Albanese says he has faith in the Australian Federal Police (who were created after an anti-conscription campaigner threw an egg at prime minister Billy Hughes (who was pro-conscription) in 1917, knocking off his hat. Hughes famously went for his gun (which he wasn’t carrying) and had to be told “pull yourself together, remember you are the prime minister!” A Queensland police officer found the egg thrower in the crowd, but refused to arrest him, claiming it was a commonwealth matter and he only dealt in Queensland affairs. Hughes was so angry, he created a national police force to arrest future egg throwers)

Asked if he would like to be able to interact with the public more, like in previous campaigns, Albanese said he hasn’t changed the way he goes about things and laughs with Jim Chalmers about an interaction he had on the first day of the campaign in Brisbane.

I’ve engaged with people. While some of the transport stuff was happening, I went for a walk around Adelaide. Adelaide Mall was terrific. I went for a walk around Perth as well. And I think it’s really important, and it’s something that I’ve done. I go into uncontrolled environments.

You’ve seen it happen time and time again, and now I’m going to go into a controlled environment and go to Sydney for the second debate.

Q: Last night, you were confronted by a couple of people in the lobby of your hotel. Do those sort of interactions make you rethink, I guess, the exposure that you have to the public and these sort of they weren’t quite protesters yesterday, but these sort of interactions have been sort of a common theme of this campaign on both sides. Do you have any idea or intelligence of how people are actually finding where you and Peter Dutton were popping up at events?

That’s the Guardian’s Josh Butler, and he’s talking about how Albanese was ambushed by alt-right content creators at his hotel in Melbourne yesterday. The group managed to get to Albanese in the lobby of the hotel, which is obviously a security breach.

Both campaign, as Josh said in his question there, have been the targets of protesters. Rising Tide have been asking questions at press conferences, while other protesters have interrupted press conferences. Protest is a right within a democracy. And the protesters have chosen public spaces to make their points.

Yesterday in the lobby was different, which is why it has unsettled people. It wasn’t protesters, it was alt-right influencers who managed to bypass security. That’s why people are starting to get nervous.

Q: You won the last debate. Does that give you confidence ahead of tonight’s debate, and there’s a significant pro Palestinian protest planned outside that event. Does that concern you? Do you think that your government has done enough when it comes to the Israel-Palestine issue?

Albanese:

I’m certain of one thing, which is that you have to take any campaign day by day. And I don’t think the outcome of the last debate affects tonight’s debate at all. It’s very different.

The last debate was a People’s Choice, if you like, and I was grateful for those people who put their little bit of paper in in the red box, rather than the blue box. And that was a good thing for me.

But I don’t take anything for granted.

I say this about the Middle East Australia has had a consistent position to overwhelmingly, if you go on your door knock around here, you know what Australians want. They want people to have peace and security, but they also don’t want conflict to be brought here in

Albanese is about the talks that Indonesia and Russia had in February (welcome to the party!) and what he has done to counter it.

Albanese:

There won’t be joint exercises between Australia and Russia, I assure you of that, but our relationship with Indonesia has never been stronger, including our defence relationship.

Indonesia is a sovereign nation. Indonesia is a sovereign nation, so we continue to put our argument about our own case and our own relationship with Indonesia. Indonesia and Russia have historically had relations that are different from Australia’s and Russia.

That’s how you deal with things. This isn’t a sort of team thing where it’s like you have to just go for South on every week, and you don’t worry about any other teams, and what they’re doing.

Indonesia is a sovereign, powerful nation. We respect President Prabowo. We continue to put our argument and our job, our task is to develop good relationships with Indonesia. That’s what we’re doing,

Some of the journalists here seem to think that Australia can dictate to Indonesia how it conducts its affairs.

Q: Do you have evidence that the urgent care clinics are actually reducing waiting times in hospitals? Clear evidence.

Albanese:

Yeah, I do.

