The Labor campaign are on to an undisclosed location (this is how campaigns work – you never know until you’re basically there)

And the Coalition campaign is headed from southern Queensland to Brisbane where Peter Dutton has a Sky News commitment.

We have some questions we are looking into answers for you – but send me any questions you might have during this election campaign for either answers, or factchecks and we’ll see what we can do. You can find me at amy.remeikis@australiainstitute.org.au or on the socials (but email is easier to keep track of).

Today’s question:

Have almost 80% of coal workers in the US, the UK and Canada transitioned into working for the nuclear industry?

On the face of it, it doesn’t seem like it, but we are taking a longer look.

There is a lot of media attention on Anthony Albanese not being able to string a sentence together when he’s trying to repeat practiced lines (he is much better off the cuff)

Here was the whole answer to ‘will you negotiate with the Greens’ in a minority government, which is always asked and is always silly, because they always say no, but also, they are not turning down power. And also – they do negotiate with the Greens every week, in the senate.

Albanese:

That’s the matter for the organisational wing but I make this point as I have made it again – because there was some reporting of something in spite of the 385 times that I have said we will not govern in Coalition with anyone, including the Greens, that I rule out – I rule out – just to be really clear again – if you ask me, “Do you rule out governing in Coalition with the Greens?”, the answer to that is no. I don’t negotiate with the Greens.

The double negative in there has some people very excited about a faux pas, but honestly – can we move on to some actual issues?

We’ll be back tomorrow with more analysis, campaign coverage and fact checks – and we hope you will join us. It is very humbling to see how many of you have jumped on this little project so quickly. Thank you. We don’t take it for granted. Or you.

Until tomorrow, do good and take care of you. Ax

Jason Clare was also asked about the supermarket price taskforce Labor has announced and said:

It will provide us with the advice we need for legislation we need to put in place the sort of fines to stop this happening.

I think most Australians watching today will know they are being ripped off at the supermarket, one of the ways the big supermarket chains do this is increasing prices, then they dropped them by a bit and call it a sale or they shrink the size of the packet and charge the same amount of money.

Or price gouging, what we are talking about yesterday, which is really just charging excessive amounts for a product because they can because a is another product on the market because there was not enough competition.

In the UK they have done this, and Europe as well, they have done it in 30 states in the US where you can outlaw this and put in place the serious fines to stop the big supermarket chains doing this. We have already put in place of fines for the supermarket they come into effect I think tomorrow where they are ripping off farmers and suppliers and those fines are as big as $10 million or 10% of the turnover of a big company like Woolworth and Coles, that is a big amount of money and we have made in this announcement that we are prepared to do the same here when it comes to the price gouging that can happen at the supermarket.

Education minister Jason Clare has slid right back into being the campaign spokesperson for Labor. He had a chat to Stephanie Dalzell on Afternoon Briefing, where he was asked about power prices and said:

What we know is power prices will be low under Labor than there will be under Peter Dutton. He is the sort of challenge that we are facing. All of those old coal-fired power stations that are providing electricity for Australia right around the country, they are running out of puff, this has been obvious I think in the last two years where one of them has not been off-line.

They have to be replaced and there is a couple of options you can replace them with another coal fired power station where you can replace them with renewables backed up by gas and battery or you can replace them with these nuclear reactors that Peter Dutton is talking about.

The cheapest and fastest way to do this is by replacing them with wind and solar with renewable energy backed up by gas and batteries, the most expensive way to do this is to build nuclear reactors around the country which is Peter Dutton’s great idea. His big policy for the nation is to increase your taxes, to build nuclear reactors and also to make you pay more for your groceries and I don’t think it’s a recipe that Australians would like very much.

(continued from last post)

The report also stated that while it was not examining whether or not the prices were excessive “while most grocery price increases from July 2019 to June 2024 appear attributable to increases in input and operating costs across the economy, at least some of those price increases appear to have resulted in additional profits for Coles and Woolworths.”

But here’s the thing about tracking prices to see if they are excessive. It is bloody hard – especially when that is not even the object of a report. There are a lot of moving parts – including many different items – imagine for example just trying to determine if the prices of soft drinks are being gouged – which brands, which type of brands, in which location, which sizes, cans or bottles, in individual bottles or when combined into packs. Now do that for every item you can think of.

Essentially if you want to do that you need.. gee I don’t know… how about a prices taskforce?!!

