Peter Dutton started off his day in his own suburban Brisbane electorate of Dickson, Queensland’s most marginal seat by two-candidate-preferred.

Our report released earlier this week showed that outer-metropolitan electorates such as Dickson have very few journalists calling them home. Only 27 journalists live in Dickson – putting it in the bottom 50 seats nationally.

Perhaps he went home to avoid the “hate media” that he’s been so concerned about?

Wealth inequality in Australia has dramatically worsened over the past 20 years, mainly being driven by investment properties (excluding the family home).

That’s right the housing crisis is also driving an inequality crisis.

The richest 10% have seen their property assets grow by an average of $2.2 million per household over the last two decades.

According to the Productivity Commission the wealthiest 10% have around 725% more wealth than do median households – that’s a difference of around $2.65m on average

Making the inequality worse is that wealth is taxed at much lower rates than income. $100 billion of tax concessions goes to the three biggest assets: other property, superannuation, and the family home.

Investment properties are highly concentrated with half of their increase over the last 20 years going to the richest 10%. This was worth $900,000 per household.

The poorest half of Australian households got just 7% of the benefit ($24,000 over 20 years).

Cracking down on negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount will not only make housing more affordable, it will also reduce one of the biggest drivers of wealth inequality. That’s win-win.

The AEC has released a statement that amounts to: ‘stop being dickheads outside polling booths’.

From the AEC:
With around 12 million Australians still to vote at this election, the AEC is today again calling on all campaigners to behave respectfully towards voters, one another and AEC staff.

Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope said that while the vast majority of interactions near a voting centre are cordial, isolated instances of aggression, intimidation and potential violence near pre poll venues are not in keeping with Australian democratic values.

“We want voters to have a smooth and positive voting experience,” Mr Pope said.

“Australian federal elections are rightly a time of heightened passion but they’re also famous and admired right across Australia and internationally for respectful behaviour and a festival type environment. While there is a lot of media coverage of incidents occurring, reports of unsavoury behaviour are relatively limited.”

“The AEC is not a police force and does not have jurisdiction to undertake conflict resolution or get in the middle of a dispute outside our polling places. However, we do have close relationships with local police forces around the country who are closely monitoring activities.”

“In some areas, the AEC has written to candidates and branches of registered political parties to alert them to the reports being received and to remind everyone of the right for voters to have a comfortable voting experience.”

“Campaigners and campaign activities are a very important part of the federal election process, but lawful activities are a must, and respectful behaviour is a firm expectation.”

“Everyone also needs to remember the people who staff AEC voting locations are everyday Australians – parents, grandparents and neighbours. They are giving their time to make a valuable contribution to the health of Australia’s democracy. Without them, we would not be able to deliver the election.”

It was only a matter of time:

Glenn Connley

I’ve just been spammed by Clive Palmer for the umpteenth time this week.

I hate to admit it, but the top line was a policy which caught my eye.

To be fair, I usually just delete and report spam the moment these texts arrive. (I know, that doesn’t achieve anything. But it’s a bit satisfying.)

“15% iron ore licence fee repays our trillion dollars of debt” the sms screamed.

Don’t tell anyone, but I went onto the trumpet website for a butcher’s hook:

To reduce debt, the Trumpet of Patriots will place 15% licence fee on all iron ore exports from Australia.

Naturally, there’s zero detail about how it would work or how much it would raise … but when even Clive is saying the giant companies pillaging our resources should pay more, that’s saying something.

A four-way debate on ABC Radio Canberra this morning produced a rare moment of unity between election candidates. The main candidates for the ACT’s two senate seats agree that Canberra needs more senators.

This was a unity ticket, minus one.

Liberal ACT senate candidate Jacob Vadakkedathu opposes the move. He said that voters tell him, “we don’t need any more pollies”. It’s easy to offer an argument against more politicians in a cost of living crisis.

To be fair to Vadakkedathu, the Liberal Party historically had form on senate representation for the territories.

In the 1970s, Liberals opposed the creation of senate seats for the ACT and NT, arguing that the senate might one day be “swamped” by representatives from other territories like the Cocos Islands, and that it might lose its constitutional character as a “states’ house”. They fought against the measure at three successive elections (including one double dissolution) and forced the matter all the way to an historic, deadlock-resolving joint sitting of the two houses in August 1974.

The idea of “swamping the senate” was laughable then, and even more so now. The quota for ACT and NT Senate elections is extremely high. The Labor Party, the Greens and Independent Senator David Pocock all agree that the ACT’s senate representation should (at least) be doubled.

The Australia Institute has previously proposed a ‘simple formula’ that would make territory senate representation ‘proportionate to Tasmania’s population’. The 48th parliament could pass laws that would set senate places for the ACT and NT in line with their proportionality to the population of Tasmania, and still not upset the federal compact underwriting the Constitution. This would still leave the territories with fewer representatives ‘per heads of population than Tasmania receives’.