He says reporters should talk to people at urgent care clinics he will visit over the rest of the campaign. There is another question about evidence and Jim Chalmers jumps in:

If you take my neck of the woods, if you’ll forgive some shameless Queensland parochialism for a moment, the difference it’s made to emergency departments in Logan hospital and in the Ipswich catchment is between 10 and 20 per cent.

Now that is a very material difference when it comes to the pressure on public hospitals in South East Queensland.

We’re seeing that in other parts of Australia as well. When you go to these emergency departments, they notice the difference that urgent care clinics are making so many parents in particular when they’re trying to make a decision, do I take my youngster to the emergency department? Do I take them to an urgent care clinic?

The extraordinary numbers, the extraordinary amount of people that we’re seeing through these urgent care clinics, these are frequently people who would otherwise show up to the emergency department at Logan or Ipswich in communities like mine, the urgent care clinics are an absolutely stunning success.

They are worth every cent that we’re investing in them. That’s why we’re building 50 more of them, because we know that more bulk billing means less pressure on families. That’s a cost of living benefit as well as a health benefit, and you can see the benefit as well when it comes to emergency departments.

Q: The initial review into the urgent care clinics show there’s no proof they produce hospital ED wait times. Isn’t it the case then that you can’t stack up the assertion UCCS take pressure off EDS, and is the rapid expansion of the program justified before we have solid proof that they’re working as intended?

Albanese:

You bet they are justified.

We support urgent care clinics. And I note that even though the Coalition are going to ditch them, no doubt, as part of the cuts that they have to make to pay for their $600 billion nuclear plan, I note one of their local members is out there holding up his Medicare card, claiming that they’ll build another Urgent Care Clinic in their electorate up there in Bonner. It is pretty interesting.

You know what my evidence is, talking to people talking to the punters, 1.3 million of them, whether it is in this campaign, Bridgewater yesterday.

You have two reports today about urgent care clinics and about our bulk billing incentive that are completely contradicted by what’s talking to people on the ground yesterday, we were there talking about the pressure that’s been been taken off the emergency departments. I’ve heard the same in urgent care clinics right around Australia, whether it’s here in Melbourne or right around the country, as have you when you’ve attended in during the last three weeks or most of this campaign, one in three is under the age of 15.

Parents telling us that instead of taking their kid and waiting in the emergency department of a hospital for sometimes seven or eight hours. They’re getting their kids fixed up in 15 or 20 minutes. It’s taking pressure off the those EDS, every state health minister is saying the same thing, Labor and Liberal, I’ve got to add as well, and same as our bulk billing incentive, we heard yesterday from a doctor who stood up at that rather large clinic there at Bridgewater, who said, as a result of our policies, that clinic will be 100% bulk billed.

Q: Do you accept responsibility for the housing price given you allowed in a million people net migration in, in two years. And the minister who was responsible for that mess, who you got your mate, Tony Burke filling for you’ve now put in the housing portfolio, ironically, do you accept any responsibility for the housing price?

(A reminder that when borders were closed because of Covid, and there was no migration, house prices in Australia shot up.)

Albanese:

Well, it would be hard for the Housing Minister during the period of the former government to take responsibility because they didn’t have one, they because they didn’t have one, and they invested $5 billion over a decade.

Over a decade, there were periods and budgets where there was $0 going out into public and social housing. What we have are doing is digging Australia out of the hole that the Liberals have dug over a decade of inaction.

So what we are doing is responding, and when it comes to migration, the gold and silver medal winners are the same bloke, Peter Dutton.

He granted more visas to people to come to Australia than any other minister. He also runs second gold and silver and and that is just a fact.

Q: Prime Minister before the Janes report, did Australia know that Russia had made a request to station planes in Indonesia? And my second question is, on the weekend, [WA premier] Roger Cook said that Australia’s the Liberals’ aggressive diplomacy led to the economic coercion. Is that true? Was the Australian government of the time responsible for China’s economic coercion, or was China responsible for that?

Albanese:

On the first issue I don’t intend to run a complete running commentary, but what we what we do know, what we do know is what the Indonesian government have said themselves, which is that this is not being….

