Source : the age
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The Albanese government has released its election costings, revealing it has offset all of its enticements to voters by a new crackdown on the use of outside consultants.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher revealed this afternoon a net improvement of $1 billion over the forward estimates for the budget bottom line.
Don’t get too excited – instead of cumulative budget deficits of $151.6 billion, the government says the deficits will come in at $150.5 billion.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
That’s despite the extra spending announced during the campaign, including the biggest ticket item of $2.4 billion to introduce a $1000 standard tax deduction.
Offsetting the cost, the government expects to save $6.4 billion by reducing expenditure on consultants, contractors and labour hire. It also expects to raise an additional $760 million by increasing application charges for student visas to $2000 from July 1.
The Coalition has said it will axe 41,000 public servants from Canberra – about two-thirds of the city’s bureaucracy – to pay for some of its promises.
Chalmers said the government believed getting rid of consultants was a better way to save money.
In contrast to the Liberals’ plan to cut 41,000 public service jobs and the services Australians rely on, Labor’s responsible savings target consultants, contractors and labour hire and non-wage expenses,” he and Gallagher said in a joint statement.
Earlier today, Peter Dutton said the Coalition would release its costings “in due course”.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Finance Senator Katy Gallagher are speaking in Brisbane today about Labor’s costings.
Albanese has taken at least a dozen selfies in the last half-hour with punters glad to see him over lunchtime in the south-west Sydney suburb of Cabramatta.
It is one of the few street walks either leader has done in this year’s election campaign.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Labor candidate for Fowler, Tu Le (in red jacket), during a visit to Freedom Plaza, in Cabramatta.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
And it was replete with all the elements Albanese’s team would have hoped for: babies, smiling workers, enthusiastic passersby and plenty of smartphones hoping to capture a glimpse of the PM from inside the media pack.
Albanese was flooded with requests for selfies.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
This should be of little surprise – the electorate of Fowler has been safe Labor territory for decades.
That is, until last election. Labor is hoping to regain the seat after it was lost to independent Dai Le in 2022, following a local backlash to the party’s attempt to parachute former NSW premier Kristina Keneally into the seat.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Labor candidate for Fowler, Tu Le (in red jacket), during a visit to Freedom Plaza, in Cabramatta.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Albanese was there today with Tu Le, the candidate who was overlooked in the last election and who is now contesting the seat for Labor.
Punters looking onto the media circus at Freedom Plaza, in the heart of the local shopping district, say Labor is asserting its presence before the weekend’s poll.
Meanwhile, Peter Dutton was in Marks Point, south-west of Newcastle, and also took some time to get a happy snap with a baby.
Dutton at Papatya cafe in Marks Point with Liberal candidate for Shortland Emma King and her little boy.Credit: James Brickwood
The Guardian has used Peter Dutton’s critical comments as a fundraising tool a day after the opposition leader labelled it and the ABC “hate media” while on the campaign trail.
The outlet emailed subscribers with the subject line “A note from the ‘hate media’” on Monday morning, comparing Dutton’s language to that of President Donald Trump, while asking for financial support to help Guardian Australia’s journalism.
It said providing fair and independent journalism was not hate, and that it needed reader support to keep holding figures like Dutton to account.
“If you can, please consider supporting Guardian Australia today. You’ll be helping to ensure we keep making politicians a little uncomfortable by shining a light on the truth.”
Liberal senator Jane Hume refused to back Dutton’s comments during an interview with the ABC on Monday morning, saying that “wouldn’t be a phrase I would use”.
ABC chair Kim Williams declined to comment when approached by this masthead.
When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton were asked about the price of eggs in yesterday evening’s final leaders’ debate, one politician’s response was far more incorrect than the other’s.
Albanese’s answer of $7 – “if you can find them” – isn’t too far off the mark at all, but Dutton’s answer of $4.20 is fanciful.
Australians paid about 12 per cent more for eggs in February than they did the same time last year, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data.
The last time egg prices were around $4.20 was 2018-19, more than five years ago.
Depending on where you live and the quality of eggs you’re buying, prices can vary significantly.
Australia’s current egg shortage can be attributed to bird flu, which has resulted in the death of more than 1.8 million egg-laying hens.
Woolworths and Coles, which account for nearly 70 per cent of national supermarket retail sales and are where most Australians are likely to buy their eggs, sell a dozen extra-large cage-free eggs for $5.90, which is among the lowest prices this masthead could find.
Aldi’s website indicates it’s selling a dozen extra-large cage eggs for $5.49 and free-range eggs for $6.19. If you’re shopping at Woolworths, a dozen home-brand extra-large free-range eggs will cost $6.60, while 12 jumbo cage-free eggs from Pace Farm will set you back $8.80.
