Anyway, here was Dutton’s answer to some of those questions:

Now that we are through some of the fact checks, let’s revisit Peter Dutton’s press conference, where he was joined by his son, Harry.
Harry was asked what it was like campaigning with his dad and said:

It’s been great being on the campaign trail with him.  Going all over and seeing all  different people and all different industries. I am saving up for a  house and so is my sister, Beck, and a lot of my mates, but as you  probably heard, it’s almost  impossible to get in – in the current state. So I mean we’re  saving like mad, but it doesn’t look like we’ll get there in the near  future. But we’d love that to  change.

His family are multi-millionaires. The SMH and Age reported just before the election that Dutton was involved in $30m across 26 property transactions.

Do you think Harry, who seems like a smart lad, might be able to work out why housing is so expensive? Does Peter Dutton really want us to believe that his children won’t be able to afford a property, despite his own personal immense wealth?

Does anyone want to point out the giant elephant in the room here?

The Greens are broadly in support of Anthony Albanese slipping in the announcement that he wants Adelaide to host the UN Climate Conference (COP) if Australia wins its (co) hosting bid (it is meant to be in conjunction with Pacific island nations)

Sarah Hanson-Young said:

It’s great to see the Prime Minister recognise what South Australians have always felt —
Adelaide is the city of clean, green power and climate action.

Adelaide and Australia have the opportunity to lead on the next crucial steps of combating dangerous climate change, but we must stop making climate pollution worse. We can’t put the fire out, if we keep pouring fuel on it. Australia can lead the way on getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies and opening new polluting mines.
After a jam packed few months with the Fringe, WOMADelaide, the Adelaide Festival and Gather
Round, it seems only right that Adelaide is put forward as Australia’s host city for COP31.

South Australia has led the country on investment and transition to renewable energy. Now we
should lead on pushing for an end to new coal and gas projects.

AAP has an update on China’s official response to Trump’s tariffs:

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for stronger industrial and supply chain co-operation with Vietnam and wider collaboration in emerging fields, amid heightened trade tensions prompted by hefty US tariffs.

Xi starts a three-nation tour of Southeast Asia this week, beginning with Vietnam on Monday and Tuesday, and Malaysia and Cambodia from Tuesday to Friday.

The trip aims to consolidate economic ties with some of China’s closest neighbours at a time when the world’s top two economies are locked in a tariff tussle.

The visit comes as Beijing faces 145 per cent US duties and after China hiked its levies on imports of US goods to 125 per cent on Friday, hitting back at US President Donald Trump’s decision to single out the world’s number two economy for higher duties.

Xi also urged strengthening co-ordination and co-operation through regional initiatives such as the East Asia Co-operation and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, the Chinese foreign ministry said, citing an article by the Chinese leader published in Vietnam media.

He called such efforts necessary to “inject more stability and positive energy into a chaotic and intertwined world”.

“There are no winners in trade wars and tariff wars, and protectionism has no way out,” Xi said, without mentioning the US specifically.

“We must firmly safeguard the multilateral trading system, maintain the stability of the global industrial and supply chains, and maintain the international environment for open co-operation,” he said.

Last week, China sought to get ahead of US negotiators, holding video calls with the EU and Malaysia, which is chairing ASEAN this year, as well as Saudi Arabia and South Africa, by way of reaching out to Gulf countries and the Group of 20 and BRICS nations.

In hope of avoiding punishing US tariffs, Vietnam is prepared to crack down on Chinese goods being shipped to the US via its territory and will tighten controls on sensitive exports to China, according to a person familiar with the matter and a government document seen by Reuters.

In the article, Xi said China welcomes more high-quality imports from Vietnam and encourages more Chinese enterprises to invest and start businesses in the Southeast Asian country.

Both countries should expand co-operation in emerging fields such as 5G, artificial intelligence and green development, the article said. 

One of biggest issues at this election is housing affordability. When it comes to housing affordability, both major parties have been guilty of juicing demand for housing with past policies. This started all the way back in the year 2000 with first homeowner’s grants. Study after study has shown that giving one group of home buyers more money or access to more borrowing just pushes up house prices.

Policies that both major parties have that is this category include:

• Access to super for first home buyers (LNP)
• 5% deposit without mortgage insurance for first home buyers (ALP)
• Tax deductibility for interest payments for first home buyers buying new homes (LNP)
• Govt taking up to a 40% equity stake in buying a home (ALP)
• Lowering borrowing standards to make it easier to get a larger mortgage (LNP)

These make for nice announceables but they will drive up house prices and make housing less affordable.

The ALP’s announcement yesterday that it will build 100,000 new homes over 10 years from 2026-27 for first-home buyers is something we at The Australia Institute have been arguing in favour of for a long while. Everyone in Australia knows that housing is a good investment… except it seems most governments, who instead have put in a myriad of policies to help private-sector investors.

The Australian Government can currently borrow money at an interest rate of 4.4%; by comparison home loans are around 6.2%. It makes sense for the government to borrow at a lower rate, build homes for people who need them – either to rent, rent to buy or to sell.

And governments used to this. If the ALP’s plan succeeds it would average 10,000 new homes each year. Up to the early 1990s that was the lower limit of public housing construction. Unfortunately for the past 30 years, government have departed the field and left housing construction to the private sector. Not surprisingly this has led to higher house prices – especially when combined with the tax incentives of negative gearing and the 50% capital gains tax discount.

10,000 homes a year is not radical, nor should it be beyond the capacity of our construction sector. We used to do it all the time. In fact, it was so common a certain Prime Minister grew up in public housing. It should be as common again.

After Anthony Albanese went to the not-for-profit ‘Nonna’s Cucina’ this morning, Peter Dutton has turned up at a Food Bank.

OK, so right before this moment shown in this photo, it looked like Plibersek was going in for a hug or a social kiss and Albanese grabbed both her arms and kinda shook them instead and continued down the line of Labor frontbenchers and the media lost its mind at the SNUB SEEN AROUND THE NATION.

It is no secret that Albanese and Plibersek have been rivals throughout their time in the Labor party, with both fighting it out for dominance within the Left faction. Albanese obviously emerged victorious in that battle (for now) but that doesn’t mean the rivalry stopped.

He gave Plibersek the environment portfolio instead of what she wanted – the education portfolio – because one) it is a difficult portfolio for any Labor MP to hold because Labor policy doesn’t address climate change like it should and still supports fossil fuels and so you need someone you know won’t mess up what is a very difficult line to walk (Labor’s own doing it is a difficult line, but that’s the political reality of it) and two) because it is such a hard line to walk, it usually does damage to the standing of the Labor politician who holds it and that wouldn’t be unattractive to Albanese either.

So Plibersek is one of their best performers, so she gets one of the hardest jobs, and it has the added bonus for Albanese that he can also annoy Plibersek and cut down her leadership ambitions.

None of this is new. And it is equally true that there are no leadership rumblings in Labor. It’s a pretty committed team, despite some of the internal relationship politics.

However, the kiss thing is a bit of a non-event. It’s an election campaign – Albanese didn’t actually kiss anyone and not wanting to get sick is part of that, also anyone who has ever gone in for a social kiss when someone is going in for a handshake and seen that awkwardness play out and also – there are bigger issues in the world? There is a genocide happening people. Let’s keep things in perspective.

Ugh.

Peter Dutton was once again in high-vis.

So Peter Dutton was in Brisbane and Anthony Albanese was in Adelaide, let’s see how those campaigns looked:

Albanese made the mistake of consuming food/drink in front of cameras: