Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten will end their Easter weekend campaign armistice by hitting the hustings on Monday in Victoria and Queensland – the two states most critical to the election outcome – with Labor focusing on wages growth and regional tourism.
Shorten will on Monday promise a $100m fund to help local councils expand regional airports, $40m in grants to improve infrastructure around tourism attractions, $30m to expand attractions in regional areas and $25m for Tourism Australia to promote destinations.
Shifting its focus from the health announcements that dominated the opening salvos of the contest, Labor will also dig in on penalty rates, pointing out that workers could lose up to $26,000 over the next three years if the Coalition is re-elected on 18 May. Calculations released by the Labor campaign suggest workers could lose between $9,000 and $26,000 depending on their industry.
Shorten used the Easter holiday to highlight that low-paid workers are losing hundreds of dollars from cuts to Sunday penalty rates. The ALP is promising to legislate to reverse the cut to Sunday penalty rates imposed by the Fair Work Commission.
Labor has signalled it wants to legislate to restore lost penalty rates by 1 July if Shorten wins the coming election, and the Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick said his group was open to that prospect. “We voted to restore penalty rates. It is our view that people should not have gone backwards,” Patrick told the ABC on Sunday.
In a statement issued before the resumption of hostilities on Monday, Shorten said penalty rates “are not a luxury – they help people put food on the table and petrol in the car”.
“They can be the difference in paying the electricity bill, health costs or childcare costs – all of which keep soaring under this government. Labor understands how important penalty rates are to working Australians.”
The two leaders ran a light schedule over the Easter weekend, with both attending church services in different cities on Sunday. Both camps think swinging voters are not engaged with the election pitches yet, and likely won’t be until after Anzac Day.
Shorten’s venture back into Queensland this week will again draw the national focus to the Adani coal project, with the former Greens leader Bob Brown leading a convoy through the southern states to oppose the mine.
Labor operatives reported last week that the Coalition’s pro-coal stance was gaining traction in the open phase of the campaign in regional Queensland marginals.
Queensland Nationals used the final weeks in government to pressure Morrison to deliver tangible policy wins they could sell in central Queensland, such as a feasibility study to examine whether a new coal plant was needed, and lobbying the environment minister, Melissa Price, to tick an environmental approval for the Adani project.
Labor has been mobilising significantly in Queensland, which is a do-or-die state for the Coalition in this election contest. Labor is directing considerable ground resources in Capricornia, Dawson, Flynn and also Herbert, a north Queensland seat Labor currently holds with a very slim margin.
The performance of One Nation, Clive Palmer’s party and Katter’s Australian party in the north will influence the final result in the state, and government MPs have been bracing for a considerable protest vote.
Morrison has spent the opening week of the campaign attempting to punch holes in Labor’s climate change and tax policies, and the Liberal leader has also spent a large amount of time on the ground sandbagging in Victoria, where the Coalition has suffered a significant backlash since conservatives moved against Malcolm Turnbull last year.
The government is also facing increasing pressure over controversial water buybacks in 2017.
On Sunday, there were calls both a royal commission into the transactions dating from Barnaby Joyce’s period in the ministry, and an immediate explanation about why officials dealt with a company domiciled in a tax haven.
Labor has given Morrison a deadline of Monday to address questions about the 2017 water buybacks, and has not ruled out establishing a royal commission probing the various transactions in the event Bill Shorten wins the 18 May contest.
