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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Tory Shepherd (now) and Amy Remeikis (earlier)

Morrison campaigns on border security; 10 Covid deaths – as it happened

Scott Morrison Anthony Albanese Anne Ruston Karine Deves
Scott Morrison and Michaelia Cash
Scott Morrison with attorney general Michaelia Cash in Perth. The prime minister talked up his government’s economic and border security credentials as the second week of the federal election campaign kicked off. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

What we learned today, Easter Monday, 18 April

While it wasn’t exactly quiet today, it’s set to get quite a bit noisier tomorrow. Labor leader Anthony Albanese (who faced protesters today carrying signs about that unemployment figure stuff-up) will be hoping for a campaign resurrection.

Scott Morrison is, of course, hoping for his own post-Easter miracle.

In today’s news:

See you back here tomorrow, as the pace picks up again in the countdown to 21 May.

Updated

Some images of Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s day, again thanks to AAP:

A group of protesters gather near where Labor leader Anthony Albanese holds a press conference in Brisbane.
A group of protesters gather near where Labor leader Anthony Albanese holds a press conference in Brisbane. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
Labor leader Anthony Albanese greets local kids as he inspects a street affected by recent flooding events in the suburb of Auchenflower in Brisbane.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese greets local kids as he inspects a street affected by recent flooding events in the suburb of Auchenflower in Brisbane. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
Labor leader Anthony Albanese greets local residents as he inspects a street affected by recent flooding events in the Brisbane suburb of Auchenflower.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese greets local residents as he inspects a street affected by recent flooding events in the Brisbane suburb of Auchenflower. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Quite a lot of colour and movement on prime minister Scott Morrison’s campaign trail today, brought to you by AAP:

Three men dressed as cavemen wave plastic clubs as prime minister Scott Morrison visits Bunnings in Perth.
Three men dressed as cavemen wave plastic clubs as prime minister Scott Morrison visits Bunnings in Perth. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
Prime minister Scott Morrison pats dogs during a visit to Bunnings in Perth.
Prime minister Scott Morrison pats dogs during a visit to Bunnings in Perth. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
Liberal candidate for Pearce, Linda Aitken, prime minister Scott Morrison and attorney general Michaelia Cash during a visit to Wanneroo BMX Club in Perth.
Liberal candidate for Pearce, Linda Aitken, prime minister Scott Morrison and attorney general Michaelia Cash during a visit to Wanneroo BMX Club in Perth. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
Prime minister Scott Morrison and first home buyer Nicole Rakitic buy a gnome during a visit to Bunnings in Malaga, Perth.
Prime minister Scott Morrison and first home buyer Nicole Rakitic buy a gnome during a visit to Bunnings in Malaga, Perth. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

By my calculation it was closer to 2,772,580,091... but I may have made a gaffe.

From Greens candidate for Richmond Mandy Nolan (who was spectacularly endorsed by Liberal MP Catherine Cusack today):

This electorate has been abandoned by the major parties. We’ve seen it throughout the floods. Richmond deserves a seat at the table and that’s what I intend to give it.

We don’t want another 17 years of a backbencher representing this seat. The only way this seat will get the attention it deserves is with me on the crossbench. And Catherine knows it.

Former foreign minister, Alexander Downer, has been hired by the UK government to review its border force – and the UK is set to start using Rwanda for offshore detention of asylum seekers.

Here’s Downer and others (expect a sense of deja vu from the rhetoric):

Update from prime minister Scott Morrison’s campaign:

And the Campaign catch up with Sarah Martin (it’s so impressive the way Jane Lee and the team pull this together so quickly):

Today’s election briefing is in! Josh Butler whisks you through the issues of the day, from taxes to healthcare and from cave dwellers to earth dwellers (gnomes. Yes, gnomes):

We’re at the BMX part of the electoral cycle:

Paul Karp has fact checked twin scare campaigns targeting older Australians:

A pertinent point from data analyst Anthony Macali:

There’s no end in sight to the Katherine Deves controversy. Daniel Hurst reported yesterday on the calls from moderate Liberals for the prime minister to dump the Warringah candidate. Meanwhile, more examples of offensive things she has written keep coming to light.

Updated

AAP have done a wrap of quotes of the day, including the prime minister, Scott Morrison, on jobseeker, the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, on being the underdog, and Labor senator Murray Watt on Medicare (Mediscare?). And then this, under the subheading “real people”:

Ooga booga.

(Protesters dressed as cavemen greeted Morrison in Western Australia, an apparent reference to him referring to the state’s inhabitants as “Croods”, cartoon cavepeople, because of the McGowan government’s border closures. By the way, “ooga booga” may be a typical, cartoonish way to portray Neanderthal speech patterns, but it’s also considered derogatory and racist and was removed from a couple of Bluey episodes.)

Updated

This may not be the biggest (ahem) issue around today, but there is something fascinating about miniatures – maybe a combination of whimsy and nostalgia? Brigid Delaney has taken a look at tiny things and the ABC’s new series Tiny Oz:

Some more from Catherine “Don’t Hold Back” Cusack:

Updated

Liberal MP Catherine Cusack hasn’t exactly made a secret of the fact she’s not a huge fan of prime minister Scott Morrison.

But openly supporting a Greens MP? Richmond is a marginal Labor seat. There’s a Nationals candidate (Kimberley Hone) up against incumbent Justine Elliot (and no Liberal candidate).

Here’s Cusack, writing about how Morrison “ruined” the Liberal party:

Updated

ACT records 734 new Covid cases, 58 in hospital

And in the Australian Capital Territory – 734 new Covid cases have been recorded. 58 people are in hospital, two in intensive care.

Updated

SA records 3,560 Covid cases; NT records 386 cases and one death

A few more Covid figures: South Australia has recorded 3,560 new cases (from 9,378 tests, a positive rate of more than one in three). 245 people are in hospital, 11 in intensive care.

A man has died in the Northern Territory, where 386 new cases were recorded. 30 people are in hospital, two in intensive care.

Updated

Thank you, Amy Remeikis! And good afternoon, all, from where I sit in my end-of-Easter-weekend elastic-waisted pants.

On that note, I will hand you over to Tory Shepherd, who will take you through the afternoon. The campaigns are going to whirr right back into high gear tomorrow, given the end of the public holidays (of course it will be tools sort of down again on Anzac Day).

Thank you to everyone who came along today. We really appreciate it. I’ll be back early tomorrow. Until then – take care of yourselves.

Updated

There seems to be some excitement on Twitter over Scott Morrison saying the jobseeker rate was $46 a week, instead of $46 a day.

Kristin O’Connell, from the Antipoverty Centre, which is working to educate people on just what poverty looks like and what it means in Australia (it’s more prevalent than you think) says a “gaffe” isn’t the point; it’s that no one from the major parties is willing to raise the rate that people on the unemployment payment are made to live on. The jobseeker rate puts us at the bottom of the OECD in terms of benefits, and well below the Henderson poverty line.

It doesn’t matter that Morrison can’t name the jobseeker rate, it matters that people on it can’t afford to live.

Politicians do not understand what the unemployment rate means for people who can’t find paid work. They do not understand what the JobSeeker rate means for the people they choose to keep in poverty.

They do not understand because they do not care.

Morrison refuses to take his duty of care for us seriously. That is clear from his ridiculous answer when asked about support for people who can’t afford to live.

O’Connell also said the low rate of rent assistance was not the solution it was touted as, given the increasing inability for people receiving social security “to afford enough food, to pay our bills, to get adequate healthcare”.

Rent assistance is so low it traps people in unsafe homes. It traps people because it is too low, but also because the rules to access it exclude anyone who can’t afford to pay rent without it – the rules mean you have to have a rental agreement before you can even get the measly payment, which is capped at $72 a week.

