He then won’t answer whether it was a mistake to verbal the Indonesian president, and refers to his previous answer (where he said that he was relying on a report which may have quoted sources from the Indonesian government)

Asked if the Coalition will guarantee 8% growth to the NDIS, Dutton says:

We want to see the NDIS grow and we were a strong supporter of it, and supported legislation in the last Parliament after I approached the Prime Minister saying we would support legislation to make the NDIS sustainable.

The program is about 48 billion dollars a year, it is significant growth but there are lots of concerns and Bill Shorten highlighted these around organised crime groups and there have been some arrests, excuse me, so much as before the court at the moment, so if there is waste, people are ripping off the Australian taxpayer and those participants in the NDIS, that is not expenditure we would support, but I want to see the NDIS sustainable and grow.

And the rate at which that grows I think you have to take that advice from the Department and central agencies about whether cost pressures are, but I strongly support the NDIS, but it is with taxpayers’ money growing at a significant rate and I want to make sure the priority remains those participants and those most in need, critically the disabled.

One thing I strongly supported in the formation of the NDIS where the arrangements for ageing parents worried about what would happen with their adult disabled children when they passed. I think that is a core feature of the NDIS and I want to make sure we support it into the future.

Peter Dutton, who once made a joke about Pacific Island nations going under water because of climate change, then says his relationship with the Pacific is cool beans:

I was part of the government who helped get vaccines to Pacific Island nations. They were unbelievably grateful for the support we provided. The logistics we provided came out of my departments and we worked very closely with our neighbours and met their need in a way China and know the country was able to and so I think if you have a look at the facts, they are when we were in government we were a great partner with many countries including some you have referred to.

Peter Dutton then pretends Australia has done worse on international relations in the region under Albanese than previous Coalition governments, which is kinda hilarious:

We[the coalition] have a strong relationship with Jakarta and I’ve known successive ministers and presidents, I have met the current president and his immediate predecessor, we have a number of ministers in the foreign affairs space as well as the national security space.

\There is a lot of damage the government has done in relation to our international standing. That is obvious when you have significant events that impact upon Australia and the Australian government having no clue about it, you know the Prime Minister is out of his depth.

We have said what our plans would be if we are successful at the election and that stands.

Given that precarious situation Peter Dutton talks about, isn’t it necessary to ensure leaders stick to the facts?

Dutton blames Penny Wong:

The foreign ministers out of her depth. The fact is when you have a Foreign Minister and a Defence Minister and a prime minister finding out about decisions from our friends and countries abroad, when they found out about that on CNN or Fox or whatever, you know this government is not up to it and that is why Australians realise we live in a precarious bed and want strong relationships we need open discussions and to make sure the government is given for warning.

That has not happened here, so there are a lot of details I hope we can get out of the briefing. The government has delayed it, obviously, and will hopefully get that briefing today, that you have a prime minister here as he has demonstrated.

How can the prime minister of our country only find out about these activities in relation to the naval ships circumnavigating the country from a Virgin pilot? How can the Foreign Minister not have had a phone call from her counterpart in the United States to say tariffs were coming? (Everyone knew they were? It was part of the election campaign of Trump’s and also he had a whole day he kept talking about when he would announce them?)

This is a government out of its depth in relation to international relations and I think they have demonstrated it in the defence space as well.

The relationship between Indonesia and Russia is closer, we know that and we want to continue that relationship because we don’t want Russian assets in our region. It would be difficult for us, difficult for other Asian nations and that is not something we should sit idly by and pretend is not part of a discussion.

Dutton then tries to reframe the claim he made yesterday that the Indonesian president announced something he did not announce:

The reference I made is to a credible military website and that talked about government sources and the Prabowo government sources.

It is obvious Indonesia, it is a matter of fact Indonesia has joined with Russia and Brazil and other countries including China, they are closer together now.

We don’t know from the government exactly what happened because the government does not know, the government has reacted as the Prime Minister did as I did yesterday very credible media reports and the Prime Minister and Defence Minister and the foreign affairs Minister found out about this from media reports as they did in relation to the advice about the Chinese naval ship, as they have done in relation to the tariffs.

Penny Wong talks a big game but I don’t think she is a Foreign Minister on top of her brief

Says the man who made up a comment from the Indonesian president.

Q: Mr Albanese he has suggested that you were wildly irresponsible with your comments yesterday with regard to the potential for Russia to base aircraft in Papua New Guinea, were you? And has the government outstanding questions on this issue?

