Was the COVID-recession 30 times worse than the GFC? Is everything going up but your wages? Were all of Fiji’s COVID vaccinations rolled out by Australia?
The first leaders’ debate of the 2022 federal election campaign included no shortage of claims deserving scrutiny. Here’s what we found.
The cost of everything isn’t going up — it just might feel like it is
One of the Opposition Leader’s opening contributions to the debate was a claim that was central to his budget reply speech: "the cost of everything is going up but your wages aren't."
Broadly speaking, inflation is on the rise — and is moving at a faster rate than it was pre-pandemic.
And the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index is rising faster than pay packets as measured by the Wage Price Index.
At 1.3 per cent, the CPI rose at almost twice the rate of the WPI's 0.7 per cent in the December quarter. Over the 12 months to December, the CPI rose 3.5 per cent while the WPI rose a slower 2.3 per cent.
But even if most things are going up in price, there's more to it than that.
The CPI figures also show that health costs dropped by 0.3 per cent in the last quarter, as did rents in both Sydney (0.3 per cent) and Melbourne (0.4 per cent), continuing a trend seen across the pandemic.
Figures from property data firm CoreLogic show that house prices also fell in the two biggest capitals in March — albeit from a much higher position than a year ago.
Longer term trends show that we are paying significantly less for communication purchases than a decade ago, that clothing and footwear is also down slightly under this government, and that education costs have barely moved from where they were at the start of the pandemic.
The ABS has noted that its "automotive fuel series" was at a record level in the December quarter. Petrol prices spiked further in March, but have fallen in capital cities and most regional locations following the cut to fuel excise in the March 29 budget, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said.
The CPI figures for the March quarter are released next Wednesday, while the next WPI is out on May 18.
The pandemic was different to the GFC — just don’t call it 30 times worse
As for economic management, Mr Morrison justified the level of government debt accrued under the Coalition by pointing to the economic damage wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, which he claimed had dwarfed any crisis Labor had faced when last in office.
“The economic recession that we went through because of the pandemic was 30 times worse than what occurred during the global financial crisis, 30 times worse” he said.
But when Mr Morrison made that same claim in 2021, Fact Check found he was comparing apples and oranges, with experts arguing that his approach was not the normal way of assessing two economic periods.
In fact, they said his claim was confusing, misleading and most likely wrong, while noting that the two recessions were fundamentally different in nature.
Experts also told Fact Check that, although the final numbers were not yet in, they expected that an orthodox comparison would reveal the pandemic downturn of 2020 to be twice the magnitude of the GFC, or possibly similar.
Debt had doubled, but that’s not the whole story
Mr Albanese also hit back at Mr Morrison’s justification for the scale of the debt, claiming that the Coalition “had already doubled the debt before the pandemic had hit”.
Fact Check took a fresh look at this claim during the Labor leader's recent budget reply speech, finding that the dollar value of government debt had doubled, in nominal terms, under the Coalition over the years to January 2020.
Official monthly data shows that gross debt had grown $280.3 billion to $568.1 billion (103 per cent) since the 2013 election, while net debt — which better reflects the government’s capacity to pay its debt — had risen from $174.6 billion to $430.2 billion (146 per cent).
But as Fact Check also noted, a fairer comparison should also take into account the changing size of the economy.
Data from the 2022-23 budget, which is produced on a financial year basis, doesn't align neatly with electoral dates or the start of the pandemic.
It shows that between June 2013, three months before the Coalition was elected, and June 2019, seven months before the pandemic, gross debt as a share of GDP grew by 65 per cent, and net debt by 85 per cent.
More to the story on Morrison’s asylum seeker claim
Mr Morrison was keen to establish the government’s credentials on asylum seekers coming by boat.
“I designed Operation Sovereign Borders and the turn back policy of our government which ended the deaths at sea.”
As a quick refresher, Operation Sovereign Borders is "a military-led border security operation that was established in 2013" by the Coalition government for the purpose of "combating people smuggling in our region, and preventing people from risking their lives at sea".