Rent assistance will not solve the cost of living crisis, it merely funnels more public money into greedy landlords’ pockets. Social housing will not solve the cost of living crisis, we cannot eat a slim promise of relief at some distant point in the future.

Politicians choose to force people who need help into poverty despite overwhelming community support for us to have enough to live. The solution is clear and every one of them knows it. We must return payments to at least the Henderson poverty line, as jobseeker was in 2020. Payments must be available to all who need them, regardless of visa status or occupation.

While politicians attempt to ignore us and downplay the problem when forced to talk about it, they cannot hide from the poverty crisis they’ve created and it’s their responsibility to get us out of it.

Updated

If you’re not enrolled to vote, there are still a few hours to get on the roll:

Updated

A snap protest is being called against Katherine Deves, Scott Morrison’s hand-picked Warringah candidate, over her anti-LGBTQ+ comments.

Community Action for Rainbow Rights (Carr) have called for the protest. April Holcombe, co-convenor of Carr, said:

These bigoted comments are not from decades ago but literally this year, last year and the year before that, revealing that Deves has deeply held and longstanding anti-LGBTI views.

Holcombe added:

It’s a disgrace that she is a candidate in year’s federal election, and even more disgraceful that Deves is being backed by Scott Morrison.

Deves’ comments are a part of the broader rightwing campaign against LGBTI rights. These campaigns have been repeatedly rejected by the majority of people in Australia but rightwing bigots continue to push for attacks on trans rights in sport, education and employment. This discrimination has to be defeated not promoted by politicians.

Unfortunately as we saw during the religious discrimination bill debate, both major parties have shown a willingness to throw LGBTI people under the bus in order to suck up to a minority of right wing bigots. We need to keep fighting against transphobia and to make sure we defend and extend LGBTI equality and not see it eroded.

Updated

Peter Hannam has an update on the AEC’s hunt for staff:

China, Australia’s largest trade partner, has posted its first-quarter GDP figures, with growth accelerating to 4.8%, year on year, from a 4% clip in the final three months of 2021.

China’s stats are usually viewed with a decent pinch of salt. (The data, for instance, is released within a couple of weeks of the end of each quarter, and rarely revised.)

Still, the mix of growth is probably good news in the short term at least for Australia’s exports and budget, thanks to royalties.

On the one hand, growth was reported to be faster than the 4.2% rate economists had been forecasting for the quarter.

On the other, areas of growth include factory output up 6.5% in the quarter from a year earlier, while investment in fixed assets (eg roads) and real estate was up 9.3%, AP reports. That should mean more demand for minerals and energy – things that Australia is good at digging up.

(Longer term, though, more empty buildings, roads and railways to nowhere aren’t good for China’s finances and the overall economy.)

The quarterly figures, though, don’t take into account the impact of China’s Covid restrictions. The Caixin news service today reports that since mid-March, more than 60 million people have been caught up in “closed cities”, including Shanghai.

Remarkably, the government is still only reporting three deaths in Shanghai – despite the weeks-long lockdown.

Another statistic requiring a dose of scepticism.

Updated

Peter Dutton has been asked how much cancelling the French submarine contract will cost, while campaigning in South Australia. He can’t give an answer. He can, however, turn it into how things are Labor’s fault:

The negotiations are under way at the moment. So once those figures have been settled, then we will provide that information. At the moment, they are in negotiations with those companies. It’ll be after the election or will take some time ... Well, likely not.

Again, I’m not going to prejudice ... What happens in a commercial negotiation is that if the other side knows you have a hard deadline, then they will hold you over a barrel.

That’s how Labor used to mismanage, we’re not going do that. We have put aside – we will have the negotiations, and will conduct all of that. But what became apparent in 2016 was that there was no nuclear-powered submarine option available to us.

I’d love to be here in Osborne today smashing a champagne bottle on the side of a new submarine. But of course they didn’t commission one.

Updated

Jimmy Barnes’s son, David Campbell (who is on Twitter) has tweeted this thread over Anthony Albanese’s Bluesfest appearance:

Updated

It’s more of a mis-speak, but the actual point is the one Luke is making here:

Labor has ruled out raising the jobseeker rate in its first budget as well.

Updated

Sky News’s Tom Connell once again attempts to interview Pauline Hanson.

He asks Hanson whether George Christensen should receive the $105,000 resettlement allowance.

Christensen wasn’t going to be eligible for the allowance because he resigned and the LNP didn’t disendorse him.

By running for One Nation (third on the Senate ticket, which is unwinnable) Christensen is now eligible for the payment.

Connell asks Hanson, who campaigns on “draining the swamp”, whether Christensen should reject this payment.

She isn’t going to tell him what to do, she says. And then she brings up how other politicians who lose their seat will also receive the allowance. Connell pushes back – Christensen resigned, which is why he missed out on the payment, but by running for One Nation now, he’ll be eligible.

Hanson says Christensen wasn’t endorsed by his party. Connell points out that is because he had already announced he was quitting.

This goes back and forth, ending on Hanson complaining that people always ask One Nation these questions, and not the major parties.

Looks like the swamp stays swampy.

Updated

View from Sarah Martin

The second week of the election campaign has kicked off with a major shift in Labor’s strategy – a return to the negative.

Labor is keen to ensure the coming contest is a referendum on the Morrison government and the Coalition’s nine years in office, and so leader Anthony Albanese used a visit to Brisbane to remind voters about the shortcomings of the government’s response to flood recovery efforts.

The opposition has also seized on the appointment of Anne Ruston as health minister to remind people that she was part of the Abbott government when it wanted to introduce a Medicare copayment, with Ruston at the time saying Medicare was unsustainable.

In media interviews on Monday morning, Ruston left wriggle room when asked to rule out cuts, prompting a quick clean-up operation from Morrison at a later press conference. Labor achieves two things with this shift – keeping the pressure on Morrison and the government’s record, while also reminding voters of Labor’s strong suit of health.

It might find it easier to prosecute this message if it wasn’t facing questions about one of its own key health policies – the $135m urgent care clinics, the detail of which appears lacking.

Albanese has been unable to say how many doctors and nurses will be needed for the clinics, and the party is yet to release costings. The opposition is also forging ahead with a scare campaign on the cashless welfare card, telling pensioners that the government plans to expand its application, something which the party’s shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has said Labor has no plans of abandoning despite the Coalition ruling it out.

Scare campaigns are, of course, not confined to one side of politics, given the Coalition’s entire re-election platform is centred on a scare campaign about the “unknown” of an Albanese government.

It has also begun a social media scare campaign suggesting Labor has plans for a retiree tax, when no such plans exist. Sigh.

Morrison used his press conference in Perth to talk up national security, and to attack Labor over its border protection record after Albanese was forced to clarify earlier remarks about temporary protection visas.

So, not even two weeks in and it’s scare campaigns at 12 paces. As unedifying as this may be, negative politics has been shown to swing votes, and this year will be no exception.

Labor will be hoping it can repeat the successful “Mediscare” campaign of 2016 in which it suggested the Coalition would privatise Medicare and came within a whisker of forming government, but whether this rabbit can be pulled out of the hat twice remains to be seen.

Updated

While we are on aged care – there have been a lot of questions to Anthony Albanese about the nurses (and doctors) for the GP urgent care clinics, aged care and other private clinics Labor is promising funding for.

Labor has promised funding to incentivise private clinics to extend existing services, boost the services it offers or start new services. It is not running the clinics. That is the job of the private operators, who would receive funding to carry out the job.

There is a health care worker shortage in this country. It’s been an issue for some time, even before Covid hit, with the pandemic exacerbating existing problems within the workforce.

So foreign labour will have to make up some of the shortfall, and training more health care providers is imperative, no matter who wins the election.

But there hasn’t been the same level of questioning of how Scott Morrison and the Coalition plan to meet this challenge. How many nurses and doctors it believes are needed. How many aged care staff will need to be trained, or brought into the country, to meet existing and growing needs.

The $800 one-off payment that has been promised is something providers have to apply for and then pass on to their staff. (And it is taxed, like any earnings.)

Beyond this, there have been no answers from the Coalition on what is going to happen.

Updated

And on Covid, AAP has this update:

More than 31,000 new cases have been reported across the nation so far on Monday, along with nine virus-related deaths.

Meanwhile, Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen is isolating after testing positive.

Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally and home affairs minister Karen Andrews contracted the virus last week.

Elsewhere, Health Victoria is monitoring the new BA.4 or BA.5 Omicron variant after samples were confirmed in a catchment at Tullamarine, north of Melbourne.

The subvariant has been recently detected in a small number of cases in South Africa, Botswana, Belgium, Denmark, Britain and Germany, but is not considered a cause for alarm.

Latest Covid data from across Australia

NSW: 11,166 cases, four deaths, 1,576 in hospital, 67 in ICU

Victoria: 7,918 cases, one death, 431 in hospital, 30 in ICU

Western Australia: 5,605 cases, no deaths, 227 in hospital, six in ICU

Queensland: 5,141 cases, four deaths, 551 in hospital, 19 in ICU

Tasmania: 1,372 cases, no deaths, 44 in hospital, one in ICU

Updated

There are a lot of people who watched this ship arrive in Sydney Harbour, so here is AAP on the restart of the cruising industry in Australia:

Luxury cruise ship Pacific Explorer has pulled into Sydney Harbour, making it the first to return to Australian shores since a ban triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020.

P&O Australia’s $400 million luxury liner, which has capacity for almost 2000 passengers, arrived in Sydney on Monday morning.

The ship docked surrounded by tugboats, with a huge banner at the bow reading “We’re Home”.

The Explorer’s return to full service will coincide with that of Ponant’s Le Laperouse, which will begin operations between Darwin and Broome on 28 April, joining local operators in time for the Kimberley cruise season.

Federal biosecurity measures barring entry of cruise ships and mandating Covid-19 tests for inbound travellers lapsed on Sunday.

NSW, Victoria and Queensland have outlined testing and vaccination requirements for passengers and crew in preparation for the ships to return.

However, Tasmania is still reviewing whether such a move is safe for the island state.

Read more below:

Updated

On the rent assistance point Scott Morrison made, our social affairs reporter Luke Henriques-Gomes makes this point:

Anne Connolly is the ABC journalist who annoyed Scott Morrison during his press conference on the aged care royal commission report (when Connolly knew more about what the health department had submitted than the PM).

Aged care hasn’t really come up during the campaign as yet, other than criticism of Labor’s policy to follow the royal commission recommendation and have a nurse in every aged care home.

Meanwhile:

Updated

So what did we see there?

A continuation of Scott Morrison’s one campaign message – you can trust me because I am experienced at this.

He has deliberately brought Operation Sovereign Borders into the campaign, once again raising the spectre of a flood of people smuggler boats heading for Australia, despite having no intelligence he was willing to share on that. Think of it as more of a vibe.

He also kept the message on the economy.

Any other question that he didn’t want to answer, he didn’t.

Updated

And that is where Scott Morrison leaves the press conference.

Q: A new poll out today has Labor’s primary vote falling significantly, but they are not going to the Coalition necessarily, they are in the undecided column. Is that a concern that after Labor’s very poor week, that the voters are not going to the Coalition?

Scott Morrison:

I will leave those to the esteemed members of the gallery, and those who are back in Canberra, but what I do know is this - I said right at the start of the campaign that, and I will keep saying it, that this election is about the future of our economy, the economy you all live in, and this economy is what pays for Medicare, this economy is what pays our defences, it’s what pays for the essential services that Australians rely on, and it’s important that that economy is well-managed, and what we have demonstrated as a government is the ability to manage that economy and to manage the finances, with a triple-A credit rating, and unemployment rate of 4%, and ensuring that we have had the biggest budget turnaround in the last 12 months we have seen in 70 years.

We know our economic plan is working, we know it is working here in Western Australia. The unemployment rate has fallen from 4.1% down to 3.4% here in Western Australia.

When I was last here, I was asked about the unemployment rate in Western Australia, and it had gone up to 4.1, and I said it will be coming back down, and I know that because I understand the Australian economy, I understand what drives the Western Australia economy and what enables me to stand here with confidence before the Australian people and say I will keep building those ships, keep protecting the borders, keep Australia’s economy strong, I will keep Australians safe and I can say all of that because I know how to run a strong economy and manage the national finances.

Updated

Q: This is your third visit to the west in just five weeks, is that a telling sign of how you think things could go here in the west? That it could go badly?

Morrison:

What it tells you is that I know and have for a very long time before I ever came into parliament, that the Western Australian economy is critical to Australia’s future, absolutely critical. And I want to ensure that Western Australia continues to be an economic powerhouse for this country, which is why am always here supporting the resources industry, always here trying to ensure we are cutting the red tape and green tape, they can frustrate the resources industry here in Western Australia, why I have been passionate about Australia to get the cruise ships back here in the tourism industry, why am passionate about the manufacturing jobs created here in Western Australia

It is why critical minerals and rare earths, the last time I was here, [I said the Greens think] minerals is something you put in the bath, [it’s not] that’s what you put in solar panels on mobile phones, and all the new technology driving the economy all around the world, and we are investing heavily here, especially in Western Australia to ensure that we are realising the opportunities of the critical minerals and rare earth sector.

So I am here because I know how important Western Australia is, and that’s why I ensured they got their fair share of the GST, not at some parochial interest, but in the national interest, so I didn’t need to convince Western Australia as they should get a fair share of the GST, I had to convince the rest of the country, and I had to get legislation to the Australian parliament which is what I did as prime minister. And so Western Australians know that with me as prime minister, they have never had someone who frankly has better understood both the contribution that Western Australia makes to the national economy, and how important it is that they are recognised for their contribution.

To be fair, the Greens have been pushing rare earth mining as a labour solution for coal miners as part of the transition away from coal mining.

Updated

Someone reminds the prime minister he did not address the question on rents:

The Perth rents here, they’re about $500 per week, and as a result, that’s why programs, particularly like Commonwealth assistance with this sum $5.1 billion paid to support people on lower incomes, and that from memory is invested in the cost of living, so that continues to be combined with the other payments that we have, the people get access to, and whether that be in income support to the jobseeker which as you know, we increased [by about $4 a day] and the additional supports we have provided particularly over these last few years. The other one I keep talking about … the work being done by the National Housing Finance and investment Corporation, and I established that when I was treasurer with all the other treasurers from all the other states and territories, and when it comes to providing affordable housing support, we all have different jobs to do, state governments build social housing, they are socially responsible social housing investments, and we provide over $1 billion per year, and there are specific funding provided, hundreds of millions each year, not-for-profit organisations, and I visited many here when I was social services minister, who do a fantastic job.

Those community housing organisations are supported by this finance corporation, a government agency we established and [there] is around about 15,000 dwelling units of affordable housing that they have directly financed, over a thousand of those here in Western Australia. And they are helping single parents, others in distress, and they are doing it in partnership with the private sector, so they are not building big towers in public housing, they are actually mixing that up with new development estates because we have a different approach than the Labor party. Our approach is to work with community organisations, the private sector to ensure we can get more homes built and more affordable homes built. Our role has been finance and the over $1 billion we provide every single year under the Commonwealth housing agreement.

