AAP has been out to a winery with the Dutton campaign where he had a drink with his two children.

Nine days out from the federal election, Peter Dutton had a drink with his two children at a picturesque Tasmanian vineyard after unveiling his plan to address domestic violence.

The opposition leader toured one of the state’s most important wine producing regions on Thursday, located in the ultra-marginal seat of Lyons which is held by retiring Labor MP Brian Mitchell.

Visiting the Bremley Vineyard in Campania, a town outside of Hobart, Mr Dutton raised a glass of Pinot Noir with two of his three children Rebecca and Tom.

“My favourite wine is probably Shiraz, followed by Chardonnay, Sauv Blanc … I don’t discriminate,” he joked.

When Scott Morrison went to Tasmania during the 2022 campaign, he chose a whisky distillery to visit – which turned out to be a Liberal party donor.

Dutton has also been to 14 petrol stations now. What a journey.

It is not just the 180 on the tax break for electric vehicles that Peter Dutton has had to clean up today.

Dutton had said on Monday that the Coalition had no plans to scrape the Labor FBT exclusion for electric vehicles, saying it was just the ‘unfair’ tax on hybrids that the Coalition was planning on overturning.

But on Wednesday, the Coalition released a media release which said the Coalition would scrap the tax break.

Dutton has said that wasn’t a mistake, but he misheard the question? Which seems unlikely but OK.

But earlier today, Dan Tehan had told ABC radio the Coalition would reduce the skilled migration intake from 185,000 to 140,000 and then he went on to say it would be a reduced rate of 150,000 for two years and then raising it to 160,000.

Which might be news to the Coalition which has not yet released its target to reduce skilled migration visas. Which are already limited to 132,200 a year.

I have a particular interest in the ‘coke can’ of nuclear waste call the Coalition made very early on about its small modular nuclear reactor plan (technology that does not exist commercially as yet) because I was one of the first journalists to actually go ‘wait, that doesn’t sound right – that is wrong’ on the day the policy was announced.

And it was wrong.

Greenpeace has taken a look at what waste for a nuclear powered Australia would actually look like and found it could produce 14 billion Coke cans’ worth of radioactive waste a year.

Joe Rafalowicz Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:

Australians don’t need the equivalent of 14 billion Coke cans of radioactive nuclear waste every
year. The Coalition has not offered a credible plan for how it will manage nuclear waste safely,
nor how it will fund this multibillion dollar effort.

Australia’s unenviable track record of mismanaging even low-level nuclear waste, as well as a
history of radioactive incidents in the US, UK and EU, reveals how complex it is to manage
nuclear waste safely. Multiplying that challenge many times over by building a fleet of nuclear
reactors could have devastating consequences for communities and ecosystems.

…The Coalition has not asked communities like Collie, Latrobe Valley and the Hunter Valley for
their consent to build nuclear reactors and waste dumps in their backyards, but the upcoming
Federal Election is a chance for voters to have a say in Australia’s energy future

You know how everyone is having a massive WHERE IS THE COSTINGS moment, because, well, it’s an election campaign and everyone gets obsessed with costings?

Well, the department of finance’s dedicated website to record the costings of the major party policies has only published two so far. Both from Labor and neither costing seems to have been completed.

You can find that, here.

The PBO usually takes care of the minor parties costings. And you can find that, here.

On the issue of monopolies, should Bunnings be afraid of a Dutton-Littleproud government?

Littleproud:

I think that the evidence mounts that there should be an extension to Bunnings. And Bunnings and Coles and Woolworths shouldn’t be fearful. If they’re as pure as the driven snow and they respect competition law, it will never be used.

But in society, you have to have a deterrence and a consequence. If you don’t have that, then you get those that will abuse that power take advantage of the little guy. And what the Nationals have always been is about the little guy. Protecting the little guy and trying to make the little guy become a big guy, because the big guy can look after themselves.

What we want to do is make sure that there is just fairness all the way through. That is the Australian way. And when we’ve already got it, we’ve already got the powers in place, and Anthony Albanese calls them Stalinistic. He signed up to them in January, and went missing by February.

Last year. I mean, really, does he understand the pain that Australians are feeling out there? Why wouldn’t you, from the privileged position that we’ve been given to go into that place up there and to actually make sure that we are giving every Australian a shot at dinner tonight, why wouldn’t we do that? We’re a rich country, but we should be a smarter country and that’s what Peter and I are prepared to do.

David Littleproud also thinks the public polls are wrong.

He says:

Well, look, I think that this is more of a 2019 election than a 2022 election. And I see that through the prism of our own track polling of the seats that we’re trying to win. And the ones that we have challenges in. And the national polls, I think, aren’t reflective that that is very much geographically based this election. You go to Victoria – they’ve got the overlay of a horrible state government with a horrible Federal Government and they’re angry and they have every right to be. Because they’ve got the lived experience of a government losing control of their streets, and losing control of their economy. And so, I think you’ll see that we can all get carried away.

