The Greens have also announced a plan to boost paid parental leave.

Senator Larrissa Waters and Ryan MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown said the plan would:

• Double the length of paid parental leave from 26 weeks to 52 weeks by 2030
• Increase the rate of pay to replacement wage, with the government funding up to $100,000 and employers topping up to replacement wage for those earning above $100,000
• Increase the ‘use it or lose it’ component for secondary carers from 4 to 12 weeks
• Expand parental leave eligibility to all PhD students (irrespective of employment status)
• Pay superannuation on 52 weeks of paid parental leave

Waters

In this cost of living crisis, trying to balance the household budget with a newborn has never been harder.

It’s time parents are rewarded, not penalised, for dedicating themselves to the precious first year of a baby’s life.

26 weeks at minimum wage is not enough. Families are being forced to make decisions that keep the bills paid rather than being supported to choose what’s right for them and their kids.

Hard working new parents are sacrificing precious time with their family, while big corporations make record profits and 1 in 3 of them pay no tax. 

Brisbane is one of the races that has the three biggest parties in Australia really pitted against each other and Stephen Bates, who won the seat on preferences from third at the last election – surprising most political pundits – is continuing his tradition of campaigning in off-the-beat ways.

Last election he utiilised the dating site, Grindr. This year, it’s OnlyFans, a subscription site for adult content.

It’s been used by activists in the past to spread messages – because with 28m visits a month just in Australia, it gets the eyeballs.

Bates has used his first video on the platform to announce the Greens plan to make PrEP and PEP prescriptions free, for anyone who has a script.

As Bates says:

PrEP and PEP significantly reduce the risk of HIV transmission. Nearly 100,000 Australians use it to protect themselves and others. While PrEP and PEP have been on the PBS since 2018, the growing gap payment means users are out of pocket hundreds of dollars a year. 

Prevention and early intervention saves our healthcare system money in the long run. This announcement goes hand in hand with the Green’s transformative election policy to make contraceptives free, removing the financial barrier to sexual healthcare. 

Bates said that people shouldn’t have to choose between their health and rent:

In a cost of living crisis, that’s just too much. You shouldn’t have to pay a fortune to be sexually responsible. 

Ending HIV is too important to fly under the radar. I campaign on OnlyFans and Grindr because it gets attention. Sometimes you have to make a splash to make people pay attention to the things that matter.

Penny Wong’s senate term expires in 2028 – will she run again?

She says yes.

Will she serve a full term?

Yes, and I’ve already said that. But I would make this point – unlike Mr Dutton, who’s already measuring up the curtains at Kirribilli by his own admission, thinking about where he’s going to live – we know we have a very big hill to climb. It is many, many years – I think 2004 – since a prime minister was re-elected. We know how tight this election is. So that’s what I’m focused on.

Penny Wong won’t go into the Australian efforts to secure the release of Oscar Jenkins who is being held by the Russians after he was captured while fighting for Ukraine.

On China’s efforts to build support across the south-east to counter the American tariffs, Wong says:

Wong:

I’ve said previously two things about tariffs – the tariffs that the Trump administration has put into place. The first is that we don’t agree with them. We think they are an act of economic self-harm. But the second point that has been made is obviously that this does alter American America’s relationships with countries around the world. You’ve seen that in Australia. And you are seeing that in our region. What we have to keep doing is to keep engaging and keep working at those relationships because, ultimately, Australia’s security and prosperity lie in our region.

Q: It is a bipartisan position that Vladimir Putin’s forces would not be welcome in our neighbourhood. Are Russia and also China – of course, they’re friends – increasingly interested in Australia because of the growing presence of US troops in the Northern Territory?

Penny Wong:

Well, hang on. First, we know that Russia has been active in our region for many years. And you know the very clear position of the government – the Albanese government – on Ukraine. It is disappointing that we see some in the coalition who don’t share that position. But we do live in an era of more competition in our region. We have been saying that for years. And we’ve been doing something about it. In part, it is the additional investment in defence.

But you know what it also is? It’s building relationships with our region. It’s making sure we can engage, pick up the phone, deal with an issue that we have in the last 24 hours with individuals and governments with whom we have built stronger and deeper relationships.

What do we see from Mr Dutton? This is a man who has no relationship with the senior leaders in our region.

This is a man who was prepared to – we saw – play the China relationship for domestic political purposes.

We’ve seen what he said to the Pacific when he made a joke about climate change when Pacific leaders were in Australia. And then we have him fabricating a statement from the president of Indonesia in order to make a political point. It is an extraordinary thing for a man who wants to be prime minister to do. It shows how reckless he is. National security is not a political game. And yet Peter Dutton treats it as such.

The Foreign Minister Penny Wong is doing a bit of a I TOLD YOU SO tour this morning, starting with ABC News Breakfast.

Q: Indonesia says it won’t allow Russian planes to be based in Papua, just a short distance from Australia. Do you know whether the Kremlin formally made a request to have planes there? And whether Indonesia seriously considered it at any point?

Wong;

Well, there were two things which were confirmed yesterday. The first is that Indonesia made very clear to us they are not contemplating any Russian base operating out of Indonesian soil. The second thing that was confirmed was that Peter Dutton is too aggro and too reckless to be Australia’s prime minister.

So, what happened was, we saw this report that has been reported, we engaged through the appropriate channels – that is, me to the Foreign Minister, the Defence Minister to the Defence Minister, as well as at diplomatic levels, and very quickly we gained the confirmation that you have described.

What did Peter Dutton do? Peter Dutton fabricated – fabricated – a statement by the Indonesian president. Now, this is an extraordinary thing for a man who wants to be the prime minister to do – to actually try and verbal the president of Indonesia in order to make a domestic political point. He is simply too reckless and too aggro to be the prime minister.

Hello and welcome to the mid-point of the campaign. What an achievement! Well done to all of you for getting to this point and, we hope, keeping some of your sanity.

The campaigns are both in Melbourne this morning. It’s the city that is going to have a lot of say over how the major parties look, with Aston all but already in the Liberal’s ledger, Dunkley, McEwen and Chisholm considered line ball, the Greens looking to take Wills and maybe Macnamara and Zoe Daniel, and Monique Ryan fighting to maintain their independent seats.

From there, we’ll head to western Sydney for the second leaders’ debate.

Peter Dutton will be mopping up after once again overplaying his hand – he told Afternoon Briefing the Indonesians had commented on a report the Russians had asked to store military aircraft on an Indonesian military base, which was not the case. So he either got confused or made it up to try and bolster his claim the Albanese government had failed in its relationship with Indonesia. The Indonesians say it isn’t true, and it was all a bit of a storm in a tea cup (Dutton’s specialty) but it does speak to his constant habit of completely overstepping into dululu land, when he has enough to criticise the government with what’s actually happening.

The SMH also has Resolve polling showing voters (forced to choose) prefer Labor’s housing and tax plans to the Coalition’s housing and tax plans.

So the plan for Anthony Albanese is – don’t stuff it up. Which includes tonight, at the debate.

We’ll be covering that, and everything else as the day goes by. You have Amy Remeikis, two coffees and the entire Australia Institute’s brains trust at your disposal. Send us your questions at amy.remeikis@australiainstitute.org.au and we will answer any burning election, policy or economic questions you may have.

It’s going to be a looooonnnnng day. Ready?

Let’s get into it.