That is the prime minister explaining how it has been handed to the private and charity sector to manage, in case you missed that.

Updated

Q: With the rental stress, it’s quite a big issue, what is your advice to them, and on Medicare, can you rule out there will be no cuts? There seems to have been some confusion about that.

Scott Morrison:

I thought Anne Ruston, who I announced yesterday should we be successful at the election would be taking on the role of health and aged care, and she said yesterday there would not be any cuts and I would repeat that today. I was clear about that yesterday and why can I say that? Because under our government, we went from $19.1 billion in expenditure on Medicare to $31.4 billion, so we took a bulk billing rate from 82.2% to 88.8%, and the reason we have been able to achieve that is the same reason we can invest in the ships behind us, because we have been running a strong economy, and we know how to manage a budget.

That is the best guarantee you could ever have on essential services, but on top of that, as I remarked yesterday, I introduced the legislation to guarantee Medicare, and to guarantee the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, because if you can’t manage money, which people know Labor cannot, the consequences of that is essential services suffer, and [when] Labor were last in power, they could not list medicines in the pharmaceutical benefits scheme because they cannot manage money.

They cut defence spending down to the lowest level we have seen since prior to the second world war because they lost control of our borders, causing a budget blowout of over $11 billion, 11.4 from memory, and on top of that, they could not manage the rest of the budget and so they started cutting defence, they did not commission one naval ship over the course of their six years in government. They could not do that because they could not manage money.

Sure, he could not remember the unemployment rate, but that said, what is the consequence of that? What is the consequence of not understanding how the economy works and not being able to manage money? You can’t build ships like that and you can’t guarantee Medicare.

Updated

The journalist tried several times to interrupt to have the question answered, but again Scott Morrison just went on with his lines.

Here is another question Scott Morrison doesn’t answer:

Q: How many interest rate rises are you expecting over the next 12 months? Do you expect the official cash rate to go well over 1%? And today there was analysis which found that in the last quarter alone, all Woolworths and Coles prices had gone up 3-4%. What is your long-term strategy, or is that just international forces and we have to live with it?

Morrison:

The international forces are impacting on other countries far more than here in Australia. I know the cost of living pressures are real and that is why we took the decision in the budget, a budget we were able to provide relief to Australians and because we had had the biggest turnaround in Australia‘s budget performance, over $100 million in 12 months because our economic plan was working.

That meant we were able to halve the petrol tax, it meant we were able to provide additional support for pensioners, it means we’re able to give additional [cuts] to working Australians when they put their tax in on the 1st of July.

The inflationary pressures we are seeing around the world … they are impacting far greater in other countries and I will tell you one of the reasons why I believe that is true. What we have been able to do as a country throughout the course of this pandemic as we have been able to maintain our triple-A credit rating - Australia is only one of nine countries in the world that has been able to maintain that.

That has happened at a time when we have had to invest significantly and borrow heavily to ensure the Australian economy came through this pandemic, that we could keep people in jobs, as you know. 700,000 jobs were saved through jobkeeper.

Spending has an impact on interest rates, spending has an impact on inflation, that’s how the economy works. The Reserve Bank of Australia sets independently the cash rate in this country, and that’s their job. We can’t set interest rates, they are done independently by the Reserve Bank.

My job and the Treasury’s job is to ensure that we are managing the budget appropriately, investing in things that actually build the strength of the economy, like what we’re doing here, not just the development of our defence industries that are on display here, but $4.3 billion right here at Henderson which is actually building the capability, with the dry dock facility which sets up business and economic opportunities into the future.

You have a strong economy that is backed in by a well-managed budget, that’s what puts downward pressure on interest rates, that’s what puts downward pressure on inflation, and that’s what our economic policies are designed to achieve. And the other thing we do in our budget is we ensure that we don’t put taxes up, and I know the Labor party wants to abolish the speed limit on taxes, it’s a 23.9% speed limit on taxes that I put in as treasurer, and I will tell you why I put in place, because it does two things - it gives Australians the guarantee the economy won’t take more out of their pockets than they can afford, and it ensures people can keep more of what they earn, because if you tax your economy too highly then it slows growth and it kills jobs.

I don’t understand why the Labor Party wants to take the breaks off taxes, I don’t know why they want to take that speed limit after, the only reason you would do that is if you wanted to break it, and that’s exactly what Labor want to do. When they can’t manage money, they come after yours with higher taxes.

Updated

Journalists were trying to interrupt to ask him to answer the question – would he form a government with any of the independents – but Scott Morrison plows on with his lines without answering the question.

Q: You support new coal mines, it isn’t something that you would welcome, given the hostility towards fossil fuels, you have ruled out any deals with the Greens, will you rule out some of these independents in order to stay in power if there is a hung parliament?

Scott Morrison:

We intend to win majority government at the election.

Q: Do you rule out allying with the climate independents?

Morrison:

I am anticipating the Liberals will be returned because they are doing a great job on the ground in those seats, and this is a very important point, because with those independents, which is hard to call them that, because they are only running against Liberal members - it’s not like these independents are running against Labor members, they are not doing that, they are targeting a number of Liberal seats - and you just don’t know what you are going to get, you just don’t know.

You don’t know who they are going to support, and who they are not going to support, you don’t know what the policies are, they are not asked, they don’t explain what they will do with the economy and the great risk of voting for an independent in one of those contests is that you throw the parliament into chaos and uncertainty

And that’s why it’s important to vote for your local Liberal candidate and your local Liberal member of parliament to ensure the stability and certainty that has enabled us as a country under our government, a majority government, even though it is a very slim majority, we were able to ensure stability and certainty going through one of the most challenging times this country has seen in generations.

So a vote for those independents is a vote for uncertainty, a vote for instability, and contracting out your decision to an independent candidate who doesn’t know which way they are going to jump, I don’t think that’s a vote for stability and certainty.

Updated

Q: Prime minister, we are in Western Australia. Are you still committed to building the quarantine facility here in Western Australia?

Scott Morrison:

Yes.

The journalist tries to ask a follow-up question but she is cut off by another reporter.

Q: Have you received any official advice suggesting if Labor does win there will be an influx of people smugglers sending asylum seeker boats to Australia?

Morrison:

I don’t go into intelligence matters. But I do know this experience, because I lived it. And I know that when Labor abolished temporary protection visas in 2008, the armada of people smugglers’ boats came to Australia and that was the launching point, and I note that people smugglers are very aware of my resolve, of Peter Dutton’s resolve, who followed me in the portfolio, and Karen Andrews who has followed Peter, I can tell you who the home affairs minister is going to be.

The leader of the Labor party, Anthony Albanese, said he could not ask someone to do something he wouldn’t do himself. It’s fine to say that many years after the fact they agree with it but when it matters, when people were dying at sea, Anthony Albanese was one of the most vocal critics of the government’s border protection policies. He was wrong then, and he is still wrong.

Updated

Scott Morrison then moves on to the expansion of the first home loan guarantee, which economist Saul Eslake was savaging this morning.

Updated

Scott Morrison press conference

The Liberal campaign is all about Operation Sovereign Borders this morning.

The announcement is about two new patrol boats.

Scott Morrison is back in immigration minister mode, speaking on ‘on-water matters’.

Boat arrivals haven’t been an issue in Australia for quite some time. And yet, here we are.

Morrison:

It has been one of the most successful border protection policies anywhere in the world, so successful, that other countries are taking their lead from Australia’s successful approach, and why? It’s the humane thing to do, it enabled us to close 17 detention centres, to get all the children out of detention, it enabled us to get those children off Manus Island that Labor put on Manus Island.

