Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton continue campaigning ahead of the federal election on May 3. Follow live.
Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton continue campaigning ahead of the federal election on May 3. Follow live.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has been asked about Labor’s plan to let all first home buyers purchase a property with a 5 per cent deposit.
Speaking in Hobart, she was questioned about the policy on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, and if Labor’s scheme as well as Coalition’s housing policy could drive up prices.
The advice from Treasury was that it would not push up prices, Gallagher explained.
“The other thing that is different to [our policy] and what the Coalition is offering is that we are also investing heavily in new supply,” she said.
“We want to help first home owners get a fair crack and that’s been part of the challenge in our country and part of the decade of neglect that was on the former government.”
The minister also denied the plan would transfer the risk to Australian taxpayers, arguing it was a “tried and tested” program.
“It’s an existing program so we’ve had it in place for some time, obviously expanding it to first-time buyers if they choose to use it,” she said.
Both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have unveiled new housing initiatives targeting first home buyers.
Below our senior economics journalist Shane Wright explains how the policies could drive up house prices.
This weekend I caught up with One Nation’s candidate in Bruce, Bianca Colecchia, who came to Australia eight years ago on a student visa and now manages a gentlemen’s entertainment club in Melbourne’s CBD.
She doesn’t see her migrant background or her work in the adult entertainment industry as inconsistent with the right-wing political party’s conservative values.
“It’s actually really interesting,” she says.
“People go to clubs thinking they’re going to enjoy the night and end up talking politics with me all the time. We actually have a lot of party members who I end up bumping into at work.”
One Nation secured just under 5 per cent of the primary vote at the 2022 election with other right-wing minor parties United Australia (8.7 per cent) and the Liberal Democrats (5 per cent) also taking sizeable bites of the primary vote.
Colecchia relinquished her Italian citizenship this year in the hope of entering parliament, but if attendance at her political events are anything to go by, she might be waiting a long time for this sacrifice to pay off.
The Age popped into Colecchia’s event at Pioneers Park in Berwick on Saturday afternoon, to find no more than a dozen people huddled around an orange and blue marquee.
An Australian flag hung from the tent as attendees spoke of how Islamophobia “isn’t real” and the benefits of “Judeo-Christian” values, while munching on orange and blue cupcakes.
One Nation advocates for “net zero migration” and an end to “student visa loopholes” – policies that would have disadvantaged people such as Colecchia when she arrived in Australia, as well as many of the constituents of Bruce.
“People say it’s hypocritical for me … I get it, I get where that can come from,” she said. “If that means at the time, these policies wouldn’t have allowed me in, I guess that’s fair enough.”
One Nation is number one on the Bruce ballot paper, one of six minor parties running in the electorate. Colecchia said new members have joined from both Labor and Liberal, as support for the two-party system declines.
Anthony Albanese is continuing to push hard into linking the Coalition to Donald Trump and his Make America Great movement.
Speaking at a press conference at the nation’s last commercial paper mill on the Derwent River outside of Hobart, Albanese suggested the Coalition continued to draw inspiration from Trump and MAGA.
“This is Australia. We are a different country. I’m running as an Australian prime minister on Australian values,” he said. “I’ll leave it to others to say why they consistently just borrow cultures and ideas and policies from other places.”
It comes after he was asked about the Liberal’s diss track, called Leaving Labor.
This week, an image of Coalition frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price wearing a MAGA hat emerged, which the prime minister referenced.
“People can look at the caps that my team wear and the caps that the other team wear and draw their own conclusions,” he said.
The Coalition has written to the Australian Electoral Commission calling for teal independent Allegra Spender to be investigated for not declaring her collaboration with influencer Milly Rose Bannister.
Last week, the ABC reported Spender paid Bannister to create promotional content. In a letter to AEC acting commissioner Jeff Pope, Coalition senator James Paterson requested the AEC investigate the content.
“While we accept the legality of the disclosure statements, such as ‘made in collaboration with Allegra Spender, Edgecliff’, rather than ‘authorised by’, I note this appears to be an explicit attempt to obfuscate whether the videos are a paid advertisement, and is contrary to the language guidance for authorisations published by the AEC,” Paterson wrote.
“Some of Ms Bannister’s material, which includes an authorisation on one platform, has no authorisation on other platforms.
“The video on Instagram carries a ‘collaboration’ authorisation statement, while the TikTok version contains no authorisation at all. This latter example is clearly in breach of the authorisation requirements of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also been asked about native forest logging, and tells reporters there’s “no changes” planned.
“We have no change to our native forestry policy,” he said.
Albanese was also asked whether it was risky to pour $24 million into a mill tied to a “sunset industry” of newspaper distribution.
“I love picking up a paper. I love holding it. I love reading it. So do many Australians. And you know what? I think it’s important that it continues to exist.”
The prime minister is now taking questions in Tasmania, and the first is about commercial salmon farming in the state.
In February, this masthead reported a “mass mortality event” that affected between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of salmon in pens around the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and the Tasman Peninsula in the south-east of Tasmania.
He was questioned about the future of the industry, and said this:
“We’re not getting ahead of ourselves … we’re focused on May the third,” he said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is at Boyer Paper Mill, where he has announced $24 million to help it prepare for a low-emissions future.
Speaking at the Tasmanian mill, Albanese told reporters that of the funding, $9 million would be spent over the next two years to ensure the mill’s financial viability as the transition happens.
“We’ll also provide up to $15 million to match the company’s own investments in electrification that are occurring,” Albanese said.
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has filled up at his ninth petrol station for the campaign.
Dutton’s campaign has stopped in the seat of Brisbane, which the Liberals hope to reclaim after the Greens nabbed it at the 2022 election.
Dutton drove a branded “Trevor Evans for Brisbane” car into the servo, trying to boost the local candidate before filling up the tank at BP in Bowen Hills.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is due to speak in Hobart shortly.
Watch live below:
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