Let’s take a look at how AAP photographer Lukas Coch has seen Anthony Albanese’s campaign trips to some pre-poll booths this morning:

Chart: The Australia Institute Source: ABS Get the data Created with Datawrapper

Chart: The Australia Institute Source: ABS Get the data Created with Datawrapper

Migration is not to blame for house prices rising. And neither are Australia’s borders out of control.

Immigration has been an issue at this year’s election. The Coalition is linking it to house prices with opposition leader Mr Dutton saying: “We’re going to cut immigration because Labor’s brought in a million people over two years and that has created the housing crisis”.

Last night in the final leaders’ debate Peter Dutton doubled down saying:

“This government hasn’t had control of our borders. They’ve released people from immigration detention who have gone on to commit very serious crimes against Australians. The whole, every aspect of the migration program has been mismanaged by this Government. And if you bring in a million people over two years, over a five year period, it’ll be about 2 million people, a population bigger than the size of Adelaide.”

However, the Coalition linking immigration to the housing crisis makes little sense. The housing crisis has not just appeared in the last 2 years, it has been getting worse for more than two decades.

But what about the claim that immigration and the population have been rapidly growing? It is certainly true that net migration has been higher in the last few years. But that was after an extraordinary period where the boarders were shut, we saw more people leaving the country and entering it, and the Australian population went down. Even more extraordinary – during that period of border closures, house prices rose 25% in little over a year.

Looking at the quarterly change in population over the last 10 years we can see the huge impact COVID had and the bounce back after the borders had reopened.

But what about the overall impact this has had on Australia’s population? Has the bounce back been bigger than the slump?

No. In fact Australia’s population is still lower that it would have been expected to be had it grown at the same rate as it had been before COVD.

We don’t have a “big Australia” and migrants aren’t taking our homes or our jobs.

The problem of housing affordability is due to a lack of supply from the public sector of low-cost housing and rental properties, mixed with tax breaks for investors that has turned ustralia’s housing market into a speculators paradise.

We have pointed it out a few times as well, but Andrew Carswell, who was Scott Morrison’s chief spinner in his PMO (and treasurer’s office) has also had a pretty big role in this campaign as a media commentator. He is often introduced as a former Liberal party advisor and ‘consultant’.

Consultant is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Carswell’s Headline Advisory has the Minerals Council as a client, which doesn’t get declared, and should, given the Minerals Council support of Coalition policies such as nuclear.

You can guarantee that if a former Labor party advisor turned consultant had green groups as clients, that these same hosts that have Carswell on to talk the campaign, would make a point of declaring those clients.

Amy has already highlighted the AFR piece on the mining industry’s involvement with the Liberal campaign.

So what is it that the Minerals Council might be hoping to achieve? The Minerals Council press release on the Liberal mining ‘policy’ has a clue in the very last line:

The MCA also welcomes the Coalition’s commitment to retain the Fuel Tax Credits scheme – a critical initiative for mining, agriculture, tourism and seafood industries – building on the Federal Government’s existing commitment.

The Fuel Tax Credit Scheme is Australia’s biggest fossil fuel subsidy. This is main game for the big coal and iron ore miners because it refunds around $3.5 billion in fuel tax to them every. single. year.

The miners are very worried that independent politicians are going to push a minority Labor government to wind back this tax break.

To be clear, independents and minor parties want to take BILLIONS from BHP, Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer and spend it on health and education.

That is why, IMO, the Minerals Council are so embedded in the Liberal campaign.

Asked about the very real concern that sacking 41,000 public servants from Canberra’s 68,000 public servants would have a massive impact on the ACT economy (and economies are made up of people, don’t forget – which public servants are. We are talking about people here) Dutton complains about Andrew Barr.

Peter Dutton, who some journalists have made the point has been more available in answering questions this campaign, compared to Anthony Albanese (he hasn’t been, he’s just better at deflecting) is now not answering questions he finds uncomfortable (something he has been doing all campaign, but there are just more of them now)

Q: Regarding your candidate for Fowler, you played a game of ‘what about’ when asked about it. Isn’t it true that if a Labor candidate had made discrimatory remarks about Indigenous Australians, you would be calling for that candidate to stand down or be disendorsed?

Dutton:

I answered that question earlier.