People forget this, when Labor was last in power, they put children on Manus Island in a detention centre, and I know, because I saw them there, I visited them, spoke to their parents, who were in the facility with them. So when you lose control of your borders, as Labor did, that is the consequence. And so I don’t buy it from Labor, I don’t buy that they are strong on border protection because when it mattered, when there was a policy there for them to support that was making all the difference and would make all the difference, they turned the other way.

Updated

So the pick up from the Labor campaign – it is going to go harder on Medicare, now that Anne Ruston has been named the health minister under an ongoing Morrison government, given her previous comments about Medicare not being sustainable (which she made in 2014/15).

Ruston didn’t give a rousing defence of that in an interview with the ABC’s Sabra Lane, which has given it a bit of legs, although the government has denied any cuts to Medicare.

Labor is also not backing away from its claim pensioners could be added to the cashless debit card, which the government has been denying for about a year now. That line from Labor came from comments Ruston made as social services minister that the government would like to see the card program expanded. Ruston meant areas, but Labor has deliberately interpreted it as meaning pensioners are potentially on the list. The government says categorically that no, they are not.

Updated

Anthony Albanese finishes his press conference.

Scott Morrison is about to start his – he’s on a defence base in Perth.

On Labor’s plan for WA (it is targeting three Coalition-held seats), Anthony Albanese says:

My objective, of course, when you start off in an election campaign is to campaign in every seat. But what we know, I haven’t commented on that.

But we are working to win majority government, and we make no apologies for saying that we’re very hopeful of a positive result in Western Australia.

And there’s a couple of reasons for that. One is the prime minister called Western Australians cave dwellers and rejected their government’s efforts to keep them safe. And, secondly, that when Scott Morrison had a choice between Mark McGowan – he likes to talk about choice. Well, here’s the choice that Scott Morrison had. He had a choice between Mark McGowan and Clive Palmer, and he chose Clive Palmer.

And he used taxpayers’ money to fund a submission so that the commonwealth joined in on that case in the west on the side of Clive Palmer. Clive Palmer, who was trying to take tens of billions of dollars off WA taxpayers through separate legal action. Clive Palmer who continues to take legal action against Mark McGowan. I know what side I’m on. I’m on the side of Mark McGowan.

Updated

Q: About the cashless debit card. Are you going to be pulling that from the campaign? (I missed the beginning of this question, but it was about the government disputing, as they have from the beginning, any suggestion pensioners will be added to the Indue card).

Anthony Albanese:

Absolutely not. This is a key issue. Wherever you go in Australia pensioners are worried about Scott Morrison and Anne Ruston’s comments about the expansion of this scheme nationwide.

We make absolutely no apology whatsoever for standing up for the pensioners of this country who are petrified that this cashless debit card will be extended to them. There are comments on the record from Scott Morrison, from Anne Ruston, talking about expanding the scheme, talking about it being a national platform.

There’s a very clear difference here, and people on pensions right around Australia need to understand it. Scott Morrison and Anne Ruston have thought aloud and raised the prospect of expanding this scheme. Labor will abolish the cashless debit card. We couldn’t be any clearer than that. The prime minister and his now hand-picked health minister have been given multiple opportunities in recent times to rule out this expansion, and if they do it now in the teeth of an election you know that you can’t believe them. It’s the same with Medicare.

They said before elections before no cuts to Medicare, and after the election they’ve gone and attacked Medicare, and this is in the same boat. So we will not be stepping back from raising this important issue on behalf of the pensioners of this country who know that Scott Morrison and Anne Ruston, if given the opportunity, will expand this scheme because they’ve said so.

Updated

Q: There was a fair chorus of booing at the Bluesfest, your polls have [dropped]. Are you concerned that by stumbling so frequently on policy in this campaign you’re losing voters?

Anthony Albanese:

Well, it was a terrific night last night and I thank Barnesy for the invite to Bluesfest and he gave a great set. And it’s fantastic that the arts and entertainment sector that were left behind during the pandemic, they didn’t get enough support, are getting back on their feet.

I interacted with a whole lot of artists yesterday as well as a lot of people. And the artists, uniformly, were just grateful that they were able to perform. Some of them told stories about ... not being able to perform for two years. They’ve been doing it really tough, and it’s good that Bluesfest, a great festival, was able to go ahead.

Another reporter asks the same question

Albanese:

I’m not a commentator. What I know is that Australia needs a new government. Australia needs a better future, and the feedback that I get around the country, whether it’s in Cairns, whether it was in Bangalow, whether it be in Byron yesterday and indeed right around the country, where I’ve been to every state in the last couple of weeks, is that Australians really know that this government’s tired. It’s out of puff, it’s out of time. It doesn’t have an agenda for this term let alone a plan for the next one. We have a plan for a better future. We’ll continue to put our case to defend Medicare and strengthen it. To take pressure off living standards by having cheaper childcare and to have cheaper electricity through our climate action policy. We’ve got a plan for jobs and for the economy.

Just as we have seen in the past, economic reforms lead to greater social equity. In this case, the economic reform of this decade will be very much driven by our powering Australia plan. That transition will create 604,000 new jobs, five out of every six in regional Australia, $52bn of private sector investment. We’ll reduce emissions by 43% by 2030. We can be a renewable energy superpower for the world and we can use that cheap, clean energy to power high-value manufacturing to make more things here, and then we can train Australians for jobs and skills.

It’s a coherent strategy that fits together – how we use the opportunity that is there from dealing with climate change to drive manufacturing, to drive jobs and to skill up Australians to fill those gaps.

Updated

So what Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese are saying there, is the funding is to provide an incentive for clinics to be set up and then the (private) clinics use that money to fund additional staff. Chalmers and Albanese say a Labor government will begin training that staff – which will be needed no matter who is in government.

Q: Mr Chalmers, in preparing the costings for the GPs in urgent care clinics, how many nurses and doctors was assumed to be needed to make that?

Jim Chalmers:

So our policy for urgent care centres is about taking pressure off emergency departments. It’s based on work done by the Parliamentary Budget Office and those costings will be finalised and released in the usual way at the usual time. But ... if you just let me finish ... so the point that Anthony has been making and Mark and we have all been making is these are existing centres being asked to stay open for longer to take the pressure off emergency departments. Our responsibility as a federal government is to make sure that we are training enough doctors and nurses. That’s why one of our most important policies is around Tafe and university. Because there is a skill shortage in this economy.

Updated

Q: Mr Albanese, on housing, the Coalition announced today an increase in the amount of money under its [first home owners loan guarantee] policy. I’m wondering do you support it and isn’t the policy enabling house prices to go up, which means federal governments and state governments are pumping more money into the housing system which is pushing up prices and leaving a generation unable to afford a house?

Anthony Albanese:

I’ll ask Jim [Chalmers] to add to this. But we have said for some time that the caps weren’t high enough for people to be able to buy a home in some areas because of the considerable increase in housing that’s occurred, particularly in some of the regions as well.

Jim Chalmers:

Obviously as you know, it’s a perennial challenge in the housing market. House prices have been going through the roof and that’s before you get to renters and all the rest of it. We’ve been very supportive of the government’s plan for first home deposit save and we have said for some time that we don’t think the caps are appropriate. So to the extent that the caps are being changed today, we welcome that. This is obviously not the only part of a good, broad housing policy. We have also got our policy around social and affordable housing and we’ll have more to say on housing between now and the election.

