Good morning everyone and happy Monday. We are in the final run towards polling day, with but one week left. Who’d have thought, after 50 whole days, that we would get to this point?
“The first 10 million years were the worst, and the second 10 million years, they were the worst too. The third 10 million years I didn’t enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline” – Marvin the paranoid android, definitely not talking about the Australian election campaign.
Both major parties and the Greens have now officially launched their campaigns. Just in the nick of time.
While the Coalition event held yesterday didn’t exactly draw rave reviews, Malcolm Turnbull will nonetheless be buoyant this morning with the latest Newspoll showing his team pulling ahead to 51% over Labor on a two-party preferred basis.
Its primary vote also rose to 43%. The two-point bump brings it to a 14-week high.
Labor remained unchanged at 36% and the Greens dropped from 10% to 9%. The minor parties also dropped a point to 12%.
The Australian’s analysis is putting the move away from minor parties down to uncertainty after Brexit, the shockwaves of which are continuing with 11 Labour resignations from the shadow cabinet.
Turnbull’s net satisfaction rating improved slightly to a negative 14, while Bill Shorten’s improved to a negative 15.
I’ll be here to take us through to Katharine Murphy’s arrival at 8.30. Dive into the comments, or find me on Twitter @heldavidson.
The big picture
This week will undoubtedly be coloured by the fallout from Brexit. Turnbull spent much of his speech at the campaign launch devoted to the shock result and its potential economic impact.
Now is not the time to change government, he said. “The last thing we need is a parliament in disarray.”
His key messages are stability after the UK’s decision to exit the European Union and a return to Tony Abbott’s theme of a safe, secure Australia, writes Guardian Australia editor, Lenore Taylor.
Same-sex marriage didn’t get a single mention, and climate change appeared only briefly, as the PM completed his “transformation from progressive firebrand to ambassador for the conservative brand”, according to Fairfax’s Peter Hartcher.
The former Liberal leader John Hewson called the Coalition a “disgrace” for its lack of action of climate change. Appearing before 2,000 people at a rally near Turnbull’s home, Hewson said climate change should be the dominant campaign issue, but “short-term politicking” from both sides left targets that were inadequate and policies that were not going to meet those targets.
Immediately after the Liberal launch, Labor released its costings, getting it in with just six days to go but doing better than the Abbott opposition’s two-days-before-the-election effort.
The costings reveal the Labor plan will increase the deficit over four years to $101bn – $16.5bn more than the Coalition – but would return to surplus by 2020-21, the same time as the Coalition’s plan.
The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, also announced another $2bn worth of cuts, including removing the private health insurance rebate for “junk” insurance policies.
On the campaign trail
The PM is in South Australia today, visiting the electorates of Adelaide and Hindmarsh. Adelaide is a Labor seat, held by Kate Ellis with a 3.9% margin. Hindmarsh is a Liberal seat – but only by 1.9% – which Matt Williams has held since 2010. Turnbull will be focusing on the defence industry and related jobs, particularly in Adelaide.
The opposition leader will spend today in his home region of Victoria, visiting three electorates around Melbourne with the first stop in Dunkley. Bruce Billson has held the south-east Melbourne electorate for the Liberals since 1996, but as he’s retiring it is considered quite vulnerable. As well as continuing the Medicare push, Shorten will be campaigning to support the Labor candidate, Peta Murphy, a legal aid barrister.
The campaign you should be watching
My Queensland-based colleague, Joshua Robertson, visited the seat of Petrie, the sunshine state’s equivalent of the NSW bellwether Eden-Monaro.
The country’s second most marginal seat is held by a tiny 0.5%, with the Liberal MP, Luke Howarth, in the spot since 2013.
Robertson met 17-year-old Zac, who comes from the crisis end of the youth unemployment problem.
In Petrie, youth unemployment has fallen from 18% to 14% since the Coalition’s Luke Howarth won the seat in 2013 by 871 votes (0.6%).
But it remains a persistent concern in a seat that both major parties regard as a must-win if they are to take government.
Petrie has been held by every government of the day since 1987.
Turnbull on his visit to Petrie with Howarth last month lauded the role of job network providers such as Help in getting young people into jobs.
But Zac is not the kind who could walk into a mainstream job network provider and just get with the program.
And another thing
Let’s stick with Brexit. It is rather a big deal.
The Guardian is continuing its round-the-clock coverage over here, where it has just reported the 11th Labour resignation.
More than 3 million people have signed an online petition calling for a second vote. Some have called it a sign of the Remainers being sore losers, but then again the Google search results for “what happens if we leave the EU” spiked at 250% in the eight hours after the results came in, so maybe there is some genuine Regrexit.
+250% spike in "what happens if we leave the EU" in the past hourhttps://t.co/9b1d6Bsx6D
— GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) June 24, 2016
