And in campaign fights you are not seeing –

Last time the Greens leader addressed the press club in a political campaign, he went viral for telling a reporter to “google it, mate” when he was asked a gotcha question about some economic measure.

To be fair to the reporter, the question had been meant as a bit of a joke. But gotcha questions became so ridiculous at the last election campaign – Albanese was basically been quizzed on every economic measure in existence after a brain fart at the beginning of the campaign had him drawing a blank on the inflation rate and it all became a bit feral.

So Bandt was responding to that – the frustration voters felt at watching these press conferences.

Today is about what the Greens would expect in any negotiations around minority government, which is still the most likely possibility, but no one, in these current polls, should rule out Labor managing to eek out a majority here too.

Peter Dutton said that “Grocery prices, for goodness sake, are up by 30%. That’s not happening in comparable economies.” He then said “it is the fact that when you go to the supermarket, the cost of groceries, the cost of fruit and vegetables, canned products, the cost of cereals has all gone up by 30% under this government”

Well fortunately we have actual figures that can fact check that. And the reality is Peter Dutton is absolutely making up the numbers.

Since the June 2022 quarter (which includes the May 2022 election date) the overall price of food and non-alcoholic beverages have risen just 12% not 30%. Fruit and vegetables have gone up by just 3%, cereals? Gone up just 15% – a mere half of what Dutton is claiming. The only things that has gone up 30% is eggs (thanks to bird flu in the USA)

And what about his claim that “That’s not happening in comparable economies”

Well let’s look at the USA. Since June 2022 prices here for groceries have risen 12% compared to 10.5% in the USA. But prices stated going up earlier in the USA, so since 2020, the average price of groceries in Australia have risen 19.8% while in the USA they have risen 24.8%

Peter Dutton is very upset that there are people saying he doesn’t actually have a policy platform, because well, he doesn’t actually have much of a policy platform. He blames Labor for people saying he doesn’t have a policy platform though:

I think the Labor Party should stop pushing that rubbish around. What you have seen under this government is the biggest spending government in 40 years. They have locked in structural spends into the budget and committed to wasteful spending, some of which has been highlighted and we have been opposed to it and if you ask why we have had the biggest downturn in living standards in our country compared to any other comparable nation, go to the US, Canada. They have not experienced what Australia has been put through, 12 interest rate rises have not happened because of what we have seen in the Middle East and the government’s position keeps changing on that. What has happened is this government has spent and that is why the Reserve Bank governor has pointed out that there is a homegrown inflation problem. Our plan is for a short-term support package in the form of 25% per litre reduction which will have an economy wide benefit. Downward pressure on price structure is not just for trade is an everyone else across the economy. The short-term and medium-term plan is to bring more gas into the system so we can reduce the cost of building homes, reduce the cost of groceries. That is a structural save in the economy. We also obviously put forward plans which we believe in a longer term will underpin the economic success because don’t forget that energy is the economy and Labor’s policy is all about pleasing inner city greens. It is not about benefiting Australians and that is why the Coalition will always be better economic managers.

It is pointed out that the stories are coming from Coalition figures speaking to journalists about their own concerns, including in the Australian.

Dutton does not respond to that.

Peter Dutton then claims that the Labor party “throwing mud” (which is bringing up things Dutton has previously said and done) it is because the Labor party doesn’t have a policy.

Or, could it be – the consequences of his own previous actions? WHHHHHAAAAAAA

Dutton:

I have said repeatedly that we are a great beneficiary of the migration program in our country. Look at Carmen’s family story, look at many other candidates we have running at this election. People who have worked hard. The migrant story, particularly we have pointed out on many occasions people have come here since the Second World War period, people who started with nothing and amassed a fortune or people who have come here as builders and bricklayers and the rest of it, we are a net beneficiary about but I think the concentration at the moment is on how can the migration program work best for us? It doesn’t work best for us when you see an escalation in numbers to a record high. This whole big Australia policy that has led to Anthony Albanese’s housing crisis and the reason young Australians can’t get into housing is because of the decisions the prime minister has made so they can throw mud, you would expect but I don’t think it is I have already commented on that.

Well, no, it is not because of migrants that you can’t get a house. It’s because of a failure of government policies, including the failure to reform the tax system. And the ‘big Australia’ is partly because of what happened when the borders reopened and there was an overcorrection because they had been closed for so long, and also a correction for the labour market. And the Coalition had also forecast a big intake (bigger than what Labor saw) so this is not new.

