The third-last Q&A before election day was an economic affair, with the shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, questioned extensively about Labor’s revenue measures and newly announced $4bn package for early childcare.
In the wake of the first leaders’ debate, Monday night’s program was characterised as a pivot point, where the campaign spotlight finally turned from personality to policy and the overarching philosophical clash – between lower taxation and higher spending on services – that ultimately characterises the contest.
Bowen took the brunt of the inquisition, fielding questions on franking credits, negative gearing and superannuation on the revenue-raising side, and the new childcare investment on the service side.
A series of questioners, from a schoolteacher on the brink of retirement, wary of changes to super, to a middle-income voter set to lose out on his franking credits, drew lengthy explanations from the shadow treasurer.
Asked whether Labor’s childcare rebate would increase prices, with childcare operators pocketing the money as “they did with the gas subsidy and solar subsidy”, Bowen said Labor would implement price controls as part of an agreement with providers.
“It’s not dissimilar to private health insurance,” he said. “The government says therefore we’re going to have a say in how much you charge. You can enter into a similar arrangement with childcare going forward.”
He said Labor would work with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to iron out the details of enforcing this.
Panel member Lenore Taylor, the editor of Guardian Australia, said Labor’s policy was an example of how the political conversation had shifted in the campaign’s latter weeks.
“Childcare costs are a big part of household budgets,” she said. “You hear people talk about it all the time in terms of returning to work and whether the secondary earner in a family can return to work after kids.
“It’s going to be quite a defining issue for the second part of this election campaign, as we move from the sort of negative campaigning that’s characterised the first few weeks to the actual battle of ideas about lower taxes versus more spending on services.”
Bowen faced a grilling from a voter who would lose out under Labor’s reforms to franking credits.
.@lenoretaylor says childcare costs will be a defining issue of this part of the election campaign #QandA pic.twitter.com/tGPLxhwqbD
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) April 29, 2019
In justifying the change, the shadow treasurer gave the example of a nurse earning $67,000 and paying $13,000 in tax – compared with a retiree earning $67,000 from share dividends, who would receive a refund of $27,000 from franking credits.
“Same income, different outcome,” he said. “I have to tell you it’s not fair.”
How will Labor's changes to franking credits affect those who planned their retirement around the benefits? #QandA pic.twitter.com/uSRh1lFVrV
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) April 29, 2019
But the questioner replied that this example was “at the top end” of retirees, and not true of people like him, who would lose $7,000 a year.
He said he disagreed with Bowen’s characterisation of franking credits as “welfare for the wealthy”. But he then conceded that his wife “would agree totally” with what Bowen had said.
“What you’re doing is taking away the things the Howard and Costello government put in and going back to the original Keating scheme … Aged pensioners are exempt,” he said.
“That’s right,” Bowen replied.
Prompted by the host, Tony Jones, Bowen explained that pensioners who had self-managed super funds at the date of Labor’s announcement would be exempt.
But the communications minister, Mitch Fifield, said this meant Labor’s plan would still affect pensioners who already had a self-managed fund or who later got one. “The estimate is that there will be 50,000 people over the next 10 years who are pensioners who will be hit,” he said.
Taylor said this was another example of the cost-benefit analysis, and services focus, at the heart of the opposition’s economic election pitch.
“Labor did make a decision not to grandfather this policy for everybody,” she said. “I assume precisely because they wanted to use the money straight away for other priorities.
“That’s a political calculation … on balance if you’re looking at it through a raw political lens, rather than justice for [questioner] John, it’s a valid calculation. Labor could have made the decision to grandfather it and then it wouldn’t have been as controversial.”
A schoolteacher who is about to retire asked Bowen: “Are you going to change the playing field I have been on 40 years and tax the daylights out of my retirement?”
Will a Labor Government "change the playing field" and "tax the daylights out of my retirement savings (super)"? #QandA pic.twitter.com/F5YPt7CDYo
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) April 29, 2019
The shadow treasurer said Labor planned to extract “$30bn over the decade” from super, but only from high-income earners, and the questioner would not be affected. “The vast majority of people are not impacted,” he said.
Fifield later faced criticism for the government’s rollout of the national broadband network, which was described as a “sleeper issue” that could hurt the Coalition in rural areas.
After Fifield said “the end was in sight” for the NBN’s completion, Jones interjected, to laughter from the crowd.
“We have got dozens of questions on this,” he said. “It seems this could be a bit of a sleeper issue. I’m just worried that you may not have noticed.”
Will Mitch Fifield hold himself and his department accountable for the failures of the NBN? #QandA pic.twitter.com/0R8MUmmHFE
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) April 29, 2019
Fifield replied that out of 11m houses, “there will be some people who have experiences that aren’t all that we would want them to be”.
“The stats show NBN gets connections right the first time on about nine out of 10 occasions,” he said.
Earlier Fifield defended the Liberal party’s decision to strike a preference deal with Clive Palmer, saying the Coalition’s work dismantling group voting tickets meant the power of preferences had decreased and were no longer set in stone by parties.
“In fact, in the Senate we outlawed, before the last election, what were known as group voting tickets where the parties got to dictate where the preferences went,” he said. “We’ve outlawed that ... It’s entirely a matter for voters. We have optional preferential voting in the Senate so people can order them as they wanted to.”
He pointed out that in lower house seats Labor was preferencing Fraser Anning’s party above the Coalition, including in Scott Morrison’s seat of Cook.
