The Coalition’s latest housing announcement is that it will undermine regulations, including environment regulations to ‘turbo charge’ housing approvals on greenfield sites.

What. Could. Go. Wrong.

The official announcement is:

A Coalition Government will immediately take action to finalise existing residential development environmental approval applications. We will set a target of clearing Labor’s backlog within 12 months and any project already stuck in the approvals process for more than a year will be finalised within six months. 

We will establish Investment Australia to drive productivity reform across the economy, with a key focus on building and construction by:  

·       expediting hundreds of project approvals; 

·       setting firm timelines for each outstanding residential development project in collaboration with the relevant department; and 

·       simplifying environmental assessment processes, including clarifying the rules for environmental offsets. 

Michael Sukkar has won the toss and will open the debate. He is delivering his opening address which is as you would expect.

We’ll keep an eye on the debate and bring you anything of interest, as well as fact checks, throughout the next hour.

Nicola has asked us how do the political leaders prepare for the big debates?

If you have done high school debating, you would be well across it – because it is not that different. Each campaign goes to ground a little early and locks themselves away to scrub up on all the potential policy questions, the trap questions and the curve balls (how much is a litre of milk etc) and then, the leaders get quizzed over and over on it, as if they were in the debate itself.

So that means someone on the campaign plays the role of journalist and another plays the role of the opposing leader. Daniel Andrews has been advising Anthony Albanese on how to handle debates (and communicating in general) and Tony Abbott/Peta Credlin and Scott Morrison have been giving Peter Dutton advice.

So the leaders are heckled as they speak, to prepare them for potential interruptions and how best to answer them. Which also means the campaigns have to be across the gaps in their own policies and the hypocrisies in their approaches and attacks. Which is interesting in itself.

The main part of the game is to not stuff up. It’s not so much about who wins the debate, it’s about the performance. And they are performing to the journalists who cover this (like me) because if there is a f*ck up, then that is what gets reported on for days and days and that is more likely to be what voters end up hearing about.

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One housing policy that has got very little attention has been the Coalitions $5 billion housing infrastructure fund. This fund, the Coalition claims will “swiftly unlock up to 500,000 new homes by investing $5 billion to fund essential infrastructure like water, power, and sewerage at housing development sites.”

One of the reasons for the lack of attention might be because it comes with almost no details. This is strange because the claim that $5 billion of infrastructure can unlock 500,000 homes would be great, if true. The kindest way to describe the figure would be ‘optimistic’.

So, what evidence does the opposition have that it can unlock so many houses? The shadow housing minister Michael Sukkar has said “Our 500,000 figure is based on real costed projects and supported by industry analysis,”

The problem is that they refuse to release any evidence of this. All they say is that the policy details will be released in a normal fashion ahead of the election. But pre-poll voting starts next week. And also, the normal fashion is to release the detail when you announce the policy.

There are also concerns that this could just be a free $5 billion gift to property developers dressed up as housing policy. The money could end up paying for infrastructure that the developer would normally be expected to fund and just end up adding to their profits.

We also need to put this spending into context. If the $5 billion is over 5 years, then that is just a drop in the bucket for infrastructure spending.

Housing is one of the elections biggest issues. If the Coalition wants us to take its policies on this seriously, then it needs to be upfront about what it is doing and how it plans to achieve it.

We are going to start writing up some information on what is NOT being discussed on the campaign, and we would also love to hear from you on what you would like answered.

So – what are your burning policy questions. And what is missing in this campaign for you?

amy.remeikis@australiainstitute.org.au or the socials (@amyremeikis)

So what is Dutton planning to do to help women dominated industries? Not a lot.

Dutton:

We will invest more each year. When we were in government we double the amount of money in education, helping teachers, females and males, helps when we put more money back in people’s pockets which is what we’re doing without $1200 give back of your money you have paid in taxes.

The 25 cent fuel excise reduction is targeted at women driving kids around or delivery truck drivers who are trying to make ends meet.

If we can manage the economy well, get inflation down… Interest rates go up under Labor government because they spend too much and that is why we have an inflation problem, a 5-point plan that we have the help young couples, singles into housing because for young professionals who feel locked out of the housing market, we will make the interest payments on the first $650,000 of their mortgage tax deductible.

