This is Labor’s main attack message against Peter Dutton in Victoria (the state where the Coalition looks like having its most success (at this point) given the unpopularity of the Allan state government.

Anthony Albanese:

Peter Dutton is a Queenslander who wants to live in Sydney and wants to dud Victorians. Victorians had to put up with three prime ministers in a row who dudded Victoria when it came to infrastructure. They don’t need another one living at Kirribilli House who wants to dud Victoria of infrastructure and I won’t do that.

After facing criticism that he was not campaigning with Jacinta Allan in Victoria because of ger government’s drag on Labor’s federal vote.

Well Allan is out today with Anthony Albanese. Asked about the issue Labor is having with the unpopularity of her government, she deflected, saying:

What I know Victorians are focused on is a choice, a choice between a prime minister and the Labor government that’s backing Medicare, that’s backing the infrastructure projects our city and state needs and wants, as opposed to a Dutton government and a Liberal offering that is all about cuts,”

You may remember that the Coalition was obsessed with Labor oppositions providing costings. And you may also remember rapid journalists screaming WHERE ARE YOUR COSTINGS???? at Labor leaders.

So where are the Coalition’s costings?

Taylor:

We will put them out in – on the same timeline as past oppositions including Labor and it will be before the election. I’m not going to give you a date. You’ll get to see them in the detail that is customary and that’s – we’ll follow the normal practices.

The important point here – you will see, sneak preview – that our budget position is stronger than Labor’s. You will see that strong economic management is central to everything we’re doing, and you’ll see that, in particular, that a position where there’s red ink as far as the eye can see from Labor is not a sustainable position for a Liberal Party that has always believed in strong economic management as the pathway to aspiration, prosperity, housing, small businesses, all the things that we back.

This just doesn’t make sense, given that the Coalition has matched Labor in spends on health and education and this election campaign is tit for tat on infrastructure announcements.

So are there any other policies the Coalition is backing down on? Like nuclear?

Angus Taylor:

We absolutely not backing down on that, I can assure you, and we’re not backing down to making sure we drive down prices of electricity after the complete and abject failures of a Government that promised a $275 reduction and we’re not backing down on our strong economic management at a time where there’s so much uncertainty around the world.

Today we’re likely to see a big reduction over $100 billion wiped off our share market, self-funded retirees and young Australians saving up for a deposit for a home are all going to pay the price for this deeply uncertain world. We need strong economic management and that will continue to be our focus

The Coalition have sent out Angus Taylor to clean up the mess of the public service policy.

Which is going as well as you could expect.

Taylor tells the ABC:

We made a mistake. It is always a tough balance to get it right between accountability and efficiency of any workforce and at the same time, making sure we’ve got flexibility, flexibility really matters in a modern workforce. (welcome to 2025, Angus Taylor!)

We want the public service to be the best it can possibly be. We want to make sure it’s a public service that isn’t bigger than it needs to be where our great public servants are empowered to do their best work, and getting the balance right of every taxpayer’s money, their flexibility matters too in a modern workforce.

So we have adjusted this, there was a very dishonest scare campaign running from Labor, of course, that this was across the whole – of the private sector workforce, which it clearly isn’t what we’re talking about, we’re talking here about the public service.

(The private sector tends to follow the public sector in these things, which is one of the reasons conservative economists hate it when the public sector raises wages)

Now that the Coalition has settled on reducing the public service by natural attrition (this is the third version of this policy now – the first was to cut the APS by how much it had grown under Labor, which was 41,000 people. Then it was to limit those cuts to Canberra based people (which would have been impossible) and now its to do it through natural attrition – oh and don’t worry, the Coalition is now totally fine with work from home, even though it made forcing people back to work its whole personality for a moment there)

So this third incarnation is natural attrition.
Which sounds very familiar – in 2013 the Coalition policy was to cut the public service by natural attrition.

You can find those details on page 198 of this document. And under all those costings – it “does not take account of any potential impact this proposal may have on service delivery or revenue collection”.

Last week, in a surprise move, Peter Dutton announced a coalition government would not repeal Labor’s “Same Job Same Pay” laws that have raised the wages of thousands of labour hire workers.

The Opposition leader also said “the big difference on industrial relations policy at the next election between us and the Labor Party will be that we’re going to deregister the CFMEU”.

Is Peter Dutton’s statement a good representation of the differences in the major parties’ positions on industrial relations? For a start, let’s look at what the major parties have said (or not) on minimum wage rises.

The Annual Wage Review

The Prime Minister has said a Labor government would tell the Fair Work Commission to raise the minimum wage above inflation to increase the real wages of low-paid workers.

Peter Dutton has said he supports an increase in the minimum wage but has not said how much of a rise or whether it should be above inflation. This leaves him with an awful lot of wriggle room.

Earlier this year, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Michaelia Cash, was asked if she could “guarantee that workers won’t get a pay cut or fall under the Coalition”. Senator Cash failed to answer the question and, instead, responded “Let’s be very clear, it is under former Coalition government, the real wages moved forward”.