So anyway, after explaining that it did not look at explicitly whether or not there was price gouging going on, the ACCC still concluded:

“If there were a greater degree of competition between supermarkets, we would expect margins to be lower, either by way of lower retail prices, or higher costs incurred to improve quality of service, or both”

ie – the companies are making a motza and this is likely due to being able to charge higher prices. If we had better competition prices would be lower, or the quality of service would be better.

Through the lens of our media, this quickly became in the AFR “ACCC fails to find smoking gun on supermarket price-gouging” (yes, because they were not looking for a smoking gun!!).

Even worse though in the ABC, the line became “Price gouging claims don’t stack up”. That’s just wrong. The media are demanding evidence for something the ACCC was not investigating and then saying that no evidence was found is damning.

It has become almost a fact that the ACCC’s Inquiry into supermarkets found no evidence of price gouging.

This is not surprising because the ACCC’s supermarket inquiry was not tasked with looking into price gouging.

Specifically with regards to price the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers asked the ACCC to

“take into consideration all of the following matters in holding the inquiry :

(c) factors affecting the price of inputs along the supply chain for groceries, including:

(i) any impediments to the efficient availability of inputs along the supply chain; and

(ii) any impediments to the efficient pricing of inputs along the supply chain; and

(iii) any difference between the prices paid, and prices charged, by suppliers, wholesalers and retailers for groceries

Now that might sound like they were looking at price gouging, but they were not – instead they were looking at why prices varied around the country  – for example the report found  “Apples were on average more expensive in remote Coles, Metcash banner and Woolworths stores than in non-remote stores across all years”, or that “Woolworths Metro stores employ a different pricing strategy to standard format Woolworths stores and prices tended to be more expensive. Prices in Coles Local and ALDI Corner Stores were similar to their standard format stores”

But they do not make any conclusions about whether that is due to price gouging, because as the report explicitly says it did not examine if price gouging was going on. This is made clear in “Key Points” of Chapter 7 of the report “Supermarket margins and Profitability”:

“We have not sought to determine whether the prices or margins of ALDI, Coles, Metcash (or its banner stores) and Woolworths are excessive. Having or exercising market power, or charging high prices, or obtaining high margins, is not prohibited by the CCA.”

(continued in next post)

Peter Dutton will be heading back to his seat for his evening appearance with Sky’s Paul Murray for his ‘Pub Test’ which is quite hilarious if you have ever looked at who is in that audience. I don’t think they need to test for political affiliation, if you get my drift.

The big story on Sky is Anthony Albanese saying he wouldn’t negotiate with the Greens for minority government. We haven’t heard a lot on Sky about Dutton telling Sydney radio shocks Kyle and Jackie O he wants to be Mr Harbourside Mansion:

If you’ve got a choice between Kirribilli or living in Canberra and The Lodge, it takes Sydney any day over Canberra.

We love Sydney, love the harbour.

It’s a great city.”

That of course doesn’t only mean that Kirilly will be in Kirribilli – it also means that all the public servants and infrastructure required for confidential cabinet meetings etc – will all have to head to Sydney too. It’s expensive.

The weather is now the victim of woke politics it seems

(this is a joke. Obviously the weather is already a vegan).

The Coalition are announcing $10m for a new weather radar in south west Queensland, which has been devastated by floods. Quilpie mayor Ben Hall told the Australian last week that his town was a “blind spot” for the BOM and the town had been taken by surprise by the floods.

So the Coalition is promising a weather radar for the town which falls in the Maranoa region, which has been held by the LNP forever, including the last decade or so the Coalition was in power. In fact David Littleproud was the member for a nice chunk of those years. But the Coalition are blaming Labor for the lack of radar and this is their reasoning:

This $10 million funding announcement is yet another reflection that a Dutton-Littleproud Government would once again prioritise the needs of regional Australians after the neglect of the Albanese Government. 

The need for a weather radar in Central Queensland is not new. The Albanese Government could have acted at any time over the last three years, but they have been busy focusing on harvesting Greens votes and inner-city issues like the Voice than responding to the needs of this regional community.”  

Hmmm kay babes.

WA Liberal senator Michaelia Cash is holding a press conference in Perth now, where she is speaking about the cost of living. She said she was out with the Liberal candidate for Pearce, Jan Norberger, outside a supermarket speaking to people:

We spoke to person after person after person who was exiting the shops after just doing their shopping, and each one of us said [sic] that they were buying less because of the cost of living crisis under Mr Albanese, and they agreed that the most effective form of immediate relief in a state in particular like Western Australia, where we are a large state, we drive incredible distances here in WA, because we are a large state, is to lower the tax that they pay at the bowser.

The 70 cents a day in 15 months time [Labor’s top up tax cut] means nothing to them, but that immediate relief by halving the fuel excise – so in other words, every time you put that petrol pump into your car at the bowser by 25 cents a liter, 14 bucks a week for the average family [this has been overestimated] and in WA families can fill up at least once, twice, sometimes three times a week, depending on where you’re going, that is the real cost of living relief that they need, and they will get that flowing immediately under a Peter Dutton government.

Except, as we said – those fuel savings seem to have been overestimated:

And then there was this question:

Q: What gives you the confidence that gas giants are actually going to come to the table with these negotiations? Are you prepared to put in legislation to essentially force them to gather more gas into the grid? 

Dutton: 

And that’s exactly our plan. Our plan is to make sure that we can bring 50 to 100 petajoules into the system. Now that will vary according to the demand and according to the season, but by bringing that additional supply into the market, we put downward pressure on prices and that is a very significant thing that’s not happening now.

At the moment you’ve got a situation where the government is choking supply – so they’re stopping gas coming into the system – which is what will force up prices, and we say to the companies that there is a requirement to put that back into the system through the mechanism that we put in place. The important thing to remember here is that Mr Albanese is promising to increase the price of gas and electricity. We are promising to reduce it and that is something that only a Coalition government can deliver and we’ve outlined that plan

It is important to note that when Dutton is speaking about ‘choking supply’ he means the government isn’t approving enough new gas fields. But we do not need new gas fields to have a gas reservation policy – we have plenty of gas already, it is just that we export 80% of it.

So the more pertinent question is about getting the gas companies to reserve more of the gas they would be exporting for the domestic market – and at domestic prices, so Australians are not paying international prices for their own gas.

This is something Dutton DID address on Saturday when he spoke to Weekend Sunrise:

We can do it straight away because the gas is there, it’s being produced now. It doesn’t require any infrastructure. It is a matter of turning it back into the economy. “

That hasn’t been repeated again today – instead Dutton is back to talking about opening up more gasfields (which isn’t needed).

For example, the opposition is committed to immediately approving the North West Shelf gas field extension – a project which is for 100% exports of LNG. It will not add anything to domestic gas… but it will add the equivalent of 12 new coal fired power stations worth of emissions over the next 50 years.

Here is a little bit more on Peter Dutton avoiding answering whether or not his energy policy would actually cut power bills:

Q: How much will Australians’ electricity and gas prices be cut by in the first term of government if you’re elected, or is the cut of not such sufficient size that you’re really looking to stabilise the price after these price rises? 

Dutton:

Well, there are two offerings at the next election. One is from the government, which is guaranteeing you that electricity prices will go higher if Labor’s re-elected. Right, let’s be clear about that. Electricity and gas is up by 32 and 34 per cent now. Mr Albanese’s plan promises Australians that they will pay more for electricity and gas after the election.

Our plan, which is to create an east coast reserve, brings more gas into the system. If we bring more gas into the system, and don’t forget that gas is not just used at home but natural gas is used to generate electricity. It will be across the economy not just in the households but in businesses like this one which will benefit. 

Q: But are you looking to just stabilise it or actually cut it? 

Dutton: 

We will have in terms of our offering at the next election to the Australian people a definite plan about how we can reduce prices. Not just keep downward pressure, but I want to reduce power prices. I want to reduce power prices because that’s how we’re going to bring grocery prices down. 

Q:   Like 10 per cent, 20 per cent? 

Dutton:  

We’ll provide you with some more detail, as we’ve said. But the point I’d make is that there’s a choice for Australians to make. It’s about who can better manage the economy, who can better manage the energy system, and Mr Albanese’s plan is going to see certain increases in power prices. Don’t forget already, just in three years, electricity’s up by 32 per cent, and it’s going to go higher under Mr Albanese’s plan. There will be blackouts. The renewables energy only mix that he’s got on the table at the moment is a recipe for higher prices and Australians just can’t afford three more years of the Albanese Government.