Q: Mr Dutton, I am being tricky but you are not answering today – you do have a go at Anthony Albanese for not being transparent, for lying. Are you being tricky with your own truth at the moment?

Dutton:

No. I have answered the questions before. The red herrings and all the rest of the distractions that people want to throw out there, they are dealing with the reality of the week. This week is about cost of living, about what will decide the election. And what will decide the election is whether or not Australians will decide they can afford three more years of Labor and I don’t think they will.

I mean, just because the Coalition campaign has decided that cost of living is its theme this week, doesn’t make it what the week is about.

To be clear, there is no universe where the national conversation should be dominated by questions literal Nazis are asking. And yet, here we are.

Q: When is it appropriate to have a welcome to country ceremony?

Peter Dutton:

[When there] is a significant event like the opening of parliament. The Prime Minister divided this country with The Voice. It was $450 million and he tried to divide us on the basis of heritage and race and I didn’t agree with it and the majority of Australians didn’t agree with it. Australians are respectful towards Indigenous Australians. We are all equal Australians. It is why I believe we should stand behind one flag united to help Indigenous Australians deal with disparity around health outcomes, around education outcomes, around housing, around safety as you have seen up in Darwin. We were only there a couple of days ago, the stabbings that have taken place, the attacks are commonplace. It wouldn’t be accepted in any other part of the country. I want to provide support to practical reconciliation. The Prime Minister’s policy is to please inner city greens which is not something we signed up to.

Dutton’s version of ‘practical reconciliation’ is ‘assimilation’ dressed up in centrist language. It is the exact sort of language used to justify things like the Stolen Generation.

Q: A bit over five days to go in the campaign. You have been on the road for four weeks. Whatever happens on Saturday nigh, how much of that result is on your shoulders? How much personal responsibility do you take for the outcome on Saturday night?

Peter Dutton:

The focus we have between now and election day is to make sure we can save Australians from three more years of this Labor Government. That is the focus. It will be fought on cost of living pressures in seats like Paterson, in seats like Shortland, in Werriwa around the country where Australian families in the suburbs are being smashed by this government.

Our opportunity is to make sure that we fix the economy, that we bring inflation down. We give the 25 cents a litre cut to fuel so help families now, giving them $1200 back through their tax rebate so we can help families deal with Labor’s cost of living crisis.

Keeping you safe as a country by investing into defence and into our law and order policy which will reduce crime in suburbs and towns across the country.

Peter Dutton hints that the Coalition will release their costings on Thursday.

The Labor Party released their costings on the Thursday before the election in the last campaign and we will release them in due course.

We are expecting Labor to release their costings today.

Q: Last year 206,000 working holiday-makers came to Australia. Yesterday Bridget McKenzie said no cuts to working holiday makers. At this point do you concede it is now mathematically impossible for you to reach your migration cuts or will you reduce working holiday makers?

Peter Dutton:

No, we have been clear in relation to migration. We have had a population boom under the Prime Minister and that is why the young Australians are locked out of the housing market. The Prime Minister lied about it before the election. He brought in a million people over two years. Bear that in mind, when has ha happened in our country’s history before? It hasn’t. It is a 70% increase on any 2-year period in our country’s history. Understandably, those people want homes when they get here. The supply of housing has been crunched because of the CFMEU.

Q: I am not disputing the numbers. I am interesting you about your planned cuts to migration. Will you cut working holiday makers or can you not reach the targets?

Dutton:

We are going to reduce permanent migration by 25%. We are going to reduce the figure by 100 thought relative to where Labor’s is. We will take advice from the department of Treasury and finance and the central agencies about the settings within the economy and what we need to do.

One of the things we have done to increase labour supply into the market is to allow pensioners and veterans who are on a pension, if they chose to do so, to work for hours without it effecting their pension.

That will replace some of the international labour that people are relying on at the moment. We have thought it through carefully. Our policy is to cut migration and stop foreigners from buying Australian homes so we can get young Australians into homes more quickly.

I have said, and I am serious about the fact I want to be the Prime Minister for home ownership.

The Prime Minister has crushed the dreams of millions of young Australians. Young Australians are putting off having kids and older Australians are putting off retirement because they need to stay in the work force longer to help their kids save a deposit or make their repayments. We will have more to say in relation to the settings.

Cutting migration is not going to make houses more affordable, or increase supply to the point of lowering rents. It is a fantasy.