And I personally don’t think that many people have switched on to this campaign. While we get excited in here about campaigns and the rigour of running around, even on the Wombat Trail, I don’t think that many people are engaged. They’ve had school holidays. They’ve had Easter. They’ve been camping. Only just cleaned the tent up, put it away and put the kids back to school.

(One million people have already voted and about half of registered voters are expected to vote before 3 May)

Littleproud:

That’s a good point, but I think that they’re the ones who had made their mind up. I think that you’ll find that there is a lot of the electorate who are very much starting to switch on now. So I think that it is dangerous to say that the polls, the national polls are reflective of what’s happening on the ground.

And that’s why I think that the next nine days, I think people are running the ruler over it. And they’re running the ruler over cost of living. That’s what they’re doing. Asking themselves, am I better off after three years of Anthony Albanese? Will it be any better after an Albanese-Bandt Coalition government or is there a solution for the here and now and a government that’s going to have the courage to fix the economy?

Energy is the economy. And unless you’re going to start this now, we’re kicking this down the road another three years and just imagine that, with a Coalition Labor-Greens government sprinkled with the Teals and Independents. We’ll be in a different place in three years if Australians see that. And I think is that Australians will put their lived experience against what they’re facing and I think that they’ll put the ruler on it.

Q: I wanted to get your view on the recent natural disasters in Queensland, and whether you personally believe in the science of climate change?

(Why are we still asking leaders if they BELIEVE in climate change like it’s the same as the tooth fairy or something?)

Littleproud:

Yes, I do. Thargomindah is a perfect example. We had a flood event through there, 1974, 7.65 metres of the record. Beat it by nearly a metre. So obviously, I respect the science, and we’ll do whatever we can to make sure that we have an energy grid that’s zero emissions, [that’s why we support nuclear] It’s only $330 billion compared to an all renewables approach of $600 billion. And we’re going to make sure that – when I was Emergency Services Minister – I actually had in place the emergency response fund – $5 billion fund that gave $100 million a year for mitigation of public works.

But also $50 million that was going into private works to be able to lift a house up or in cyclone areas, renovate to make sure that they were ready for cyclones.

David Littleproud’s address at the national press club has moved to the question and answer period.

He is asked:

We know nationally, statistics show that property crime has gone down in large parts of the country, and yet, it has been a big focus. Is the Coalition capitalising on perceptions of fear when it comes to crime? Or is this a reality that you’re seeing when you’re campaigning?

Littleproud:

Respectfully, ask that of the 70-year-old woman in Bendigo who got on a train to watch her famous Richmond Tigers play and was abused by a young lady physically on a train.

Ask her that it. Are we simply going to work on a society predictated on statistics? The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. This has a responsibility not just to state but to federal and local governments and I’m seeing local governments around the country leaning into this because they have the pride and passion of their communities and I don’t want to see the standard of their communes slip. And you know what, in Bendigo alone, for $360,000, we upgraded I think 57 CCTV cameras.

The state wasn’t going to do it. The council doesn’t have the capacity to do it. So why wouldn’t we, a program that we ran and ran successfully that took the proceeds of crime and reinvested them back to community infrastructure to keep Australians safe. And where there are intersections of law, particularly with communications, then why wouldn’t we do that? Why wouldn’t we?

We’ve all got a responsibility. And it’s not just Government’s responsibility. We have to lead. But as a society, and whether you talk about domestic violence today, it’s not just government that has the responsibility – every one of us does. And I think as a society, we’ve sometime passed our responsibility and aggregated it to the state. We all have a responsibility. I have a responsibility as a father to talk to my boys about what’s right and what’s wrong, setting the standard. And it’s not just money that will fix it. It’s us. It’s us that will fix it. Whether you’re a politician, whether you’re a role model in a sports club, we’ve all got a role to play.

Over in WA, Anthony Albanese has been asked if he would prefer to be stranded on a desert island with either Angus Taylor or Peter Dutton.

Apparently Wilson wasn’t an option.

AAP reports:

“I’ve had personal one-on-one conversations with him, we can talk … in confidence. I don’t really have a relationship with Angus,” Mr Albanese told the West Australian newspaper’s Leadership Matters event.

One thing it might be worth finding out the answer to is what water studies have actually been carried out when it comes to moving coal fired power station water allocations to nuclear power plants.

In the case of Victoria, the Victorian government water allocation website says the power station owner has already applied to use that water to stabilise the open cut coal mine. Darren Chester says no water assessment has been done and won’t be until after the election.

Perin Davey says she has done a water assessment.

I think Peter Dutton has said that a water assessment has been done.

So what’s true?

And if a water assessment HAS been done, then why won’t the Coalition release it?