Over at Coles, a dozen free-range eggs from Sunny Queen Farms cost $8.50, while the same number of “big brekkie browns” eggs from the same brand costs $10.20.
Those more inclined to organic produce will find a carton of 10 Pirovic free-range jumbo eggs from Harris Farm Markets for $12.99. The same number of organic jumbo eggs from Pirovic costs $16.49.
Industry figures this masthead spoke to pointed to restrictions imposed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in discussing egg prices. The ACCC has been contacted for comment.
Good afternoon, I’m Nicole Precel, I’ll be taking you through the news as it happens for the rest of the day. Here’s what we’ve seen so far:
One of the world’s biggest credit rating agencies has put the major parties on notice that Australia could lose its triple A rating if their election promises result in larger structural budget deficits.
Coalition Leader Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese began today’s campaign on the NSW Central Coast.
Dutton’s bus got stuck on Sydney’s Pitt Street this morning, a push from the media pack, as well as a few sheets of fibreboard, a hydraulic pump and a rescue crew got the bus moving again.
The Labor Party maintained a lead over the Coalition in the most recent Newspoll commissioned by News Corp’s The Australian.
Dutton described Welcome to Country ceremonies as divisive before events like football games, but respectful at official events such as the annual opening of parliament during Channel Seven’s leaders’ debate on Sunday night. During the debate, both Dutton and Albanese confirmed their trust in the White House.
Peter Dutton is very clear – Welcome to Country ceremonies are being overdone.
His decisive pronouncement on the divisive issue comes at the start of the final week of campaigning and is a marked change in direction from his previous wanderings.
Dutton’s position has meandered on a host of issues during this campaign, but not today. Credit: James Brickwood
Dutton’s position has meandered on a host of issues during this campaign, including work-from-home policies, cutting the migration intake and the tax treatment of electric vehicle purchases.
But not today.
As we posted about earlier, Dutton said that Welcome to Country ceremonies – performed by an Indigenous elder on their ancestral lands – should be “reserved for significant events of our country”.
He said this does not extend to Anzac Day.
Dutton’s opposition to Welcome to Country is a hardening of his comment last week, after several people booed the ceremonies at Anzac Day dawn services, when he said that are “an important part of official ceremonies and [they] should be respected”.
He then went further, arguing that Qantas’ familiar acknowledgement of country on flights was overdone.
Gone was Dutton’s dancing around issues, so too his unpolished press conferences where journalists found opportunities to pepper him on his open-ended answers.
It’s the Coalition leader’s last lap before polling day, and he is waiting for nobody.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has had a colourful visit to a polling booth in the southern Sydney seat of Banks, held by the Liberals.
There was representation from across the political spectrum as volunteers handed out flyers to punters arriving to cast early votes — there was an on-the-ground presence from the Liberals, Labor, Greens, Muslim Votes Matter, independents, Fatima Payman’s Australia’s Voice party and the Libertarians.
Australia’s Voice senate candidate Emanie Darwiche heckling Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Unsurprisingly, then, the reception that Albanese received was mixed.
He was loudly heckled by Payman’s NSW Senate candidate, Emanie Darwiche, who cried: “Anthony Albanese, you are committing genocide.”
Another man in a van driving past yelled out: “You’re the reason we’re broke, bro.”
The third heckler was in higher spirits. “Hey Albo,” they shouted from their car window, before using an expletive to give the prime minister a very Australian compliment.
Albanese’s reaction to the “compliment”.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Coalition spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has backed Dutton’s call on Welcome to Country being overdone.
Speaking on Sky News, Price said they should be reserved for special occasions such as when parliament resumes.
Peter Dutton and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price on the campaign trail earlier this month.Credit: James Brickwood
“My position has always been that we have absolutely overdone Welcome to Country and acknowledgement of country, especially when they become politicised sort of statements that are divisive, as opposed to you know, feeling like it is a welcome,” she said.
“I absolutely agree with Peter Dutton that it’s overdone.”
Peter Dutton is the first leader to be asked about a warning today from global ratings agency S&P Global that the nation could lose its AAA credit rating if neither of the major parties offset their election promises by controlling spending.
And the answer is … a little off-piste.
He declares that the point of the S&P report is that “Labor is reckless with taxpayers’ money”, even though it is a warning to both major parties about their promises and use of off-budget items.
Dutton then swings to his attack on the state of the budget, where he credits the Morrison government with surpluses and deficits.
“The only reason Labor was able to achieve surpluses in their first two years and deficits for every year thereafter is because of what they were bequeathed from the Liberal Party when we were in government,” he said.
The Coalition is promising a better budget bottom line than the government. Dutton said voters can expect to see his costings, which have to include expensive commitments including a $6 billion plan to cut fuel excise for a year and a $10 billion one-off tax offset to millions of workers, in “due course”.