... You can’t address all the changes in the housing policy with one point. That’s what I’m saying. This is helping people get a toe hole in the housing market which we think is absolutely important, crucial, that that happens. But it’s not the only step you need to take in housing, social and affordable housing, which we’ll make clear between now and the election.

Updated

Q: Mr Albanese, how did you cost your health policies without assuming levels of nursing and GPs that would be required? How do you know that to set up 50 clinics will cost $135m if you haven’t assumed a certain number of GPs and nurses will be required? So which is it, do you not know exactly how many nurses and GPs are needed or that figure is based on an unknown number?

Anthony Albanese:

No, it varies. It varies. These are 50 clinics ... that won’t be run by the government. They’ll be run by either GP clinics ... [Reporter interrupts but I can’t hear what they say] Yes. What we paid for is to provide some investment so that these projects become viable.

Updated

Q: What is Labor’s position on the expansion of the Galilee coalmine and could Labor approve new coalmines given some are already going through the system?

Albanese:

Labor’s position on this is very clear. That you have appropriate environmental approvals and if coalmines stack up environmentally and then commercially, which is a decision for the companies, then they get approved. And then Labor would welcome any jobs that would be created from that. It’s important because of the way that the act works that we don’t pre-empt the environmental approvals process, and that that is able to take place independently of government intervention because that’s what the act requires.

Q: [You didn’t answer the question]

Albanese:

I think I answered it pretty clearly. That, yes, if it goes through the environmental approval process, that’s established, under the federal act, under the federal legislation, then it would be approved. Yes.

Updated

Q: I asked you a question yesterday about one of your key health policies and you didn’t answer it so I’m going to ask it again. Mark Butler said all of your urgent care clinics will be up and running next year. How many additional nurses and GPs do you need to staff those facilities and where will they come from?

Anthony Albanese:

Look, we’re going to needed additional nurses and doctors.

Q: How many?

Albanese:

We’re going to needed additional, but as you know, you don’t actually train doctors and nurses just for one thing. What we know is with the ageing of the population, with the increased numbers of people who will need assistance in terms of aged care, we’re going to have to invest in education and training.

And that’s why we have announced 20,000 additional university places. That’s why we have announced 465,000 fee-free Tafe places. This is critical.

We know that it’s a challenge but we know also that we have an obligation regardless of who’s in government to train more nurses, to train more doctors. We also need to make sure that we shape, and we’ll have more to say about this as we go down the track of this campaign as well, about...

Q: How many nurses do you need? You’ve got three signature policies now, your health policy to roll out 50 clinics which involves doctors and nurses. Nurses for aged care. And two days ago you announced more nurses for melanoma clinics.

Albanese:

These won’t be run by the government. These won’t be run centrally ... These will be determined by the people who run the centres, which is existing GP clinics and ... community health centres.

Q: But the charge is you’re not across the detail. But you’re not giving the finer detail as to what’s behind them. So do you know how many nurses you will need for what are now three places?

Albanese:

Each place is different. We know for example that the melanoma institute in terms of the funding ... the melanoma institute will use that funding of $14m to employ additional nurses. They say that that will allow them to employ 35 additional nurses.

Updated

Albanese says Labor were always 'underdogs' in this election

The first question is on the SMH poll showing Anthony Albanese has lost support as preferred prime minister. Albanese says:

I said when the campaign opened that we were the underdogs in this campaign. I’ve consistently said that it’s a mountain that Labor seeks to climb. A mountain it seeks to climb because we have only done it three times since the second world war. It’s always tough for Labor to win from opposition, so we know how tough it’s going to be.

But we also know our obligation to get there, to climb that mountain. Because if we’re going to defend Medicare, if we’re going to defend secure work, if we’re going to take action on climate change, if we’re going to look after people in disasters, we need a Labor government. Remember this.

The government had a $4bn emergency response fund that they treated like an ATM and just added up to $4.8m as if there wasn’t a need to invest and to take action. Under the announcement that I made in January, we’ll have a disaster ready fund, $200m a year every year, working with local communities, working with state governments, to make sure that we address these issues.

Updated

Jim Chalmers is also at this press conference, and he reinforces the Medicare message Anthony Albanese has started on, with Queensland Labor senator Murray Watt following up to talk more about the “politicisation” of the natural disaster response.

Anthony Albanese is speaking about the “politicisation” of natural disaster response, citing outgoing NSW Liberal upper house MP Catherine Cusack’s criticisms.

He pivots from that to Anne Ruston and Medicare:

And it’s similar in terms of people being left behind when it comes to the government’s decision that they’ve made to make Anne Ruston the health minister.

This is a health minister now designate, if they’re successful in the election, who we know will undermine Medicare. Who has said that the current model is not sustainable, who has said that Medicare funding is just putting things on the credit card and that it needs to change.

This is another example of what we can expect if Scott Morrison is re-elected. If Scott Morrison is re-elected, we can expect cuts to health, cuts to education, cuts to other essential services because this is a prime minister who only defines action by what’s in the short-term political interests of himself.

Updated

Albanese says Morrison's response to floods, fires and Covid shows 'pattern of behaviour'

The Labor leader is in the electorate of Brisbane, talking to flood victims.

Brisbane is a fairly safe LNP seat, and Trevor Evans is expected to hold on.

Anthony Albanese is here talking about Scott Morrison’s response to natural disasters:

I’ve been to flood-affected communities here in Brisbane on a number of occasions, and it is just quite shocking to see the devastation.

The residents of this street are, of course, unable to continue to occupy their homes. There’ll be a lot of work needed to be done in the future. But what we saw from the federal government, whether it be bushfires, floods or the pandemic, is a real pattern of behaviour.

Scott Morrison, after the election, in the 2019-20 bushfires, went missing. And he failed to act soon enough, and he only acted when the political pressure was really put on.

On the pandemic, he said it wasn’t a race and didn’t order enough vaccines, and we know that not only were we not at the front of the queue, which Mr Morrison said, we were way, way, way at the back of the queue. And on floods we saw again a political response rather than a human response.

Rather than looking at people who were going through a really tough time and saying, what can we do to help? There’s something that defines Australians. They make sacrifices for each other. They look after each other.

Neighbour looking after neighbour, stranger looking after stranger. That’s what happened here in the floods with people in tinnies rescuing families.

That’s what happened during the bushfire crisis, and that’s what happened during the pandemic as well. With people going out there and getting vaccinated so that not just for their own health but for the health of everyone they came into contact with. What we need is a government that is as good and strong and committed as the Australian people are themselves to helping each other. A government that steps up, that doesn’t have to be pressured into stepping up.

Updated

Queensland records four Covid deaths and 5,141 new cases

Another four people have died in Queensland’s Covid outbreak, with 5,141 new infections also recorded overnight.

Updated

So there were boos and cheers for Anthony Albanese at Bluesfest.

How loud the jeers were seems to depend on where you were standing. Boos up the front (where the media was standing) were louder than what was happening up the back.

Updated

Anne Ruston spoke to Sabra Lane this morning on ABC radio, where she was asked about her previous comments (from 2014/15) that Medicare was not sustainable.

Labor has used that as evidence that Ruston, the potential health minister, could oversee cuts to Medicare.

Scott Morrison said that was rubbish when he was asked about it over the weekend. Ruston, asked about it today, wasn’t quite as strong:

Ruston:

Medicare is sustainable. The fact that we have increased spending on Medicare from when the Labor was last in government in 2012-13 from $19bn to $31.4bn in 22-23, I mean, it just shows that we have made a commitment year on year on year. We have been increasing Medicare support for Australians.

Lane: Sorry, I am still confused. Can you rule it out?

Ruston:

We absolutely guaranteed Medicare in law, absolutely guaranteed Medicare in law.

