Four weeks down, four to go. Good morning, and welcome to what would usually be the pointy end of the election campaign but is instead the bump in the middle. Time to lip-sync your favourite pop-song for the halftime entertainment and make a cup of tea before we sink into week five, day 29, of the election campaign.
The big picture
Newspoll in the Australian this morning has the Coalition up one point in two-party-preferred terms, which puts the major parties at 50-50. Which is interesting, but less interesting than its other finding, which is that support for independents and minor parties has grown three points to 15%. That’s the highest it’s been in the poll’s 31-year history.
If you include the Greens vote in the mix, it shows that one in four people plan to vote for someone other than the major parties.
The Australian reports:
While the two-party-preferred vote sees the first improvement for the Coalition since April — from 49% to 50% — the government’s primary vote has dropped one point to 40%, which is the lowest level since the prime minister replaced Tony Abbott as leader almost 10 months ago.
Labor’s primary vote has also fallen for the second consecutive Newspoll survey, dropping one point to 35%, while the Greens lost one point to fall to a six-month low of 10%.
That 5% support for independents and micro-parties breaks down as 3% for the Nick Xenophon Team (that’s the national vote – in South Australia it’s polling at 22%), 3% for Family First, 1% for Palmer United Party, 1% for One Nation and 7% for all the rest.
It appears to indicate that the Senate voting changes may not result in a friendlier upper house.
The poll also suggests that if the Coalition was returned it would face a repeat of the difficulties from the last parliament in passing legislation through the Senate and would rely on a crossbench principally controlled by Senator Xenophon, in cases where it could not secure the support of Labor or the Greens.
While voters think about new parties, Malcolm Turnbull was in Melbourne on Sunday for a bit of classic wedging. He joined a protest of CFA volunteers against a pending industrial relations deal between the firefighting body and the United Firefighters Union, which volunteers say is designed to push them out of the organisation.
The Age reports that the Andrews government, which backs the union, could push the deal through as early as today. Turnbull promised volunteers that he would protect their rights.
And the Greens want to regulate to ensure a “fair price” is paid for solar energy. Gabrielle Chan reports:
The policy, to be launched on Monday by the Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, and MP Adam Bandt would force a “fair price” to be paid by energy companies.
Solar homes and businesses would be protected from fees and charges “likely to be imposed by electricity networks clawing back their diminishing revenues as our electricity system decentralises and consumers become empowered”, the policy says.
On the campaign trail
Both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten have started the day in Melbourne.
Shorten is continuing to campaign on Labor’s $3bn childcare policy, released yesterday.
Gabrielle Chan reports:
The centrepiece is a 15% increase in the Child Care Benefit (CCB) as well as a rise in the childcare benefit cap from $7,500 to $10,000. Labor has said every family earning under $150,000 will benefit from the change.
Labor’s finance spokesman, Tony Burke, said the policy was a stark contrast to the Coalition, which has delayed rebate rises until 2018.
“Any child who was born when the government first announced they were going to do something about childcare will be in school by the time their policy comes in,” Burke said.
“We’re not willing to wait. So we’d bring it all forward to 1 January. For the people who are reliant on the childcare benefit, that increases by 15%. That means for low to middle income earners up to $30-a-week improvement for them.”
The campaign you should be watching
Rural Australia is frequently ignored in election campaigns, because its seats are usually safely held. That’s not the case any more: Indi, in Victoria, is the most marginal seat in Australia, held by independent MP Cathy McGowan on just a handful of votes, and even the deputy prime minister, Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, is facing a challenge in his electorate of New England from former independent MP Tony Windsor.
My colleague Gabrielle Chan digs through the issues here.
And another thing(s)
The Liberal party has released a new set of campaign ads focusing on Malcolm Turnbull’s relationship with his father, Bruce Turnbull. Turnbull has spoken before about being raised by a single-father in a two-bedroom flat, to show his “battler” roots.
He elaborated in the video:
We didn’t have much money, he was a hotel broker and for most of that time he was battling like a lot of people are, a lot of single parents are, certainly. But he taught me a lot of amazing things ... And he did well after a while; in the latter part of his life he kicked a few goals after a lot of effort.
He was incredibly loyal, very, very strong, very disciplined.
I was the main object of everything he wanted to achieve. He was very focused on doing what was right for me.
And finally, Mayo is apparently the happiest electorate in Australia, according to the Personal Wellbeing Index, conducted by the Deakin University Australian centre on quality of life. The result is reportedly based on polling of 154 Mayo residents, of which the sitting member, Liberal MP Jamie Briggs, who is facing a significant challenge from his former staffer and Nick Xenophon party candidate, Rebekha Sharkie, was perhaps not one.
AAP reports:
Residents of Australian’s federal electorates – more than 100 from each and a total of more than 24,000 – were polled on how satisfied they were with their standard of living, health, relationships, achievements in life, safety, community connections and future security.
At the other end of the scale was the seat of Blaxland, held by Labor MP Jason Clare, in Sydney’s south-west.