Q: My question about the request

Albanese:

You’re assuming the Janes report is correct, and there is no basis for you assuming that secondly…

Q: Are you saying a request was never made?

Albanese:

I’m saying, I’ll act diplomatically with our friends in Indonesia. That’s what I’m saying. I on the second issue.

China is, of course, responsible for actions which China took. China is responsible.

But I make this point as well that some of the rhetoric that was given by the Australian government was not conducive towards having a constructive relationship and the 20 per cent of or $20 billion of trade impediments hurt Australian jobs. It hurt the lobster industry, for example, in Geraldton.

It hurt the barley industry in South Australia and in the other eastern states as well. It hurts so many industries, in the wine industry, in Tasmania, the Hunter Valley, South Australia, Margaret River, we have engaged in a way diplomatically, where, when our approach to China is to co operate where we can, to deal respectfully, to not dial things up to 11 at every opportunity, to disagree where we must, and we do so disagree on a range of issues.

We have different political systems, but we deal like adults in our international relations. This isn’t and we don’t.

We don’t ever try to seek domestic political points through our international diplomacy, which is one of the reasons why we don’t go into relations between other countries, including Russia and Indonesia have had, of course, a different relationship from the relationship between Australia and Russia over a long period of time.

We understand that. We don’t comment on all of that detail.

What we do is we act in Australia’s national interest, which is also, might I say, at this uncertain time in the world, Australia has an opportunity to play a role as adults in the room at a time where there is uncertainty, in global markets, in our economy, in International Relations, in so many areas as well. We’re respected around the world as a middle power.

That is how I have acted, and that is how I will continue to act.

He is in the Melbourne seat of Deakin, with Jim Chalmers. Michael Sukkar holds this seat, but Labor think there is a chance the marginal seat could fall its way.

Q: Do you think the commentary out of Russia on Indonesia was an act of misinformation by Russia to interfere in this election.

Albanese:

What I know is that there’s no statement from the Indonesian President, and what Peter Dutton said was not true

Other than the Greens, we haven’t seen policies to help renters this election, despite the fact that more people will rent for longer.

AAP reports on the rental situation (and imagine how impossible this would be for someone on Jobseeker, living 38% under the poverty line)

With rents rising nearly 40 per cent in the past five years cities are becoming hubs for larger households as international students lead the charge of living together.

Housing has become a battleground for the major political parties jockeying to appeal to first-time homebuyers in particular, but renters continue to do it tough.

Advertised rental listings remain well below average, property data firm CoreLogic says in its Quarterly Rental Review released on Wednesday. 

About 99,000 rental properties were listed nationally over four weeks, more than 22 per cent less than normal for this time of year.

“With affordability stretched, many renters are adjusting by staying in shared accommodation or delaying independent living, which in turn reduces net rental demand,” CoreLogic senior economist Kaytlin Ezzy said.

Since March 2020, national rents have climbed 38.4 per cent or the equivalent of an extra $182 per week, averaging $9442 annually.

Vacancy rates have tightened to 1.6 per cent in March, down from 2.0 per cent in December.

“The renewed growth in unit rents is likely linked to the seasonal lift in demand from international students who typically favour higher-density housing,” Ms Ezzy said.

Sydney remains the most unaffordable city to live in as a renter with a median weekly rental value of $781 while in Hobart it is more than $200 less at $574, making it the cheapest capital city to sign a lease in.

Labor and the coalition say their housing policies, worth a combined $24 billion, would solve the lack of supply of homes in the market which would drive down prices.

The Greens have slammed both major parties for “burning the dreams of renters” by driving house prices up.  The party has promised to implement a cap on rent increases and limit them to every two years if voted into minority government.

The coalition has vowed to slash the number of international students by 80,000 which it claims are fuelling a housing crisis.

The Property Council of Australia has disputed that characterisation noting foreign students made up only four per cent of Australia’s rental market.