Updated

If you haven’t enrolled to vote, you have until tonight to do so if you want to vote in the May 21 election.

Election commissioner Tom Rogers also addressed concerns about the political parties (both the major parties are doing this) sending out postal votes to people as a community service (when it is actually a data harvesting exercise).

Rogers told the ABC:

Everything the parties are doing are entirely legal and I want to make that comment, however, if I have a preference, I urge people if they qualify for a postal vote to jump on to our website and we will make sure that your data is protected and you will receive your postal vote.

If you think you qualify, jump on the website and apply with us, not by any other means. For the first time we have established a disinformation register on our website where we’ve put conspiracy theories, like the AEC erasing your votes, the use of Dominion voting machines and a whole range of other things, which in some cases border on the unhinged and it is a concern.

Updated

It was Insta official and now it is Twitter official

First home owner schemes just inflating prices further, economist says

Saul Eslake says the first home owner guarantee isn’t helping in the way the government is claiming:

Well, it will help some people who are able to arrange their affairs in order to make sure that they qualify for this scheme. They will potentially save on the mortgage lender’s insurance that they would otherwise be required to take out in order to qualify for a mortgage.

But in the longer run, and from a broader perspective, what schemes like this do is push up the price of housing essentially by the amount of additional assistance.

We have now in Australia almost 60 years of history that says overwhelmingly convincingly that anything that allows people to pay more for housing than they otherwise would, which is what first time homeowner grants, stamp duty concessions and schemes like this [do] ... would result in more expensive housing rather than more people owning houses.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the homeownership rate has been declining ever since the first census – after the first homeowners grant was introduced by the Menzies government in 1964, and even though governments have [come] with a bigger range of more expensive schemes that put cash into hands of would-be home buyers, house prices have continued to go up at a faster rate than incomes and homeownership rates have continued to go down and yet governments continue to do the same thing.

The reality is that for all the crocodile tears they shed about the difficulties faced by the roughly 100,000 or so people a year who become homeowners for the first time, and those people would like governments to do things that stop house prices going up as much ... all politicians are aware of is that there’s at least 11 million voters who own at least one property.

And of course those voters want governments to keep doing things that push housing prices up, or stop them going down, and this is yet another example of that kind of scheme.

The other difficulty with this scheme, of course, is that by encouraging people to take out mortgages with equity of their own, of only 5% or in the case of another scheme as little as 2%, they are putting people at greater risk of finding themselves in negative equity should prices go down rather than up. And we know that house prices in Sydney and Melbourne fell in March, and if interest rates go up, as they are almost certain to do over the second half of this year and probably next year as well, then there’s at least some chance that house prices will continue to fall in at least some parts of Australia.

So people who enter these schemes, people who are able, as I say, to arrange their affairs in order to qualify for the limited number of places available, could be putting themselves at some significant financial risks. And of course we saw in the years leading up to the global financial crisis in the United States just how risky that can ultimately be.

Updated

Economist Saul Eslake is speaking to the ABC about the issues with the government’s first home owner guarantee:

What I’d prefer is that they didn’t announce policies like this – that they didn’t pursue measures that serve only to increase the price of property and to reshuffle the queue of would-be first time home buyers than those who are able to qualify to whatever schemes are available.

I would prefer that political parties pursued policies that boosted the supply of housing and stepped back from policies that unnecessarily inflate the demand for housing.

But the problem is that policies which put further upward pressure on house prices are extraordinarily popular with a very large proportion of the electorate, and that I think is why politicians of both major political persuasions keep doing the same thing, even though it fails to achieve the objectives that they’re claiming to support.

Homes in St Kilda in Melbourne’s south. Saul Eslake says policies that governments claim help first home buyers really just push prices higher.
Homes in St Kilda in Melbourne’s south. Saul Eslake says policies that governments claim help first home buyers really just push prices higher. Photograph: jax10289/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Updated

There are not a lot of fresh numbers politicians might be asked about this week, although the Reserve Bank of Australia will release the minutes of its April board meeting tomorrow.

Much was made about the removal of the words about being “patient” before the central bank would start raising the official interest rate from the initial April meeting summary (the rate remains at a record low 0.1%, as you might have picked up last week).

Those RBA minutes could reveal “the hurdle inflation and wages would need to meet to confirm a June rate hike is on the cards”, the CBA says in a briefing note.

The takeaway, though, is that at this point nobody expects the RBA to hit the rate rise button at its 3 May board meeting – the only one between now and the 21 May election.

But we do get first-quarter consumer price index data from the ABS on Wednesday 27 April. It would probably need a monster figure to make a May rate rise a prospect.

Investment bank UBS has revised its prediction of March quarter CPI higher, and now expects it will be up 1.6% compared with the previous three months, which would be the equal-fastest pace in almost 16 years.

Year on year, the CPI figure will be 4.5%, UBS forecasts. That would be a full percentage point higher than the pace reported by the ABS for 2021 as a whole.

Just how much wages are rising won’t be clear until 18 May. A widening gap between the CPI and the wage price index could be politically awkward for the Coalition (it was at 2.3% for 2021 if you can’t be bothered to “Google it, mate”). Let’s see.

Meanwhile, later today China releases its first-quarter GDP figures, which may be interesting, particularly if they show a big slowdown in the growth of Australia’s biggest export market.

CBA expects quarterly growth to be just 0.4% compared with 1.6% this time a year ago.

Those Covid lockdowns in Shanghai and dozens of other cities look like causing trouble for some time. China is yet to produce or supply mRNA vaccines, and it’s been known for months that its own vaccines have falling immunity levels.

But unlike in the run-up to last Christmas, there hasn’t been a lot of news about worsening global shortages stemming from China’s shutdowns. That’s another issue worth watching.

Updated

Barnaby Joyce also continued his advocacy for new coal mines:

Medicare and social security have to be paid for. We are the side that is brave enough to say that we are making it from iron and coal and gas and if we lose sight of that, we’re not making the money that can support all of the vital economic and social infrastructure so important to this nation.

We are investing in the Pilgrim and Bowen ... basin. Those are the statements of proper economic management from those brave enough to understand the fundamentals of this country. The Labor party is always telling us how to spend the money, but will never tell us how to make it.

Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce.
Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce. Photograph: Phat Nguyen/AAP

Updated

Labor’s Tanya Plibersek had the job of fronting the commercial network breakfast shows this morning.

Here is what she had to say on the Seven Network when asked about Anthony Albanese’s mistakes:

The difference between Anthony and Scott Morrison is when Anthony makes a mistake, he owned up to it. Scott Morrison takes off to Hawaii when Australia is burning, he does not order enough vaccines or enough rapid antigen tests, and then he turned around and looked for someone else to blame. It is not a test of memory, it is a test of leadership and Anthony shows leadership every day.

And here is what Barnaby Joyce had to say in response on the same program:

We have an unemployment rate which is the envy of the world, which will go below 4%. I don’t know what happened. He does not seem to be able to deal with those complex issues and that is really important. Running a country, you don’t have to be popular. It is not about going to the Bluesfest and getting booed, or meeting surfers at Bells Beach. Once you start doing that sort of stuff, you’re reaching a full popularity and missing the idea that it is actually the hard job of running the nation.

Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek says the election ‘is not a test of memory, it is a test of leadership’.
Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek says the election ‘is not a test of memory, it is a test of leadership’. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

Anthony Albanese will be holding his press conference at 10.30am.

Updated

Barnaby Joyce and the wombat trail (the traditional name for the Nationals campaign) is in Gladstone.

So Queensland will be getting a lot of attention this week.

Gladstone is in Flynn where former LNP state MP Colin Boyce is expected to hold the seat from which current MP Ken O’Dowd is retiring.

