CheckMate is a weekly newsletter from RMIT FactLab which recaps the latest in the world of fact checking and misinformation, drawing on the work of FactLab and its sister organisation, RMIT ABC Fact Check.
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CheckMate May 6, 2022
In this week's CheckMate, we debunk social media claims that Labor's new housing policy constitutes a "death tax" and that Liberal MP Anne Ruston said poverty does not exist in Australia.
We also correct the record on COVID-19 jabs and deaths among US millennials, and round up the latest election fact checking.
Plus, what ever happened to the fabled "Ghost of Kyiv"?
No tax (death, or otherwise) in Labor's housing scheme, experts say
Suggestions that aspects of Labor's newly unveiled affordable housing scheme amount to a "death tax" have been shot down by experts.
The Help to Buy scheme, announced this week, would see a Labor government own as much as a 40 per cent stake in homes bought by qualifying low-income earners, who would only need to contribute 60 per cent of the purchase price.
If elected, Labor would make the scheme available to up to 10,000 home buyers per year whose annual income is less than $90,000 (for singles) and $120,000 (for couples).
But the scheme has come under attack from Coalition ministers and some sections of the media who have postulated what would happen to those houses in the event of a buyer's death.
Shadow housing minister Jason Clare confirmed earlier this week that anyone inheriting a property purchased under the scheme would need to meet the same income qualifications as the original buyer.
If an inheritor earned above the threshold, they would need to either buy out the government or sell the house, with the government and the inheritor recouping their respective stakes.
Speaking to Sydney radio station 2GB on Monday, Liberal senator Jane Hume said the scheme would "be like paying a 40 per cent housing tax as the government takes its share back".
On the same program the next day, Housing Minister Michael Sukkar said Labor's plan was "essentially a charge on the death of your parents".
Sky News put it even more bluntly. During an interview with Deputy Opposition Leader Richard Marles, host Peter Stefanovic insisted the inheritance rules amounted to a death tax.
"Back to my first question though, if you sell it, that's a death tax," he said.
Mr Marles protested that the assertion was "not right at all".
Experts agree.
The plan was "clearly not a tax", the Grattan Institute's economic policy program director, Brendan Coates, told CheckMate.
"It's not a compulsory charge on someone's income," he said.
Robert Breunig, the director of the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the Australian National University, concurred, telling CheckMate: "This is not a death tax."
Also, in an email, Dale Boccabella, an associate professor in the University of New South Wales Business School, suggested it would be more accurate to describe the inheritance rules as "the forced acquisition (purchase) of the remaining (or part of it) interest in the property (30% or 40%) through having to start making payments".
"This is not a tax," he said. "First, the person making the payments is getting something for their payment, namely, an interest in the property. Secondly, if the impost is not a tax, it cannot be a death tax."
Mr Coates, meanwhile, explained that in the event of the death of a person who had purchased a house under the scheme, the inheritance process was "no different to what a bank would do".
"If you have an outstanding mortgage on a property, and someone passes away unexpectedly, the property would be sold, or the person who inherits the property would have to pay out the bank's loan, or refinance," he said.
Professor Breunig offered a similar analogy. "[The scheme] is just the government acting like a bank," he said in an email. "If your children sell your house to pay off the mortgage, no one would call it a death tax."
Mr Coates added that a Coalition scheme already in place, the Home Equity Release Scheme, worked in a similar way.
"That scheme basically allows people to borrow against the value of their home in retirement, to boost their retirement income, and the debt is settled when the house is sold.
"If equity release somehow qualified as a death tax, then the government already has one."
No, Anne Ruston did not claim there was 'no such thing as poverty'
A meme alleging that Social Services Minister Anne Ruston said there was "no such thing as poverty" has been shared widely online, but RMIT FactLab, as part of its election monitoring project Mosaic, has been unable to find a source for the supposed quote.
Published across Twitter and Facebook, the meme featuring a photo of Senator Ruston and overlaid with the quote and attribution, has racked up close to 3,000 interactions since February.
One Facebook post featuring the meme alleges Senator Ruston made the statement on Twitter, while another suggests the comment was made during a Senate estimates hearing.
But a search of Hansard, news articles and Senator Ruston's online posts and media appearances for the source of the quote drew a blank.