Fact Check has checked a claim from Mr Morrison on this topic before. Back in 2013, when he was immigration minister, Mr Morrison claimed an 80 per cent reduction in asylum seekers arriving by boat was due to the beginning of Operation Sovereign Borders.
In the case of that claim, Fact Check found there was more to the story.
Indeed, as the graph shows below, there was a drop under Mr Morrison’s tenure as immigration minister relative to Labor’s time in office.
But there is a noticeable tapering in asylum seeker arrivals which occurred after then prime minister Kevin Rudd announced a regional resettlement arrangement with Papua New Guinea that prevented asylum seekers arriving by boat from settling in Australia.
Fact Check found previously that the reduction under Operation Sovereign Borders was part of an earlier trend which began under the former government.
Integrity Commission lacking teeth?
Mr Morrison defended the government's proposal for a federal integrity commission, despite failing to deliver on a 2018 commitment to establish such a body, but Mr Albanese said "what we need is a national anti-corruption commission with teeth".
He said the new body should "control its own investigations" while the government's model "would have ministers determine whether they can be investigated or not."
He also called for the body to have the power to hold public hearings "if it deems that it is in the public interest".
But would the government's current proposal already have the capacity to do just that?
In a previous investigation, Fact Check examined a claim made by Social Services Minister Anne Ruston that draft legislation for the government's Commonwealth Integrity Commission published in 2020 showed it would have "powers … well in excess of a royal commission".
Fact Check found that claim to be overblown.
As the analysis of Senator Ruston's claim explained, under the government's proposal, the CIC would be split into two divisions.
The first is a "law enforcement integrity division" that would have jurisdiction over certain federal law enforcement agencies, such as the federal police, as well as public sector agencies with investigative functions, like the Department of Home Affairs.
Secondly, a "public sector integrity division" would investigate parliamentarians, the public service, higher education providers and other Commonwealth entities.
In relation to Mr Albanese's criticisms, there are key differences between the divisions when it comes to how referrals are made and whether public hearings can occur.
Referrals in the public division can only be made by certain individuals including the Attorney-General, the responsible minister for the agency investigated, Commonwealth Integrity Office Holders and certain parliamentarians.
Meanwhile, investigations in the law enforcement division can be referred by anyone — including members of the public.
Similarly, hearings relating to the law enforcement division would be held in public. In contrast, hearings relating to the public sector division, including politicians and their staffers, "must be held in private", the government's bill says.
A lot of vaccines to Fiji — but not all of them
As Victoria and NSW ease some of the last remaining COVID-19 restrictions in the country, the health crisis received surprisingly little air time during the debate, with only the economic implications of the pandemic raised by questioners.
While neither leader took the opportunity to spruik or condemn Australia's response to COVID-19 at home, Mr Morrison did highlight his government's efforts abroad, stating:
"In Fiji, we vaccinated the entire country".
But while Australia has undoubtedly played an important role in supplying vaccines to Fiji — which has a double dose vaccination rate of 94.5 per cent for those aged 18 and above — it has not been the sole contributor of inoculations to the Pacific nation.
According to the Australian Government's Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, more than half a million vaccine doses had been delivered to Fiji courtesy of Australia by July 2021.
The Australian High Commissioner to Fiji, John Feakes, added in February that an additional 530,000 vaccine doses would be supplied to the island nation by the end of 2022, bringing the total Australian contribution to 1.6 million doses.
It's worth noting, however, that those additional doses were being supplied in partnership with UNICEF and New Zealand.
Other countries have also made significant contributions to Fiji's vaccine supplies: the UK sent 12,000 doses to Fiji in March 2021, the same month in which 100,000 doses arrived in the country from India.
Additionally, the US supplied 150,080 doses of vaccine to Fiji in July, while 56,000 came via Japan in August.
Principal researchers: Jack Kerr, David Campbell, Matt Martino, Sonam Thomas and Ellen McCutchan