Updated

Anne Ruston, the Liberal campaign spokesperson, chose to do ABC radio this morning.

Updated

The election campaign will restart in earnest tomorrow, when the Easter break is officially over. And Tuesday will bring the first of the debates, with Sky News hosting Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer for *reasons* with Campbell Newman and Bob Katter making appearances.

On Wednesday, Sky News will host its traditional People’s Forum with Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese taking questions from the audience.

Both will be held in Queensland.

Updated

Victoria records one Covid death and 7,918 new cases

Victorian has also reported its Covid numbers, with 7,918 new cases and one death recorded overnight.

Updated

Peter Dutton is campaigning in Adelaide today.

Updated

NSW records four Covid deaths and 11,166 new cases

New South Wales has released its Covid numbers for the last 24 hours, with 11,166 new cases and sadly four deaths.

Updated

It might be a little later today before we hear from the Liberal campaign, given the time difference with Western Australia.

Labor’s Katy Gallagher was sent out by the campaign to speak today.

She was on ABC News Breakfast when she was asked if it was a “mistake” for Anthony Albanese to address the Bluesfest crowd (he was cheered, then booed, then cheered again).

Gallagher:

I think that this election campaign, you have to keep it real. You can’t just have stage managed, controlled events like the prime minister is having where nobody gets to see anybody. I mean, Albo is happy to talk to anyone, to put himself in front of any crowd. And talk about what’s important in this campaign. Last night, he was talking about constitutional recognition and support for the arts. And that’s the type of person that he is. He’s not going to be held behind doors so that you never see any real interaction with anybody. You know, that’s the kind of leader that he is and that’s the kind of prime minister that he would be.

Anthony Albanese introduces Jimmy Barnes at the Byron Bay Bluesfest.
Anthony Albanese introduces Jimmy Barnes at the Byron Bay Bluesfest. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

And on the polls, Gallagher says:

We don’t focus on them. Honestly, the issues in the campaign for us and for everyone that we’re talking to on the ground – it’s cost of living, everything going up. Wages not keeping pace and people struggling to make [ends] meet. It’s about Medicare, access to healthcare and it’s about the future of the country. That’s what we have to stay focused on because that’s the contest of ideas in this campaign. And I guess we leave all of you to talk about the ins and outs and commentate on the opinion polls. But just for us, the next 33 days are about what the Australian people are talking to us about and our solutions.

Labor senator Katy Gallagher says during the election campaign ‘you have to keep it real’.
Labor senator Katy Gallagher says during the election campaign ‘you have to keep it real’. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

Wanting to know how much has been promised for your electorate?

Sarah Martin and Nick Evershed have you covered

Speaking of polls, Trent Zimmerman is facing a fight to retain his North Sydney seat, as Daniel Hurst reports:

Updated

Coalition lifts caps for first home loan guarantee

Scott Morrison is hoping to woo back WA voters with an extension of the government’s existing first home loan guarantee. The cap will lift by $100,000 in most capital cities and major regional centres. The caps vary from state to state but people in Perth, Adelaide and Hobart can now look at homes worth up to $600,000, while in Sydney the cap is now $900,000, in Melbourne it is $800,000 and in Brisbane it is $700,000.

Under the program, eligible first home owners who can’t make up the 20% deposit needed to secure a home loan can have their loan effectively guaranteed by the government with a deposit as low as 5%.

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As my colleague Lisa Cox reports, Labor is seizing on Anne Ruston being named health minister in a re-elected Morrison government, given some of her past comments on Medicare:

In some lovely news, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young had some happy news to share yesterday.

The South Australian senator married Ben Oquist, the executive director of The Australia Institute.

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There is a bit of polling around today.

The SMH and Age has its latest Resolve Strategic poll, showing Labor’s primary vote has dropped four points to 34%, but the Coalition is only marginally ahead on 35%.

On the preferred prime minister measure, Resolve has Scott Morrison ahead 38% to Anthony Albanese’s 30% (a drop of seven points).

But this is an election that is going to be won and lost in just a handful of seats, which has, at this point, some inner-city Liberals worried about their future as they face strong challenges from a variety of independent candidates.

AAP has a look at some of the polling in those seats:

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s Victorian seat of Kooyong could fall to an independent, a new poll shows.

The uComms poll of 847 residents conducted on 12 April found independent candidate Monique Ryan held a 59% to 41% two-party preferred lead over Frydenberg in the electorate in Melbourne’s inner east.

The poll also showed a 44% disapproval rating for Frydenberg’s record as local MP and a 57.2% disapproval rating of prime minister Scott Morrison.

Climate change and the environment was the number one concern of Kooyong voters, with 33.8% indicating that it was their most important issue when deciding their vote.

“Mr Frydenberg and the Morrison government are missing out on the massive employment, investment and economic opportunities of transitioning to renewables,” Dr Ryan said in a statement.

Ryan’s community campaign has so far mustered 1,500 volunteers and more than 2,000 donors providing nearly $1.2m.

“There is a strong mood for change,” she said.

The uComms poll had a 3.35% margin of error.

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Good morning

Good morning and welcome to day seven of the election campaign.

On a weekend where we weren’t supposed to have much campaigning, Scott Morrison had a brain fade moment of his own, saying “Mr Speaker” while answering a journalist’s question (this was played off as amusing but you have to wonder what would have been said if it had been Anthony Albanese who forgot where he was). It says quite a bit about how Morrison sees question time and campaigning as pretty much the same thing.

Albanese was both cheered and jeered at Byron Bay Bluesfest, with headlines at one stage running in contradiction to each other. Other headlines were changed from “rock star reception” to “booed”. The truth is, it was both. He was cheered, then booed, then cheered again.

Meanwhile, Morrison seemingly broke the “no hard campaigning over Easter” unwritten rule to announce Anne Ruston as health minister (and aged care minister – sorry, Richard Colbeck) in a re-elected Morrison government. The announcement surprised no one – Ruston has been tipped for a while for the gig. But Morrison tried to spin it as a “you know who will be ministers in important portfolios in my government, what about the other side” moment, which raised the ire of Albanese. Morrison then backed himself into a corner, because he couldn’t say who the social services gig (Ruston’s current portfolio) would go to. That’s for after the election, if he wins, apparently.

Given the number of Australians receiving social services, one would think it’s an important portfolio, but not important enough to have a minister named before the election (for what it’s worth, this narrative over who will be what minister is basically pointless given how many times cabinet has been reshuffled in the last few years).

Morrison is also standing by Katherine Deves, his problematic pick for Warringah, who has been forced to apologise for trans-phobic comments she made on her social media – some as recent as earlier this year. Morrison attempted to use something Albanese said last week about people being forgiven social media transgressions from their 20s as a “time to move on” but Deves is a few years past her 20s and the comments aren’t that old.

But the culture war seems designed to help win votes elsewhere, and is also being used to keep other issues out (climate anyone?). Speaking of climate, Morrison was filmed walking away from a young woman who wanted to ask him about the Coalition’s climate policy over the weekend. Photos are fine, but the PM is studiously avoiding any tricky chats in front of the cameras for the time being.

The Morrison campaign touched down in Western Australia late last night. The Albanese campaign, after hitting Cairns, was in northern NSW (and in the wings of Jimmy Barnes’s Bluesfest set) late last night. But it looks like Brisbane is on the Labor campaign agenda this morning.

Barnaby Joyce is … somewhere. We’ll find out.

It’s going to be another wild week, so we’ll jump straight into it. I’m just making my fourth coffee of the day, and will probably finish off the last of the hot cross buns in preparation for the day.

Ready? Let’s get into it.

Updated

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