What we learned, Thursday 17 April
That’s where we’ll leave the blog for today – many thanks for being with us. Here are all the main takeaways from day 21 on the campaign trail:
Peter Dutton clarified his stance on climate change after saying “I’m not a scientist” when asked if we are seeing the impacts of climate change during last night’s debate. He told reporters today: “I believe in climate change and that is a reality”.
Anthony Albanese said he had been “stunned” by the opposition leader’s comments, adding: “I don’t know what it takes to give a wake-up call to the Coalition.”
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said negative gearing changes were “not something that we are proposing” – and that the government gets “advice from the Treasury on issues that are in the public domain”.
This comes after Albanese said during last night’s debate the government had not commissioned modelling on negative gearing.
Dutton, however, repeated his claim that Labor wants to make changes to negative gearing – something it has ruled out. Former MP Malcolm Turnbull also weighed in and said negative gearing is examined by every government.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has doubled down on her “make Australia great again” comment from last weekend in an opinion piece for the Australian.
Bridget McKenzie, who’s yesterday walked back comments she made to the ABC on Russia and China, misidentified which Chinese leader called the PM a “handsome boy” on breakfast television this morning.
The Coalition announced a $260m plan to establish 12 new technical colleges to get students from years 10 to 12 learning trades, as it attacked fee-free Tafe.
Dutton said he wants to end bracket creep by indexing personal income rates – calling this an “aspiration” rather than a firm promise.
Australia’s unemployment rate remained at a low 4.1% in March.
Thanks for following along today, and enjoy your long weekend.
Updated
1.7 million people watched last night’s leaders’ debate
The second leaders’ debate held on the ABC last night was watched by 1.7 million people across live TV and streaming on iview, according to ABC figures.
The Insiders: Debate Analysis Special which followed last night’s event had a national TV audience of 748,000.
The debate, which was also available live in Auslan on ABC iview, was also listened to on ABC Local Radio and ABC News Radio, and across the day the ABC News website and app had 2.2 million users.
There were 167,000 live streams on the ABC News YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok accounts. ABC managing director Hugh Marks said:
The ABC was honoured to host such a significant national conversation and to be able to put the questions and concerns of Australians directly to our leaders. We can see that people tuned in to the debate on TV, radio or online wherever they were in the country.
Updated