And here is where Peter Dutton admits Australia can meet its export commitments, and serve the domestic market, with existing gas wells. (Although the Coalition is still saying that the second part of this plan is to open more gas wells, which doesn’t make sense because they have already admitted we don’t need more gas.)

We will ensure – that gas is included in the Capacity Investment Scheme. We will have a $1 billion critical gas infrastructure fund. When you look at all of these policy measures together, what you see is a carefully calibrated plan to ensure we get more gas out of the ground. That means gas which will be used, first and foremost, for the Australian market – but also for export. One of the conditions that we put on our Australian gas for Australia first policy is that we will honour all the volumes under the foundation contracts to our trading partners – that’s absolutely key. We have seen Australia get a bad reputation for sovereign risk. A key trading partners have looked at the government and started to question the reliability of Australian supply. We will reverse that which is why we have been upfront from the very beginning that the plan we would put in place will honour those relationships and the volumes under those contracts. The more gas we can export but more gas for Australians so we can get prices down and that means households pay less for the gas they use at home and for all of us when we go shopping, whether it be for food produce, materials, then the cheaper gas prices paid by industry flows through. It is a laser focus. Everything is about cost of and that is what this policy is about.

Q: You’ve said that the coalition will keep continuity in Washington with Kevin Rudd. Given the market turmoil, how relations are going, would you reconsider that position? And how is your approach different from Labor?

Dutton:

Look, I think what Australians are worried about at the moment is – who is better to manage our economy and bring down the cost of living? Who can deal with economic headwinds? If we have a recession in the United States, if there is a global recession, if there’s a broader war in Europe, a Labor-Greens government with a weak and incompetent prime minister is not going to be able to deal with that. I

have served as the Defence Minister, as the Home Affairs Minister, as Health Minister. I’ve worked for four prime ministers. I’ve watched closely seven prime ministers in action. I was around the Cabinet table with my colleagues when we dealt with COVID. And we made decisions which brought Australians economically through COVID in a much better shape than many other countries around the world.

I have the experience and my team has the experience to deal with whatever comes at our country. The Prime Minister has demonstrated that he’s always weak, always late to the game, and the lies just roll off his tongue.

And yet Dutton’s approach here is – everything Labor is doing, but we’ll just beg more and sign more defence contracts with the US.

Asked about his father, Bruce, who had a heart attack yesterday just before the leaders’ debate, Peter Dutton says:

I spoke to Dad this morning, and thank you for the question and asking about him. He’s doing well. He’s stoic. He’s a tough bugger. He’s worked hard all of his life, and he’s been an amazing dad. So… ..yeah, of course you think about him. But he’s – yeah, he’s fine and he’s doing well.

Q: Are you concerned that talking of cutting migration might hurt you in these Western Sydney multicultural seats that you need to win?

Dutton:

I actually think the opposite’s the case. When I speak to young migrant families who have teenage kids now, they’ve been here for a few years, they’re desperately worried about whether their kids can find a house.

And they’re worried, in their own circumstances, being locked out of housing.

Under Mr Albanese, rents have gone up by 18%. Young Australians – it doesn’t matter whether you come from a young Indian family or young Chinese family or you’ve been here for generations – as grandparents, as parents, you’re worried desperately under Labor because they’ve created a housing crisis. That’s what Australians are feeling.

And our decision to cut the migration program by 25% is all about getting young Aussies into homes. Mr Albanese has a plan to lock Australians out of homes. I’m going to be the prime minister for our country who can see young Australians achieving that dream again. I want young Australians to be able to own their own home. I want rents to be affordable.

Under Mr Albanese and Mr Bandt, it is going to be a nightmare for housing. We’ve got a plan to bring construction costs down and a $5 billion plan to build 500,000 new homes. And under our migration cuts, we create 40,000 homes. They become available for Australians in the first year and, over five years, we’ll create about 100,000 additional homes. I think that’s really powerful.

That’s got a whole less to do about migrants and a whole lot more to do with tax incentives that make housing an investment instead of a human right.

When does Peter Dutton anticipate gas prices would come down?

We speak to the companies from day one. Some of the big gas companies aren’t happy, but I’m fighting for families and I’m fighting for small businesses and for bigger manufacturing businesses so that we can bring costs down across the economy. I want the price of steel to come down. And the price of bricks to come down. And they can under our policy. So we do, in the first 100 days, speak to those companies and work our way through our plan. We decouple from the international price and we can see more gas coming into the system by the end of this calendar year. And that’s when you’ll start to see a reduction in those prices

I mean, the Labor government could speak to those same companies now. There is nothing stopping this from being bipartisan policy – using the gas we have, for Australians and taxing gas multinationals to make sure it happens.