DUTTON JUMPS ON RUSSIAN PLANES
We’re at the point of the election campaign where parties are known to start slowing down their announcements and giveaways and instead focus on trying to sell what they’ve already promised, while also turning increasingly negative on their competition.
During this period, a single story can become the dominant theme for 24 hours, or much longer, with people jumping on the bandwagon to attack their opponents without necessarily knowing all the facts. Which is exactly what we got yesterday with the claims Russia was planning to station long-range aircraft in Indonesia.
The story led in places such as The Australian Financial Review and the ABC overnight after Defence Minister Richard Marles came out and said he’d spoken to Indonesia’s defence minister, who rejected the reports. “I have spoken to my counterpart, Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, the minister for defence, and he has said to me in the clearest possible terms, reports of the prospect of Russian aircraft operating from Indonesia are simply not true,” Marles said.
The ABC reports Sjamsoeddin told Marles he had not received any Russian request to access the Manuhua Air Force Base, although the broadcaster was keen to highlight “that doesn’t rule out the possibility it was raised at a more junior level”.
The broadcaster also highlights that “deepening military ties between Indonesia and Russia are not new: in fact, diplomats from both countries have been speaking about them for years”. The two countries held naval exercises together last year, and Moscow’s ambassador to Jakarta, Sergei Tolchenov, has said military cooperation was “integral” to the countries’ relations, the ABC recalls.
The AFR reckons the claim about Russian planes caught Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “off guard” yesterday. Albanese told reporters when asked about the article on the military news website Janes: “What we’re seeking is proper clarification. That’s the way you deal with international relations.”
Enter Peter Dutton. The opposition leader took no time at all to paint the reports as a “catastrophic” failure by the Albanese government if it had not known about the alleged request ahead of it being reported.
During his attempted attack on the government, he also incorrectly declared Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto had announced the request, which ABC host Patricia Karvelas was quick to pull him up on. The AFR reports the government has since accused Dutton of politicising national security following the incorrect claim.
While the facts are yet to fully emerge on the reported Russian request, you can be sure the mudslinging (and not the sensible conversations about national security, defence spending and the vacuum caused by Donald Trump’s lack of interest) will continue apace.
Earlier on Tuesday, Dutton had announced he would axe free TAFE courses if elected prime minister on May 3, news.com.au reported, and once again brought his thrilled-looking son Harry to work with him.
As we flagged yesterday, the Coalition leader didn’t initially answer the most obvious question in the world when you wheel your 20-year-old son out to say he’s been saving hard to buy a home (sidebar: at 20 I could barely tie my own shoelaces). So on Tuesday he faced the question again, and this time conceded: “I think our household’s no different to many households where we want our kids to work hard to save, and we’ll help them with the deposit at some stage,” The Age reports.
The major parties are continuing to spend this week defending their housing and tax policies in the face of mounting expert analysis criticising Sunday’s announcements (something that will no doubt be brought up in the second leaders debate tonight).
Such behaviour had reminded me of former British politician Michael Gove’s infamous remark during the Brexit referendum in 2016 that “the people of this country have had enough of experts”. And clearly I wasn’t the only one who thought of that comparison, with Michael Read writing in the AFR today that “this is the election where politicians gave experts the middle finger” (see The Commentariat below).
Elections are marathons, not sprints, and polling is not gospel (see all previous Worms), so Labor fielding questions on the make-up of a future cabinet (i.e. will Tanya Plibersek be moved out of the environment brief) and talks of a third term while still in middle of a campaign for a second term have unsurprisingly led to some pointing out how 2019 went down. To which, the AFR also reports today that “Anthony Albanese is openly warning his troops against hubris”.
“For the past few days, the prime minister has gone out of his way to play down expectations of a good result for Labor. Internally, he and his inner circle are acutely aware — as one said — ‘we’ve been in this position before’,” Phil Coorey writes.
The Nightly reported earlier this week that Albanese has said he would seek a third term if reelected on May 3. The site wrote: “He [Albanese] said he planned to fight a third election campaign in 2028 if he was successful next month. ‘If I’m successful on the third of May, then yeah,’ he said.”
Albanese said yesterday about his plans: “I simply have confirmed that I intend to serve a full term if I have the great honour of being reelected.”
HOUSING POLLING AND RATE CUTS
The Nine papers have led overnight on their latest polling, which focuses on the aforementioned housing and tax announcements.
