Tue 8 Apr
This blog is now closed.
Everyone supports solar. And Anthony Albanese supports batteries.
Peter Dutton then turns to power prices. People got solar because they couldn’t afford the price of electricity.
Why would that be? IS IT BECAUSE COAL AND GAS ARE TOO EXPENSIVE?
Dutton won’t support a policy that subsidises batteries.
Anthony Albanese asks about the woman’s grandkids and thanks her for her service to Australia (not just for the grandkids, but living her life)
He says that Labor is pretty much doing the same thing:
We have the same policy is already in place. Effectively, we have put in place a two year ban on foreign ownership of homes. We think that’s appropriate at the moment. In order to ensure that homes are available for Australians, we’re going to increase the supply of homes. That’s absolutely central to a range of policies that we’ve put in place, whether it be private rentals, whether it be public and social housing where I grew up, or whether it be home ownership as well.
This question…goes places. Let’s stick with she wants to know whether or not any political party will stop people who live overseas buying homes and then leaving them empty.
Peter Dutton:
…What I’d say in relation to housing is that we have announced as part of our housing policy, not just the $5 billion to create the 500,000 new homes, not just to cut to migration so we can get Australian kids into housing, but also a two year ban on foreign buyers from purchasing existing housing stock here, and that’s because I don’t want foreign buyers competing against young Australians at auctions or at the sale you know of the house that they thought they’re buying.
Why just existing?
Dutton:
So the reason that it’s a fair question, the reason that we’ve asked, the reason that we’ve stated that we’re talking about existing homes is that if you look at unit developments, there is a certain number of pre sales that need to take place before that unit development can be completed.
So if they don’t get the pre sales, they don’t get the finance, and the apartment block of 200 units doesn’t get built. So what we didn’t want to do was cut out some of those pre sales, and a portion of some of those pre sales will be to foreign students, for example, but it allows that project to get up and running, and it allows those 200 units to come onto the market.
Rhea has a question for Peter Dutton:
How will cutting migration affect industries like healthcare and construction, and what will you do to ensure migration discussions remain respectful and avoid demonising migrants?
Dutton:
Well, the point I made before was that I think we are a greater country because of our migrant story, and I think we should celebrate it more as a country, people who came here with nothing, people who have worked hard. The same story of migrants today, but we have to have a well managed program. And when you bring in a million people over the course of two years, that is going to have an impact on health services, on infrastructure, on education, right across the economy. So if we’ve had a 65% increase.
And if the government’s going to bring in a population bigger than Adelaide over a five year period, and take money out of infrastructure at the same time, it’s going to have an impact. So we have to have a managed migration program, and our argument is that you can reduce it from the record level of data at the moment down by 25% for two years, which will create about 100,000 homes, and that will help young Australians get into housing.
This is not borne out by any research.
Sorry Peter Dutton, but bulk billing rates were falling at the time of the last election and since 2023 have begun to recover
Anthony Albanese seems to have found his stride in rebutting Dutton here:
But Peter, you tried, when you were the Health Minister, you tried to abolish bulk billing by having a fee every time people visit a doctor or every time people visit an emergency department. That’s what you did as health minister, and when you couldn’t get that through, you froze the Medicare rebate, which stayed frozen for six years. That’s why we are having to deal with this. That’s why my government has had to find the eight and a half billion dollars that you’ve matched. To be fair, you have said you agree with our policy there, but we’re repairing what we inherited, which was bulk billing in freefall while the coalition was in government.
Dutton is prepared to answer this, but sounds like he is on the backfoot:
…Our desire in relation to the whole health system was to make sure that we had a strong general practice, because it’s the experience of all of us. When you have young kids, or you’ve got aged parents, you need to be able to have a relationship with the general practice or a doctor that you can go to regularly. You need to be able to make sure that you can get an appointment, which is difficult at the moment.
And we were we were trying, and we were always supported, the funding now to build general practice, I want to see a strong primary care network, because if we do that, we can stop presentations at emergency departments. We can detect earlier cancers, and that’s the whole idea of having a strong network of general practice. And under our watch, the bulk billing rate increased under this watch, under the Prime Minister’s watch, it has gone down.
Now the leaders are being asked what they are doing about bulk billing.
Anthony Albanese goes through the policy to triple the incentive to bulkbilling for GPs and the urgent care clinics.
What he doesn’t mention is that the bulk billing rate itself has not been increased. Just the incentive. Which relies on doctors meeting certain measures in order to get the incentive, but the rate itself isn’t increasing.
Dutoon says much the same thing.
Both talk about lifting the bulkbilling rate. but not the actual rate itself.
I have no idea why Anthony Albanese never says that the modelling was for 44% less energy!!!
That is why it is cheaper! It’s for less energy.
See?
SIIIGGHHHHHH
There is an argument over who spent more as a government.
Then Albanese asks Dutton about nuclear. Dutton repeats the usual half truths, including that his plan is cheaper – but it was modelled for 44% LESS energy!