Dutton:

The first answer is no. The Prime Minister talks about seeing the most precarious period since 1945. He doesn’t talk about it because he too weak to do so. The prospect of having Russia with the greatest presence in our region is very real and there are a lot of questions the government still has to answer.

We have asked for a briefing in relation to the matter that has not been forthcoming yet. We’ll get that today.

Dutton continues:

Indonesia is an incredibly important friend and neighbour but there are many questions that need to be answered. The relationship between Russia and Indonesia is close under this president and we want to make sure our relationship is respectful and I want to make sure the Australian people understand the risks in our region and over this period.

The Prime Minister wants to pretend it’s not reality but when he says we live in the most precarious period since 1945, these are the things he is talking about, but his leadership is too weak to go any further to explain it to the Australian people.

This doesn’t make any sense. And Russia and Indonesia engaged in formal talks in February, which was reported at the time and Dutton is also only bringing it up now.

Peter Dutton is speaking at a housing construction site and spruiks the Harry’s tax cut policy:

We will increase supply and we will make sure as we said on the weekend and repeated this policy again, allow young Australians to access their super so that they can get the deposit together.

We’ll stop foreigners from purchasing homes for a 2-year period for young Australians don’t have to compete in that market with foreigners who are cashed up. I want to make sure that we can help young Australians achieve their dream through tax deductibility policy which we announced at the weekend.

This is a game changer for young families.

The reason it is is because when you go to the bank under our policy which allows you to deduct the interest for the first $650,000 of the mortgage, that means that you’re more likely to get the loan and it means you have greater means to service the loan.

This policy just helps people who can already afford to get into the housing market. It is just a tax cut for people who are already wealthy enough to get into the housing market – like his son, Harry. It does not increase supply. It will only make prices increase because you will have people able to borrow more money and that will drive up housing prices. Labor’s 5% deposit scheme is also bad policy because it does nothing to lower house prices.

The RBA has released its minutes from its last meeting (which was before the Trump tariffs were announced) and they have this to say about the global economic situation:

The extent to which these international developments would affect the Australian economy was a further source of uncertainty and depended on a range of factors. Assuming the global tariffs announced so far and that the Australian Government did not impose retaliatory tariffs, a model-based scenario showed that the effects on GDP growth and inflation in Australia could be relatively modest. This reflected Australia’s limited direct trade exposure to the United States, additional policy support in China and Australia’s flexible exchange rate. There were clear downside risks for Australian growth relative to this scenario, if tariffs and policy uncertainty have a greater effect on global growth than expected, if the spillovers to Australia are larger or if there were further material increases in tariffs in other economies, including those that are important for Australia. However, the risks to Australian inflation were more two-sided and would depend on the timing and relative size of the effects on aggregate demand and supply: weaker global demand and the possibility of trade diversion away from the United States could reduce inflation in Australia, but a larger exchange rate depreciation or more substantial global supply disruptions could increase inflation.

Members observed that concerns about US trade policy were already having a material influence on planning activities of some globally oriented Australian firms, but did not yet appear to be a widespread consideration for domestically focused firms. Similarly, trade measures were yet to have a significant effect on measured activity or inflation in Australia. Members nevertheless emphasised the importance of being alert to any signs of this changing.

I had forgotten about this (obviously need more coffee) but Clare O’Neil and Michael Sukkar will be debating housing policies at the National Press Club today.

Now last year, O’Neil said Labor wanted to see house prices continue to rise. And this week (at the same press conference where his 20-year-old son, who is a beneficiary to the multi-millionaire Dutton family’s trust said he was ‘struggling’ to save for a house deposit, Dutton said he wanted to see house prices continue to rise (twice).

So there is a unity ticket there.

But after appearing with Richard Denniss on Q&A on Monday night, Sukkar has since added a caveat not really heard from the Liberal party:

“In the long run … you want to see house prices steadily increase and ideally you’d like to see wages increase more quickly…I mean, that’s the reality. Because, for most people, the difficulty that we’ve seen in housing in recent years has been, clearly, the prices of homes outstripping wages. So that’s what you want to see.”

So given the Liberal policy was to freeze wage growth for the almost 10 years it was in power, perhaps it has worked out that’s not exactly great for workers? Will wonders never cease!

The shadow minister for western Sydney, Melissa McIntosh is the latest Coalition MP to bring their child on the campaign – her daughter Summer joined her and Peter Dutton at the Alannah and Madeline Foundation event this morning in Melbourne: