Western Australia Premier Roger Cook is talking up the battery project in Collie:

It’s so great to see the exciting progress here at Synergy’s battery energy storage system. A local company has been providing the construction for this for this project. Where, along with 500 workers and all up it’s 640 batteries, 160 inverters that are now in place. And it looks amazing. And we’ll be ready to see this. This site (will be) fully commissioned by October this year. And this is an important part of what we’re doing as a nation. This is the energy transition that you can see right in front of you. When we started this project, we said it was the biggest in Australia. By the time we finish it, it won’t even be the biggest in Collie. But in Collie and the Neoen project just down the road will have two of the biggest energy storage systems in the country. Through these big battery installations. And this battery is now on track to make sure that this summer and every summer going forward, we have strong, reliable, renewable and gas-fired energy sources which will continue to power this state into the future. It’s part of my government’s $3.8 billion investment into renewable energy and energy storage infrastructure.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese repeats a line which obviously went down well in last night’s debate:

Peter Dutton last night refused, had an opportunity to talk about where the cuts would be, and once again has said that you have to wait till after the election. He’s saying vote for Peter Dutton and vote for a Liberal national government, and you will get cuts. But he won’t tell you until after the election. That’s not a fair dinkum way of dealing with the Australian people.

Anthony Albanese is speaking in Collie, Western Australia, alongside recently re-elected WA Premier Roger Cook and Energy Minister Chris Bowen.

He’s at the sight of a soon-to-close coal fired power station.

It has been earmarked as a clean energy site (for large batteries) by the current government.

It’s also one of the seven sights earmarked by Peter Dutton for a nuclear power station.

The PM begins his attacks on Mr Dutton’s failure to visit any of the nuclear sites – including Collie – during the campaign.

Anthony Albanese did a press conference earlier today which we missed – it was VERY short.

It looks like he stayed in his electorate and only took a couple of questions.

One of them was on the line the Coalition have been pushing all day – which was picked up by some of the breakfast TV presenters, following the release of Albanese’s preferences:

Q: Prime Minister, we’re in your seat today, just on preferences in your seat. Hannah Thomas, the Greens candidate has said, you’re complicit in genocide, you should expel Israel’s Ambassador, and you should sanction Israel, and also says you should arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he ever chooses to come to Australia. Why are you telling your supporters in Grayndler to put her second? (none of these things are false?)
 
Albanese:

Why is The Australian determined to give the Greens such profile? It’s rather strange, I’ve got to say. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you if you’d have asked me who the candidate was. Last time around in this seat, I won on primaries. I won on primaries. That’s the way the system works. I got more than 50% of the vote. I look forward to people voting number one for me and then filling in all the numbers, just as they do, to make sure it’s a formal vote. And I don’t intend to promote the name or the candidate – of the Greens Party candidate, and I’m surprised that The Australian are determined to promote them.

Last night’s debate, sorry if I can. Just last night, Peter Dutton confirmed that there are secret cuts. He had an opportunity to say where those cuts will come. Will they come to health? Will they come to education? Housing – we know that the Housing Australia Future Fund will be abolished. We know that they will make cuts across the board, because they not only have to call waste the expenditure, such as the increase in people’s wages, in the increase in pensions, they’re going to abolish the Housing Australia Future Fund. They’re going to get rid of support for manufacturing through the National Reconstruction Fund, they are going to get rid of the activity test, which will hurt disadvantaged women, in particular with children. Peter Dutton needs to come clean about where the cuts will be. He has a $600 billion nuclear energy plan. He needs to tell Australians, before the election, not afterwards, where the cuts will be made, otherwise, all of his promises that he is making, all of which, of course, disappear in a short period of time. Those short-term hits that will disappear. We know he will increase income taxes, because he has said that, that will cover $17 billion. But he needs to find further information, further details about where the cuts will be. We’re now just 11 days from polling day on May 3. The Australian people deserve better. We handed down a Budget in March, and then we had the Pre-election Fiscal Outlook. We have outlined the costs of all of our policies.

He needs to come up and explain to Australians how he pays for his nuclear plan. We know that he won’t go anywhere near any of the sites for a nuclear reactor. It’s radioactive for him going near them. He just won’t go anywhere near them. Well, he does need to explain this, because the Australian people deserve the information before they cast their vote. Half a million Australians have already done so, I expect another half a million will today. But he needs to, as a matter of urgency, come out with where the cuts will be. He’s got another big spending announcement today. We’ll see if that actually results in anything. The last time they were in government on defence, of course, what they did was make more than $40 billion of announcements with no money attached. This time around, of course, as well, we know he’ll sack 41,000 public servants. The last time around, there was a queue when we came to office of 42,000 Veterans, men and women who have served our country in uniform, who are awaiting their entitlements. So, you can’t, on the one hand, say you care about defence, and at the same time, be treating our Veterans in such a callous way by denying them their entitlements.

Jaishree asks:  

I have a question about the mutual preferencing of LNP and ONP this election, reported in the news today and how much it will affect or improve the 2PP for the Coalition? Will it be a significant factor? 

Annabel Crabb reports today that the Liberal Party has decisively broken with its long-standing policy of not preferencing One Nation, which dates back to Prime Minister John Howard.

“In 139 of the 147 seats where One Nation is running a candidate, the Coalition will recommend that its voters put One Nation second.” 

In return, One Nation is recommending preferencing Coalition candidates number 2 in several seats – even going to the extent of pulping earlier HTV cards that had the Coalition lower.  

How-to-vote cards (HTV cards) are handed out by political parties and candidates to prompt their supporters to vote a particular way. It is up to every voter whether they follow a how-to-vote card or not.  

There is also a question of whether voters see a HTV card at all. While the major parties cover most polling booths, a smaller party like One Nation will not be staffing every booth.  

“Concordance” is the term that describes a voter following their party’s HTV card. Antony Green’s analysis of Senate data suggests few One Nation voters faithfully follow One Nation HTV cards.  

Of course, One Nation voters may still get the message about the Coalition even if they do not number every box exactly according to the One Nation HTV card.  

But it’s already the case that the Coalition can expect most One Nation preferences. At the 2022 election, 64% of One Nation voters preferenced the Coalition ahead of Labor; the rate was 65% in 2019. Ben Raue has more data on his excellent blog The Tally Room.  

And even before the HTV announcement, some pollsters were expecting even stronger Coalition preferences from One Nation at this election – based on the results at last year’s Queensland state election and federal polling data.  

And thinking about preferences more generally, it is true that these HTV recommendations can make a difference in some seats: William Bowe identifies Labor’s open ticket in Macnamara and the Liberals preferencing Labor ahead of independent Peter George in Franklin as having the potential to affect the final result.   

In short, preference deals can make a difference and I expect the preferencing deal with One Nation will help the Coalition two-party preferred vote – but it is difficult to say by how much.

Most One Nation voters do not follow HTV cards exactly and may not get to see a One Nation HTV card, and most were already expected to preference the Coalition ahead of Labor.  

Angus Taylor is now blowing a heck of a lot of kisses to big business and it really just highlights how divorced this room and debate is from voters.

The underlying pretence is that making businesses more profitable through lower taxes, weaker IR laws will result in a better economy.

When you think the economy is profits it’s very easy to produce a strong “economy” Is that a fair one? Is that one with decent services for all people? Is that one with low levels of poverty?

None of these questions are being asked.

It’s an echo chamber debate held for business owners who think they are the only thing that matters in the economy.

It’s quite gross.

Debate host Laura Jayes has asked about penalty rates and why the ALP will not let the Productivity Commission look at those.

The thing is that penalty rates do not affect productivity, they affect profits.

Productivity is how much you produce with the hours you work and the tools you use.

How much you are paid to do that does not affect productivity. If you are paid less to do your job on a Sunday or public holiday that does not improve productivity – it just cuts wages and increases profits

The first question in the debate was about our 3^rd least competitive company tax rates and how company and business taxes need to be cut to restore our competitiveness.

Well, sorry but we do not have an uncompetitive tax regime. The best way is to compare – as the OECD does – the combination of personal income tax and company tax rates, and when you do that we are pretty much equal with the USA and lower than 4 of the G7 nations.

Also businesses don’t invest here because of out tax rate -0 they invest here because we have an educated workforce, good infrastructure, stable government, proximity with Asia, AND WE HAVE IRON ORE, COAL, GAS, AND A TONNE OF OTHER MINERALS HERE!!!!!

A small business owner not surprisingly wants the instant asset write-off made permanent. Amazing how the people in the room all want to pay less tax. Weirdly there is not talk about government services, benefits or infrastructure.

Talk turns to bracket creep.

Sigh. Angus Taylor is wheeling out his line that people are paying $3,500 more in tax on average than they were 3 years ago.

Yep – because people earn more than they did 3 years ago!

Also the changes to Stage 3 made sure that more people would be better off than they would have been under the old Stage 3 measures.

Weirdly Taylor is not mentioning his return of the Low-middle income tax offset, which would be a pretty nice tax cut for most people. Probably because it is only for a year, which means the LNP is going to the election with a policy of cutting tax in 2025-26 and then raising it in 2026-27

A question in this treasurers’ ‘debate’ suggests we have the 3^rd least competitive company tax rate in the OECD and wants to know if either party will introduce any new taxes on business?

And well. My god. The answers from Angus Taylor go to the ALP getting rid of the Tax to GDP guardrail (or cap) of 23.9% of GDP.

Cripes that just shows how dumb this debate is.

As Jim Chalmers points out the ONLY government that has ever raised more tax than 23.9% of GDP is the Howard government. Cripes we’d love to get them much revenue