crashing down on tax breaks save. How much is Labor spending through the commitments you’ve made?
Shorten:
I think that, I don’t want to steal Jim and Chris’s thunder.
They’ve been working the last few days, weeks and months. We go to this election with a better set of books. This is where the government’s inherent contradiction is finally exposed.
We are shutting down tax expenditure on tax subsidies for property investors, for wealthy millionaires.
We will not spend taxes on them any more. That means that we can [have] the trifecta of Australian politics.
One, we can reverse the cuts to schools and hospitals - $7.2 million at Cairns, for example. Two, we can provide fair tax cuts for ten million Australians and, in fact, for the bottom 3.6 million earners it will be better than what the government is offering – and we can look after our pensioners, which never get a look at in the fight for the wealthy of this government’s agenda.
We fight for the services. That’s the trifecta, looking after the wage earners, reversing the cuts to schools and hospitals and a better surplus.
You all know why. It’s because we have got the courage to trust the Australian people, to put forward our views, well ahead of the election.
This government can’t match our deal for pensioners, our support for childcare and better tax cuts for low income earners because they spend their time defending the status quo.
They are determined to defend handing out tens and tens and tens of billions of dollars to people who don’t need it at the upper end. Because of the choices we make, we can have a better set of books and the one thing that does concern me about this government is not only are they defending the status quo, but I fundamentally believe it’s in the Liberal and National DNA to give new tax cuts to the top end of town.
Mr Morrison makes a great show on the high moral ground, he’s not a man who flips or flops.
Indeed, 250 times he said that he wanted to give the business tax cuts, $80 billion to big business. 250 times.
Miraculously, it’s a conversion, eight days out - he said, “I didn’t want to do that”. You don’t have to believe his last-minute conversion. Look at the deal with Clive Palmer. I would like to ask Senator Keneally, who had a good look at this, to understand when you do a deal with Clive Palmer, he never gives you something for nothing.
Updated
Question: With the cost of increasing Newstart, will that be introduced in your costings?
Shorten: All our costings will be revealed in the next hour. We said that Newstart should be reviewed, not to lower it, but until the review is complete, you couldn’t put a number on it, and to be fair to the question earlier where I was asked about climate change costings, the costings of what the government will expend will be contained in the document.
Updated
Penny Wong:
We see on the front page of a couple of the papers, the Coalition saying that they have a policy on climate change.
It’s their 14th. The reality is we have seen an internal war inside the Coalition on climate for a decade. It has led them not only to kill Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister, but you might recall in 2009 to kill him as opposition leader.
And you know what? The war is still going. Scott Morrison’s candidate for Solomon told someone who supported renewable energy [and] I quote: ‘You need to stop taking the drugs you’re on.’
That is what Scott Morrison thinks about renewable energy.
I want to make a comment about Warren Entsch.
He has recently discovered climate change. He seems to want to talk a lot about it. Well, [he’s] as quiet as a church mouse in Canberra. He talks a lot about it now in the shadow of an election in Far North Queensland. Quiet as a mouse in Canberra.
People should not forget this - Mr Enstch, for all he talks about climate change, was part of the chaos and part of dragging down Malcolm Turnbull, help the hard right drag down Malcolm Turnbull, sign the petition.
So he shouldn’t come to Far North Queenslanders now and tell them he cares about climate.
Updated
Question: How does what you are talking about [fit] with your plans for Far North Queensland [as] the renewable economic zone. The Kidston project is under way. That’s a major project. How would you encourage other projects to come to the area? Will your costings that your colleagues are revealing later talk about a cost of whatever action on climate change is?
Shorten:
We have nominated north-west Tassie, for example, we have nominated this area as well.
What we do if we nominate an area as a renewable energy zone, we will make sure they get fast-track access to the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which has been successful. For every dollar of taxpayer money outlaid, it has delivered nearly $2 back.
We want to make sure this region gets the power it needs. We have an energy modernisation fund by $5 billion. By making this renewable energy zone, that’s what happens.
You go to the bigger issue of climate change, one or two of the biggest issues are climate change. There can be no doubt about it. The fact this government runs a dishonest pretence that somehow they have a climate change policy, when we all know they don’t, you all know it, we know it, because if they were, Malcolm Turnbull would still be prime minister.
The question on climate change is when will the government get real about it? I have formed and reached the conclusion, which I suspect many Australians have reached, that the Liberal party will only get serious on climate change when they lose an election. See, if they think they can get away with their scare campaign, they’ll keep being the knuckle-dragging, climate change-deniers, coal-wielding warriors they are. The Liberal party and the National party in Australia need to lose an election to discover climate change is real.
I have Penny Wong here. She was a climate change minister. She can also give some of the context to why, at this election, if you want real change and real action on climate change, if you want to end the chaos on climate and get certainty back into climate change policy, vote Labor.
Updated
Bill Shorten press conference
Asked if Bill Shorten was avoiding scrutiny on Labor’s costings by holding his press conference before Chris Bowen and Jim Chalmers announce them at 11, Shorten responds:
Listen, if you want to talk about who’s avoiding things, go to the government. Where’s their policy for North Queensland? Far north Queensland? Where is their health policy? I’ll tell you their policy: more of the same. Now, as is appropriate, my shadow treasurer and my shadow finance spokesperson, Chris Bowen and Jim Chalmers, are going to present a detailed set of costings in Canberra.
Let me finish. But we all know that when it comes down to it, and I can give a short version of our costings now, we are the most transparent opposition in the history of federation. We’ve been upfront with the people of Australia.
We are going to reverse the cuts to schools and hospitals.
We are going to stop the chaos. We are going to provide tax cuts on 1 July for 10 million working Australians and we will have a better set of books.
But the question that Mr Morrison needs to answer is why does he hide how much he wants to give the top tier of tax earners? Is it $77 billion as I initially thought or is it a higher number as has been revealed by other people? Why are they hiding this?
Question: Why didn’t you want to wait until after the numbers were revealed before standing here to answer questions on your detailed economic policies?
I don’t mean to be a history wonk here but in 2010 the Liberals didn’t reveal their costings until two days before the election. In 2013, three days before the election. We’re being upfront.
You can punish us for not being upfront or you can punish us for being upfront. Pick your poison and choose it. We are being upfront.
Updated
Scott Morrison, speaking to Rockhampton radio this morning, has blamed losing candidates to the “social media age”.
“Part of the Facebook era, I have no doubt that in previous times, when Facebook wasn’t around, then if there had been a record of everything every candidate said, then you might have seen a some similar outcomes.
Updated
Angus Taylor, the minister for lowering electricity prices – because that is where we are at in political discourse in this country (I say as the minister for sass and snark) went to a candidate forum in Hume, where he seemed to think this was a great #humblebrag to make public:
I did like Angus' comment to me before we started tonight that:
— 💧Huw4Hume (@Huw4Hume) May 8, 2019
'You should know that I'm the third most covered politician in the Australian media'
That’s more of a #complisult, really. So fantastic. Great move. #WelldoneAngus
Well that was WEIRD but fun. A forum where @AngusTaylorMP finally showed up but only if he could see & prepare for questions beforehand. Luxury not afforded us other candidates
— 💧Huw4Hume (@Huw4Hume) May 8, 2019
UAP candidate arrived from Cairns, then left as she 'had nothing to talk about'.#humevotes #Auspol pic.twitter.com/8gGk0FlPQK
Updated
Bill Shorten is about to appear at the Cairns hospital, after a visit to the Cairns aquarium, where he was greeted by some Adani protesters as he left:
Very polite anti-Adani protesters. They had a go. Not overly successful. @politicsabc #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/kICCjT5GcK
— Matthew Doran (@MattDoran91) May 9, 2019
Updated
It looks like high speed rail may happen in this country sometime around when my great-great grandchild colonises Mars.
From Paul Karp’s story:
Labor will promise $1bn to begin buying the land corridor for an east coast high-speed rail line between Melbourne and Brisbane via Canberra and Sydney.
The party’s infrastructure spokesman, Anthony Albanese, will make the commitment to advance the project on Friday, as Labor releases its budget costings.
In a statement, Albanese said the commitment would help deliver a rail line to “revolutionise interstate travel and regional development in Australia” with speeds of up to 350km/h.
He cited a 2013 feasibility study that identified a 1,748km route and “found the project would return more than $2 in public benefit for every dollar invested”.
That study found that 90% of the benefit of the project would accrue to users of the fast rail, particularly business travellers, with only a “small positive financial return on investment” to be expected.
It found express journey times would be 2 hours 37 minutes between Brisbane and Sydney, one hour and four minutes between Sydney and Canberra, and two hours and 44 minutes between Sydney and Melbourne.
A new high speed rail proposal is being put to Malcolm Turnbull, and already Rhonda is excited #UtopiaABC pic.twitter.com/8UcsXL3lZG
— Working Dog (@workingdogprod) March 17, 2016
Labor will release its full costings at 11am.
There will be a picture opportunity at 10.30am with a “costings panel”.
Updated
The campaign appears to have broken Mathias Cormann.
He was repeatedly pushed on Sky News by Kieran Gilbert and Laura Jayes for a dollar figure on how much the government’s high income earners tax cuts would cost the budget, because, as they point out, Cormann himself said he would give more detail on that last month.
The Australia Institute has costed it at $77bn. The government disputed that, but yesterday, the ABC Fact Check project with RMIT, found that was probably an underestimation.
“We have provided further detail, you shouldn’t just accept Labor verballing. The numbers of course that are available that have been released, is the fact that the reduction in the marginal tax rate of 32.5% to 30%, comes at a cost of $95bn over the medium term.
“What I should also say ... this is not government spending. This is government making decisions to leave people with more of their own money – it is a tax cut, not a government expenditure.
“This is just Labor language to suggest that, somehow, this is all the government’s money and the government makes a generous decision on how much money they will, how much of the government’s money they will let the hardworking Australians have.