The report states “voters have sided with Labor in the policy clash … giving the government a narrow lead on key questions about the best ways to ease the burden on households”.
Of those polled, 40% of voters favoured the cut to personal income tax rates from next year promised by Labor, while 34% preferred the Coalition’s one-year fuel excise cut and offer of a one-off tax refund. The polling also showed 40% in favour of Labor’s housing plans and 27% preferring the Coalition pledge to allow a tax deduction on mortgage interest.
On the theme of housing, we got the minutes from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) monetary policy board’s April 1 meeting yesterday.
The AFR reports the central bank “flagged that interest rates could be cut again in May after the federal election, once it has the latest information on inflation and Donald Trump’s trade war”. The paper also suggests the RBA’s preferred measure of underlying inflation is likely to drop below 3% in the March quarter, which will be recorded when the consumer price index is published on April 30.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports the RBA had expressed caution over future interest-rate cuts, declaring May would be an “opportune time” to revisit policy settings. Hanging over the central bank is obviously the impact of Trump’s tariffs and the escalated trade war with China. “Importantly, the board would need to monitor closely the implications of global developments for Australian inflation,” the minutes declare.
Speaking of global trade (a very tenuous segue, excuse me), plenty of publications have picked up Anthony Albanese expressing his support for a cafe in Toronto which has been ordered to destroy a shipment of Vegemite and remove it from the menu because it contains added B Vitamins.
The Nine papers report Leighton Walters, an Australian-Canadian cafe owner, was surprised that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency order only applied to Vegemite, while British-made spread Marmite, which also has added B vitamins, was deemed alright.
“I stand with the Aussie cafe owner,” Albanese said. “I love Vegemite, it’s a good thing. It’s rather odd that they’re letting Marmite in, which is rubbish, frankly. Let’s be clear here. Pro-Vegemite, anti-Marmite. That’s my position.”
Elsewhere in the campaign, Guardian Australia reports Greens MP Stephen Bates has joined OnlyFans. The site reports the move is part of the party’s push to make the HIV prevention drugs PrEP and PEP free.
“Ending HIV is too important to fly under the radar,” Bates said. “I campaign on OnlyFans and Grindr because it gets attention. Sometimes you have to make a splash to make people pay attention to the things that matter.”
The AAP reports anti-violence advocates are calling on politicians to prioritise domestic and family violence during the election campaign, with the topic barely getting a mention so far.
“We are in the middle of a domestic and family violence emergency, yet there’s been virtually no mention during the federal election campaign on keeping women, children and communities safe from this violence,” No to Violence CEO Phillip Ripper said.
The Age reports Liberals in Goldstein and Kooyong are preferencing One Nation ahead of the teals and Greens, and that Independent MP Monique Ryan has hit out at the Liberal Party after it created one of those AI-generated action figures that everyone is posting.
Ryan said of the image created of her: “I do not see that the women of Kooyong would see this meme as anything other than insulting.”
The Australian reckons the battle of the corflutes is continuing apace in the seat of Wentworth, writing “hired labourers acting on behalf of Allegra Spender’s campaign have been affixing her face to just about anything in the electorate”.
Finally, the AAP also flags the previously mentioned leaders’ debate on the ABC tonight, quoting political scientists in conceding the events rarely shift the dial but traps can await. I’ll be bringing you the best of the action from the debate tomorrow morning, see you then!
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Last month, we brought you news of Valerie, the miniature dachshund that went missing on Kangaroo Island a year and a half ago but had recently been spotted alive and well.
I think it’s now time for an update.
Not only has Valerie’s epic tale made its way into the international press, but Guardian Australia reckons the net is closing in on our tiny friend.
The site reports Kangala Wildlife Rescue has been using webcams to try and spot Valerie, as well as setting up a trap with some of her favourite treats.
On Tuesday, the animal sanctuary posted two videos on Facebook of Valerie sniffing around the trap, saying: “Valerie is now attending at our trap site on a regular basis, even if that means she disappears for five or six days, we now know she will return.
“Due to the abundance of wildlife and Valerie’s constantly changing schedule, it’s been impossible to safely secure Valerie in the trap using our normal methods of allowing the dog to trigger the trap themselves or manually triggering it while hiding nearby,” the sanctuary added. A remote trigger system for the trap using the mobile phone network has since been created and will hopefully be installed this week, the post concludes.
Until then, stay safe Valerie.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
Today on Peter Dutton Getting In And Out Of Trucks, Peter Dutton gets in a truck.