Increasing senate seats for the mainland territories from 2 to 4 is less ambitious, but better than nothing. Asked why the government hadn’t advanced the move, Senator Gallagher said that the Liberal Party had pledged to campaign “very strongly” against it.

History shows us that waiting for bipartisanship on this issue is futile. The next parliament would be well advised to wait no longer.

Hattie says:

Re: print media endorsements: my local newspaper (in one of those coveted western sydney seats) endorsed the Liberal incumbent but in the same column said Dutton doesn’t deserve to be PM and supported a second Albanese term.

They also had “final pitches” from all the candidates in my election… nothing too special, but I found it hilarious that the Trumpet of Patriots candidate’s pitch was fearmongering about Indian immigrants replacing (white) Australians and then at the very end of his pitch said that if there’s no immigration cut, (white) Australians should make plans to leave Australia… so become one of those maligned “immigrants”?

Julius has a question:

Question about gas exports – what’s the deal with gas export contracts etc? How easy would it be to just ‘flick the switch’ and divert the necessary gas exports for domestic comsumption?

I’ll get someone to give you a big answer on that, but the short version is – very easy! There is about 20% of ‘uncontracted gas’ that the gas companies like to sell on the spot market because the prices are so high there, which would be more than enough to serve our domestic needs. The Coalition (and even Labor) have admitted as much as well

Robert:

I’ve known folks who consult to state and federal governments, and they make ridiculous money. The Coalition significantly increased the use of consultants in government. How can they say with a straight face that they will save money by cutting public servants, when they’ll just outsource the work as they did before?

Your guess is as good as ours, Robert.

And thank you Renee! But this really is a team effort

Amy I couldn’t have gotten through this election campaign without your humour and this blog (and the rest of the team) so a big thank you to you all! On an unrelated note I have squares left for election bingo on Sunday if anyone has anything hilarious I can put in a square let me know 😉

Labor campaign spokesperson, Jason Clare (it is one of his favourite jobs) held a press conference to give his best material on the Coalition’s nuclear ‘plan’.

Nuclear has absolutely tanked this election as a policy. Dutton hasn’t been anywhere near a proposed nuclear site in 34 days and that tells you that the research the Coalition has is that not only is nuclear not a vote winner, it could potentially COST them more support if Dutton was seen to promote it during the election.

This has given Jason Clare some time to come up with his own version of ‘Ten Things I hate about Nu-clear’ (old rom com fans will understand that reference:

Clare:

We’ve got two days to go, and here are ten things that Peter Dutton doesn’t want you to know about his nuclear scheme.
 
One, they’ll cost $600 billion.
 
Two, they won’t turn a light on for decades.
 
Three, even when they do turn on, they’ll only produce four per cent of the energy that Australia needs.
 
Four, they’ll push up your power bills right across the country.
 
Five, there’s not even enough water at the sites that Peter Dutton has identified to run them.
 
Six, you’ll have to pay billions of dollars to manage the nuclear waste that they produce.
 
Seven, the waste will fill football fields, not the can of coke that Peter Dutton talked about.
 
Eight, Peter Dutton wants to use experimental nuclear reactors that no one else is using commercially around the world.
 
Nine, they’ll cause a $4 trillion hit to the Australian economy over the decades to come.
 
And ten, he’ll cut health and education to pay for them.
 
That’s why Peter Dutton isn’t talking about this in the last few days of this election, and that’s why he isn’t visiting the seven sites where he wants to put these nuclear reactors.

Increasing Jobseeker certainly hasn’t been something the major parties have wanted to talk about during the election campaign. When it does get raised, it is usually batted away as something that would be good to do but we have to live within our means.

Compare that to the current discussion on defence spending. Both sides are not just committing to spend more but committing to ever larger increases as the economy grows. This funding commitment comes even when, in the case of the Coalition, they don’t even know what the money would be spent on.

But lifting welfare recipients would not even be that expensive. It would cost about $6 billion per year to set Jobseeker at the base rate of the age pension.

To put this number in context, the govt spends:

• $14 billion per year on tax concessions that encourage property investors to push up house prices – $7.5bn of which goes to the richest 10%.
• $22 billion per year to give the top 10% of income earners superannuation tax breaks.
• $5bn per year to mining companies because they use fossil fuels.

And of course we are about to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to possibly buy submarines decades from now.

Poverty is a policy choice and successive Prime Ministers have been happy for people to live in poverty.

How’s this for a photo which screams “caption competition”?

Sydney Morning Herald snapper James Brickwood captured this ripper of Peter Dutton with his Kooyong candidate Amelia Hamer (and her bodyguard) having a beer at the Tower Hotel in Hawthorn last night.

Who the hell puts a schooner (albeit a tall Melbourne schooner) into a stubby holder?