“That is not right. People across Australia work hard for their money. The government should only take as much as the government needs to provide the services Australians rely on, not any more, and of course that is the point here, Labor doesn’t know how to manage money, and that is why they are always coming after yours.
“And that is why any suggestion that somehow after 22-23 Labor would deliver further personal income tax cuts is just ridiculous. Does anyone really believe that by 22-23 a Labor government wouldn’t have spent all of that money and more and put us back into deficit as they have on every occasion in the past since 1989?”
Updated
While we are talking electricity prices, it is worth pointing out that the energy bodies have forecast that prices will be coming down over the next few years, because a massive amount of renewables are about to hit the supply chain.
No one has been building thermal, because there hasn’t been a lot of certainty around that, which has meant that investment has centred on renewables. Which has brought down the price and the market is about to receive the benefits of that.
That’s been coming for the last few years – the light at the end of the power price tunnel, if you will.
The SMH and Age wrote about the Commonwealth Bank’s prediction on power prices earlier this week – no matter who wins, power prices are coming down.
For those talking electricity prices today: the CBA this week said its estimate for wholesale prices over the next decade was $60-$80/mwh. Also noted Labor policy could push that lower... 1/2
— Shane Wright (@swrighteconomy) May 9, 2019
Updated
We are inching closer to the 2 million pre-poll number.
As of COB yesterday approximately 1.64m people had cast their vote at an early voting centre for the 2019 federal election. Around 243k voted yesterday. #ausvotes
— AEC (@AusElectoralCom) May 9, 2019
Updated
News Corp has the government’s coming announcement – a plan to reduce the spot price in the national electricity market, to under $70/MWh in the next two years, which it says will save up to 25% on power bills.
Updated
The ABC also reported overnight that Fiji had confirmed that Labor’s Deakin candidate, Shireen Morris, who has a good chance of winning the Victorian seat, is not a Fijian citizen.
The Herald Sun had reported earlier in the week the Coalition “had advice” that Morris, who has Indian-Fijian heritage, had section 44 issues.
But the ABC says Fiji’s immigration department has confirmed Morris is not a Fijian citizen:
Our citizenship records have confirmed that Ms Shireen Morris is not a Fijian citizen,” a department spokesperson said in a statement to the ABC.
“She was born in Australia and holds Australian citizenship.”
Ms Shireen’s mother was born in Fiji and her father was born in India.
“Even though her father was a Fiji citizen at the time of her birth, Ms Morris was never registered as a Fiji citizen,” the spokesperson said.
Updated
Overnight, the Liberals lost a fourth candidate since nominations closed.
The party had tried to hang on to Gurpal Singh, despite comments he made in 2017 linking marriage equality to paedophilia, with Scott Morrison saying earlier this week the party had already looked at the matter and made its decision.
Then SBS published a report detailing comments Singh made about a rape victim, where he not only dismissed her allegations but said her husband was the real victim.
That, apparently, was the standard the party could not walk past and Singh, who had as much chance of winning Scullin from Labor’s Andrew Giles as I do of being described as petite, dropped out of the race.
Oh, and Clive Palmer’s party also lost a candidate over his 9/11 conspiracies.
A Liberal candidate in Melbourne’s northern suburbs has finally been dumped after new posts emerged where he dismissed a woman’s rape allegations, while Clive Palmer has jettisoned a United Australia party hopeful who peddled conspiracy theories about the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The two candidates, the Liberals’ Gurpal Singh in the safe Labor seat of Scullin and Tony Pecora of the UAP, who was standing in the Greens’ seat of Melbourne, became the latest in a long line of fallen candidates this election when both were disendorsed late on Thursday night.
“Based on new information that has come to light, Mr Gurpal Singh has been asked to resign as the candidate for Scullin,” a Victorian Liberal party spokesman said. “Mr Singh sincerely apologises for his previous comments and has tendered his resignation.”
Updated
Good morning
With just a little over a week left in the campaign, Labor has released its campaign costings, sparking a new frontline in the battle for voters’ hearts and minds.
Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen have released the costings early because they believe they have a good story to tell. As Sarah Martin reports:
Labor will better the government’s planned surpluses and have a $200bn war chest to spend on further tax cuts over the next decade, costings to be released on Friday will show.
As Labor seeks to demonstrate its economic credibility and counter Coalition claims about the risk of a change of government, the party will on Friday reveal projections for a surplus more than twice as large as the Coalition’s by 2022, with its tax crackdown to raise $154bn over the decade.
The opposition’s pledge to achieve a surplus of 1% of GDP by 2022-23 suggests the party will post a surplus of about $22bn at the end of the forward estimates, compared with the $9.2bn forecast by the Coalition in this year’s budget.
Shorten starts the day in Cairns, where Warren Entsch is fighting to keep his seat, while Scott Morrison is a bit down the road (for Queensland) in Rockhampton, where Michelle Landry is struggling to hold on to Capricornia.
But it is all about cost, cost, cost. Cost of living, cost of managing the economy, cost of change, cost of doing nothing.
Fun times.
The day is getting started and my second coffee is just kicking in, so let’s get straight into it.
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