David Littleproud is now giving his press club address.

Sigh.

It will no doubt, be exactly as you would imagine. We will come back to the Q and A

Peter Dutton was in Perth and is now in Tasmania, where he was greeted by protesters.

Sussan Ley was also there.

And of course, along with the kissing of the WA regent’s ring, there must also be the standard kissing of WA in general.

Anthony Albanese:

I’m optimistic about Australia’s future, if we seize the opportunities ahead of us.

And nowhere offers greater cause for optimism or a stronger sense of opportunity than right here in Western Australia.

I launched Labor’s campaign for Government here in Perth almost three years ago.

And I’ve been back as Prime Minister more than 30 times, including to launch our campaign for re-election.

WA is central to Labor’s positive plan for Building Australia’s Future.

And WA is vital to Australia’s success in the world.

Peter Dutton did it earlier in the campaign – now it is Anthony Albanese’s time to kiss the WA media ring:

This election has had its second record high day for early voting in a row, with almost 590,000 Australians turning up to pre-poll on Wednesday. Combined with the 540,000 on Tuesday over a million votes have already been cast, surpassing the same point (ten days from the election) in 2022. 2022 was the high-water mark of pre-poll voting (over a third of Australians voted pre-poll), and while some of that was likely the lingering effects of Covid-19, it also reflects a long-term rise in early voting. With pre-polling already on track to beat last election, 2025 may become the new record high for early voting.

Wondering how pre-polling has evolved over time, and what the implications are of so many early votes? You can read more about that here.

Here is the official domestic and family violence funding announcement from the Coalition:

An elected Dutton Coalition Government will commit an additional $90 million to further address family and domestic violence across Australia. 

This investment recognises the complexities of family and domestic violence, and that more action is needed to build on the continued implementation of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032 (National Plan). 

An elected Dutton Coalition Government will put renewed focus on prevention, early intervention and crisis response. We will: 

·       Implement a National Domestic Violence Register, allowing police across Australia and relevant agencies to access and share information about a person’s previous family violence convictions to better manage risk and avoid future offending. 

·       Take strong action against perpetrators of family and domestic violence through specialist early and behavioural intervention programs and tougher monitoring measures.  

·       Establish new domestic violence offences by making it a crime to use mobile phone and computer networks to cause an intimate partner or family member to fear for their personal safety, to track them using spyware or engage in coercive behaviours, and ensure tough bail laws apply to these new offences.  

·       Develop uniform national knife laws with the states and territories. 

·       Lift the threshold for fast-track property settlements in the family law courts, so that separating couples with an asset pool of up to $1.5 million can resolve matters that do not involve children quickly and fairly. 

·       Improve online safety for women and children.  

·       Expand the Safe Places Emergency Accommodation Program to assist more victim-survivors and their families escaping violence.  

·       Support women and children fleeing domestic violence with emergency payments through the Leaving Violence Program.  

·       Increase crisis helpline support so victim-survivors fleeing family and domestic violence have their calls answered and get the immediate assistance they require.  

·       Support community organisations to deliver domestic violence awareness training. 

·       Recycle mobile phones so victim survivors cannot be tracked, harassed or further abused.  

·       Improve child safety and protection and ensure the delivery of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032. 

·       Launch a Royal Commission into Sexual Abuse in Indigenous communities to address these horrific crimes and ensure children are safe and their childhood protected.   

·       Strengthen Commonwealth taxation, welfare and superannuation systems where practicable to eradicate financial abuse, coercive control and unfair outcomes following family and domestic violence. 

In the Financial Review today Phil Coorey is reporting that one of the Coalition’s savings options is “banking the interest savings from the abolition of two off-budget funds worth $30 billion”. These funds tend to be managed by the Future Fund.

But the problem is that dumping these funds does not really create “savings” and t might actually cost money.

Why is that?  

Let’s do some quick maths: The budget papers show that public debt interest is expected to be $26,303 million in 2025-26 which is 2.7% of the average government bonds and other borrowings on issue in 2025-26. 

So dumping $30 billion in funds might save interest expenses of $804 million (2.7% of $30bn).

So it that money saved? Well… probably not.

You see those funds also earn money from the investments they make, and that money goes into the budget.  So we need to ask how much revenue the Coalition would forgo.

The 2024 report by the Chair of the Future Fund said it “achieved a 9.1% return….[and a] 10 year return of 8.3% per annum…in excess of the benchmark of 6.9% per annum” 

Even if the Future Fund just made its benchmark of 6.9% that $30 billion would produce a return of $2,070 million.

So that is what the Coalition would sacrifice in order to save $804 million in public debt interest.

That gives a net loss of $1,266 million.

This may sound peculiar but abolishing the funds means a large cost to the budget bottom line. 

Dr Emma Shortis

Director, International & Security Affairs program

The Trump administration is going after the 1964 Civil Rights Act – specifically, Title IV.

According to the US Department of Justice, Title IV “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.”

Trump and the movement that supports him have always seen his victory in November as a generational one – an opportunity to undo all of the gains of the Civil Rights movement and return to an imaginary version of America in which white people – specifically, straight, white men – are the rightful and natural leaders of society.

Last year, with her colleague Dr Liam Byrne, Emma wrote about the longer history of this movement and how it explains Trump’s political success.

The movement behind Trump is, they wrote, “an explicitly racialised and anti-democratic movement that intends to impose the will of the minority over the lives of the majority.” We are now seeing that play out in real time. 

https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-stroll-to-victory-in-iowa-was-a-foregone-conclusion-this-doesnt-make-it-any-less-shocking-221207

As Peter Dutton announces a Coalition government would scrap tax breaks for people who buy electric vehicles, The Australia Institute has called for him to scrap the ridiculous tax break for people who buy big utes. 

Australia Institute research shows that subsidies for luxury imported utes costs the Federal Budget $250 million per year.

Almost every large, dual-cab ute on the market is exempt from the luxury car tax because utes are “designed mainly for carrying goods and not passengers”.

But everyone knows most of these vehicles rarely leave the bitumen of our suburbs and rarely carry anything more than the weekly shopping or children for the school drop-off.

“Big dumb utes make our roads more dangerous, cause more pollution and reduce the government’s ability to fund social services,” said Richard Denniss, Executive Director of The Australia Institute.

“Basic economics says to tax things you want less of and subsidise things you want more of, yet Peter Dutton seems to want less electric vehicles and more American-style utes on our roads.

“The Coalition says it’s scrapping the EV tax break – which it supported up until Monday – because people who buy electric vehicles can afford them. Surely the same should apply for big utes.”

The Opposition Leader wraps up his presser, having failed to clear the air on his EV tax break backflip, accept poor polling, answer simple questions on trans women or offer anything to students who’d pay 20% more HECS under a Dutton government.

Peter Dutton‘s final quote:

Over the next three years our country could face a global recession. There could be conflict in the Middle East or in Europe or in our own region. Now is not the time to risk a Labor or Greens government and to have a coalition government in their managing the economy and bringing inflation down, helping families to clean up Labor’s mess and to get our country back on track. That is what this election is about and that is why I think we can win this election and win it we must, so we can save many families from the heartache they are experiencing at the moment.