Say What?
The fact that we are in an environment where a leading male politician in our country thinks that it’s appropriate to compare a female MP to a dog, I just think that tells us everything about where the Liberals and the Nationals are trapped.
Clare O’Neil
The housing minister was responding to Nationals Leader David Littleproud saying Labor’s Lisa Chesters “has about as much pull as a chihuahua”. He has since said there was “no malice” in his statement and he hopes Chesters doesn’t take offence.
CRIKEY RECAP
Indigenous leaders have lashed the Coalition’s targeting of grants aimed at improving the health of First Nations women and children.
As Crikey reported last week, the Coalition’s government efficiency spokesperson Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has campaigned against a $1 million grant to improve Indigenous breastfeeding rates by “decolonising lactation care”. “The Albanese Labor government is on a wasteful spending spree with your taxpayer funds,” Nampijinpa Price wrote on social media.
The grant was singled out by right-wing lobby group Advance in hundreds of digital ads targeted at voters, and mentioned in a report on lowering government spending by the Liberal-aligned think tank Menzies Research Centre. But Close the Gap co-chair Karl Briscoe said Indigenous breastfeeding rates were “not a political issue”.
Angus Taylor, desperately trying to fly the Liberal flag in an outfit run by a Queenslander, can insist the Coalition will have a better fiscal outcome when they release their full costings — at this rate, presumably one minute before polls open on May 3 — but a Dutton government would still deliver deficits into the 2030s, like Labor.
When voters clock that endlessly running up bills on the national credit card only leads to spending tens of billions a year on bond interest rather than, say, health or education, will they remember the now-distant Howard years when achieving surpluses seemed easy (chiefly because Costello taxed us so much?) Or will the Liberals just be Tweedledee to Labor’s profligate Tweedledum?
A win, or a narrow defeat, would vindicate Dutton’s strategy and his abandonment of Liberal traditions. But a loss along the lines currently suggested by the polls would leave them ideologically and strategically bereft. For Liberals — including the last remaining actual liberals in their ranks — there’s more at stake than merely who forms government on May 3.
But while Dutton gets a flurry of coverage when his party threatens and then unthreatens to quit Paris, there is wildly insufficient scrutiny of whether Labor remain spiritually dedicated to the agreement. Dutton twists the dial on pro-fossil rhetoric while grinning at the audience, testing Australia’s appetite for vice-signalling. But Labor buries its sins deep in layers of wonky data, complex calculations and strange technicalities.
The simplest problem here is that Labor’s 2030 target is absurdly weak. Labor’s first 2030 target was set 10 full years ago, by Bill Shorten. It was a 45% reduction: more ambitious than Labor’s current 43% target set in 2021. As the team at Climate Action Tracker highlight, it is weak as hell (“insufficient”, in their more polite terms).
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Campaign security concern as Albanese ambushed by alt-right media at Melbourne hotel (The Age)
The secret millions bolstering Labor and Liberal election campaigns (AFR)
Dutton and son: Why Harry’s housing issues became the talk of the campaign (The Sydney Morning Herald)
Obama comes out swinging against Trump’s ‘ham-handed’ Harvard demands (Daily Beast)
Aussie star Cate Blanchett says she is ‘serious’ about giving up acting (ABC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Elections are no longer a binary contest — independents of all persuasions make for a noisier political discourse — Peter Lewis (Guardian Australia): But even if it doesn’t happen this cycle, the age profile of third-party voters means the time is fast approaching where more active power-sharing arrangements will become a reality.
The truth is the complexity of our times does not lend itself to binary choices. Embracing diversity not as a performance but as a design principle will only make the future governments — whatever their flavour — more faithful custodians of the public will.
For those of us who are still drawn into the theatre of the leaders debates and the head-to-head battle for supremacy, it might be a case of enjoying it before the worm turns.
This is the election where politicians gave experts the middle finger — Michael Read (AFR): But should we be surprised about what is happening? The dismissal of expert opinion is not unique to Australia.
In the lead up to the Brexit referendum in 2016, as economists issued dire warnings about what leaving the EU would do to the British economy, senior politician and Brexit campaigner Michael Gove declared: “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts with organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong”.
It is also not new. Plenty of Morrison government policies fell foul of the experts — robodebt and jobs-ready graduates being obvious examples.
But it does feel like the quality of public policymaking is becoming worse.