While Senator Ruston did speak about poverty at the February 17 estimates hearing of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee, she did not say there was "no such thing as poverty".
Rather, in answer to questions about unemployment benefits in relation to the poverty line, the minister said there were "many definitions of poverty", and that coming up with a definitive measure was "complex".
"It's very complex," she told the committee. "This idea that you are going to have a couple of lines that define something — I think it's an oversimplification of what is a very complex issue."
Did the Coalition really cut Solomon Islands aid by 28 per cent?
With national security proving to be fertile ground for political attacks this election campaign, the recently inked security deal between China and Solomon Islands has only raised the stakes.
Labor has criticised the government for damaging Australia's relationship with the island nation, with Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong claiming that Coalition cuts to foreign aid were partly to blame.
"The government should not have dropped the annual bilateral development assistance to the Solomons, which is 28 per cent on average per year lower under them than under us," she said during an interview with ABC Radio.
However, RMIT ABC Fact Check this week found that was not the full story.
In fact, Australian foreign aid to Solomon Islands was, on average, almost 35 per cent lower per year under the Coalition, in inflation-adjusted terms.
However, a major cause was the ending of Australia's role in a 14-year security and assistance mission to Solomon Islands, which started in 2003 with the aim of restoring law and order after the country began sliding into civil unrest.
This led to a surge in funding that experts told Fact Check was similar to the assistance typically offered following a natural disaster, which, they said, rendered the comparison largely meaningless.
Funding for the regional assistance mission fell under both Labor and Coalition governments, before ending in mid-2017.
One expert noted that despite the mission ending, none of the substantial development programs operating alongside it had been cut.
Ukraine officials admit to ‘Ghost of Kyiv' myth
As Russian forces ramped up their invasion of Ukraine in March, the tale of the so-called "Ghost of Kyiv" — a Ukrainian fighter pilot said to have downed more than 40 Russian jets before being killed — took root, providing inspiration to Ukrainians and their supporters around the world.
And while many cast doubt on the story from the outset (including Fact Check), news outlets last week reported that the hero had been identified as Major Stepan Tarabalka. Sources even told The Times of London that his helmet and goggles would be auctioned in the UK.
Following the reports, however, Ukraine's Airforce Command took to Facebook to clarify that the "Ghost of Kyiv" was, in fact, a "superhero-legend whose character was created by Ukrainians" and who represented all the pilots "who protect the sky of the capital".
"Once again, we ask the Ukrainian community NOT to neglect the basic rules of information hygiene … to check the sources of information, before spreading it," the translated Facebook post reads.
CoronaCheck: COVID-19 vaccinations have not caused excess deaths among American millennials
A claim that millennials in America experienced an 84 per cent increase in excess deaths due to COVID-19 vaccines in 2021 is false, RMIT FactLab found this week.
According to US anti-vaccine advocate Ed Dowd, data showed deaths among Americans aged 25 to 44 increased with the introduction of vaccine "mandates and boosters" in 2021.
But the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention data that he uses to support his claim actually relates to excess deaths associated with COVID-19, not COVID-19 vaccinations.
A spokesman for the US National Centre for Health Statistics (NCHS) told RMIT FactLab that separate mortality data collated by the CDC showed an overall increase of 63,141 more millennial deaths than expected in 2021. This represented an increase of 44 per cent from 2019 to 2021, not 84 per cent as claimed.
The spokesman cautioned that deaths should not be attributed to specific events or causes as the data was provisional.
However, while it was not possible to attribute the increase in deaths to any specific cause, including vaccinations, the increase in deaths did correspond with outbreaks of the Omicron and Delta variants in late 2021, which had high fatality rates, especially among the unvaccinated.
Anthony Albanese says debt and deficit have never been higher. Is that correct?
As he vies to become Australia's next prime minister, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has hit out at the Coalition's economic record.
Speaking on Brisbane radio station 4BC, Mr Albanese claimed the Coalition "hadn't been governing in Australia's interests".
"People know that debt has never been higher, deficits have never been higher," he said.
But Fact Check this week found Mr Albanese to be wrong.
Historical data shows that debt and deficit, when measured against GDP, were higher in the years following the world wars when compared with current levels.
It is this measure economists use to make comparisons over time for debt and deficit, rather than nominal figures, which do not take into account the size of the economy.
Edited by Ellen McCutchan and David Campbell
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