That is a game changer. And for a young family or young professional woman who has given up on that, that will only benefit that house purchase and the serviceability of the loan and I want to make sure we can help Australians and that is exactly what we will do if we can win the election on May 3 and if people want a change of government if we want to improve lives, if we want to improve homeownership in our country, vote for your Liberal or National Party candidate at the election

Peter Dutton was asked a very good question about what he is offering women (you know, that pesky 50% of the population) given his campaign has focused on traditional male dominated areas of truck drivers, tradies, big utes and hi-vis.

Q: You talk about money, construction, agriculture and energy being the four pillars of the economy, in your own [campaign] speech you mentioned women twice and how you would protect them from domestic violence and crime. A lot of your campaign has been at petrol stations, you have been in trucks, when you speak about female dominated industries like education you talk about the woke agenda.

Dutton:

I am offering the chance for them to get a home. Homeless women are at a record level under this government, so let me say for homeless women who have suffered under this government we have a better pathway forward, we have said in relation to accessing super women who have had a messy relationship breakup, who haven’t had a home before or have no roof over the head with their kids, I want to provide that stability. I was a police officer for 10 years and I work hard every day in this job to keep women safe and young girls and children safe.

There is nothing in the Coalition policies that will help vulnerable women get access to secure homes easier (nothing in Labor’s most recent policy announcements either). There is nothing in the policies that will make it easier for vulnerable people, women or not, get cheaper housing. There are no policies to raise the rate of Jobseeker above the poverty line (for both major parties). The Coalition is not promising any rental breaks, any increased funding, no increases to social housing.

I was a police officer almost 30 years ago isn’t the answer here.

The issue of security has flared today with a story about the possibility of Russian planes being stationed in Indonesia. But the issue of national security should be about making Australians safe and one of the biggest things that is currently making Australians unsafe is housing.

It is hardly a hot take to say that inequality is getting worse. But Australian Institute research has shown that this rising inequality is being driven by the growing number of investment properties. Home ownership rates are falling as more people are being locked out of the housing market. Housing is being concentrated into the hands of fewer people as investors outbid first homebuyers in auctions across the country. This is increasingly driving wealth inequality.

New figures from AHURI show that half of all investment properties are being resold within two years of tenants living in them. How are people supposed to settle into a community and put down roots if they are constantly under threat of having the home they are renting being sold out from under them?

Rising inequality and housing insecurity are both issues that make Australians less safe. These are the issues that our political leaders should be focused on, not fake stories about planes being stationed in foreign countries.

Given the security breach that saw alt-right influencers surround the prime minister in the lobby of his hotel yesterday, does Peter Dutton have security concerns?

Dutton:

No, I don’t. The police do a fantastic job and there are protection packages as we move around the country and as the Prime Minister point out it is not a locked down area, he is in a public space, and I think the police do a great job and I’m sure that on that the Prime Minister and I could agree.

So is that a commitment to the 8% growth figure?

Dutton:

We are committed to the figures… but I think ultimately what this comes down to this election is who is best able to manage the economy so we can pay for these programs?

Who is best able to help Australians get in homes like the ones behind us? We have had an unbelievably bad period of government over the last three years.

People have lost their homes, I was talking to real estate agent, she texted me this morning from my electorate.(He speaks about foreclosure sales)

We have not seen that in big numbers since the Labor government was in in the 80s and 90s but there a lot of families sitting with an asset, a house worth less than the loan under this government. (I don’t think this is true?)

What we have said is we want to increase supply, want to stop the big Australia policy which has led to the demand for housing which has lot a lot of young Australians out, we are going to make sure we can cut migration so we can support Australian kids into homes and I want to be the prime minister to provide that dream again to young people. I don’t want a situation where, as we saw this morning, with the young couple working hard, paying rent, rent is up by 20% under this government, I don’t want them to lose the dream of home ownership which they have under Anthony Albanese so we have a lot of work to do to clean out the Labor’s mess. 34% more for gas, 32% more for electricity, this has been tough for Australian households and I want to make sure we can change the government so people do not have to suffer under the Albanese government.