If the Coalition heeded the advice of business lobby groups ACCI and ABI, they would be wanting the Fair Work Commission to limit minimum and award wage increases to 2.5%. This would very likely mean a cut in real wages for the lowest-paid workers, with Treasury forecasting CPI at 3% to June 2025.

The ACTU is seeking a 4.5% increase to the minimum wage, arguing this is what is needed for the 2.6 million workers on minimum wages to get ahead of inflation.

Analysis by the Centre for Future Work shows that an increase in minimum and award wages of between 5.8% and 9.2% is needed to restore the real buying power of low-paid workers’ wages to pre-pandemic trends.

The Fair Work Commission’s annual wage review deliberations will continue through May. Peter Dutton and Michaelia Cash should tell us now exactly how much a Coalition government would like to see low-paid workers’ wages rise.

For these workers, a small difference in percentage points matters a lot because it means the difference between getting ahead or going backwards.

And if the Opposition leader and Shadow Minister will not support a real increase in minimum and award wages how confident can we be that a Coalition government would support the ongoing work of the Fair Work Commission to tackle gendered undervaluation of low-paid care workers in publicly-funded sectors? Would a Coalition government continue to fund multi-employer bargaining pay increases for early childhood educators and care workers ?

Labor is back in Victoria – Melbourne to be exact – for the second time this campaign, as Labor attempts to hold seats in what has become its weakest state.

As one Labor MP said to me recently, it is not the Liberals who Labor is having to fight against in Victoria, it is the Allan Labor government, which is on the nose in the polls and looking, at this point, to be pretty terminal.

The Coalition is in Adelaide, where there will be more infrastructure announcements, and also a continued reverse ferret on the public service cuts policy, which Dutton is desperately trying to back peddle on, as he continues to drop in the polls himself.

After polling, feedback and just the general vibe showed that forcing public servants back into the office wasn’t the winning policy the Coalition thought it was, the Coalition is now walking it back, by pretending that it never really existed.

I strongly support work from home,” Dutton told reporters in Darwin at the weekend. 

I’ve been very clear about that and our policy … doesn’t have any impact on the public sector outside of Canberra.”

This was Jane Hume in March:

“Using existing frameworks, it will be an expectation of a Dutton Liberal government that all members of the APS work from the office five days a week.

“Exceptions can and will be made, of course; but they will be made where they work for everyone rather than be enforced on teams by an individual.”

Just in case you thought that was a one off, there was an entire section labelled ‘Back to Work’ in the speech Hume gave to the Menzies Institute (just last month) which made it VERY clear it was all APS workers. She called it a “return to disciplines”.

One public servant told my office that one of their colleagues worked from home five days a week. They were frequently uncontactable and thus unreliable.

Why? Because while they were working, they were also traveling around Australia with their family in a campervan.

The challenges faced by Australia today are significant.

We have been in a per capita recession for seven consecutive quarters – the longest on record.

27,000 small businesses have closed – a record high.

We are in an era of significant geopolitical competition, facing significant security challenges. Yet we have become less cohesive and less safe since October 7 2023.

There are many talented, driven people in the Australian Public Service. And if elected, I want them to come back to the office with me to help solve these challenges.

Using existing frameworks, it will be an expectation of a Dutton Liberal Government that all members of the APS work from the office five days a week.

Exceptions can and will be made, of course; but they will be made where they work for everyone rather than be enforced on teams by an individual.

This is common sense policy that will instil a culture that focuses on the dignity of serving the public, a service that relies on the public to fund it, and a service that respects that funding by ensuring they are as productive as possible.

A public service that respects its resources and a Government that is disciplined in its fiscal management, we can deliver more effective and more efficient services for Australians.

Expecting more from Government is both reasonable and essential for a healthy democracy.

It doesn’t require a new department, or a tech billionaire. But it does require a change of government, a restoration of disciplines Labor has abandoned, and a back to basics approach.

Under a Dutton Liberal Government, Australians will know that the taxes they pay are being spent in Australia’s best interests.

AAP has done a whoosh whoosh of all the different polls:

With just weeks until Australians take to the ballot boxes, Labor is leading the coalition 52 to 48 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis, the latest Newspoll shows.

The result is a percentage point improvement for Labor since the previous Newspoll was published on March 30.

The last time Labor led the coalition 52 per cent to 48 in Newspoll on a two-party preferred basis was May 2024.

The latest poll, published by The Australian on Sunday evening, was mostly conducted before US President Donald Trump’s tariff announcement on Thursday.

Multiple polls show a surge in support for the government over the coalition as party leaders zip across the nation to court voters ahead of the May 3 election.

A Redbridge and Accent Research poll for News Corp, conducted from a sample of 1006 people from March 28 to April 1, also showed Labor ahead 52 to 48 on a two-party-preferred basis.

The first YouGov poll of the election campaign also had Labor ahead – 51 per cent to 49 on a two-party preferred basis.

The YouGov poll of 1622 people was conducted between March 28 and April 3, with a margin of error of 3.3 per cent.