Key events
Wong: Dutton tried to ‘verbal the president of Indonesia’
As I mentioned a moment ago, Penny Wong has come out swinging against Peter Dutton over his response to those reports out yesterday that Russia had requested access to Indonesian bases for its aircraft.
Wong and deputy PM Richard Marles are doing a round of interviews this morning, starting on ABC News Breakfast.
Wong says she and Marles engaged through “appropriate channels” while Dutton “fabricated a statement”.
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
Peter Dutton 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.
Good morning from Krishani
Krishani Dhanji here with you, many thanks to Martin Farrer for starting us off.
The government has confirmed Indonesia will not allow Russia to base several long-range aircraft. Yesterday the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said it would be a “catastrophic failure” if the foreign minister, Penny Wong, and the deputy PM and defence minister, Richard Marles, weren’t aware of those reports before they were leaked. But this morning, Wong came out swinging against Dutton – accussing him of “fabricating” a statement by the Indonesian president. We’ll be following that issue all morning.
And as Martin mentioned, tonight is the second leaders debate. No doubt both Albanese and Dutton will be in full prep mode for that today.
Debate hype or real impacts? Will Albanese v Dutton change any minds?
As Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton prepare for tonight’s leaders debate, we have been speaking to a few people who have been close to these events over recent years in order to gauge how important they are.
Yaron Finkelstein, who was Scott Morrison’s principal private secretary, tells Dan Jervis-Bardy that for all the hype surrounding leaders’ debates, the contests rarely shifted votes.
“It’s high stakes in the sense they [leaders] think that a mistake will be fatal, because there is a lot of debate hype,” Finkelstein said.
“But of course, as we know, it becomes about the commentary later. But it’s never had a real impact on how people vote. It might reinforce what you already thought, but [it] rarely switches votes.”
Read Dan’s full article here:
Greens plan to double length of paid paternity leave
Dan Jervis-Bardy
The Greens want to double the length of paid parental leave (PPL) and lift the payment rate to a replacement wage in an election pitch to young families.
New parents are currently able to access 22 weeks of commonwealth-funded PPL, which will rise to 24 weeks in July and 26 weeks in 2026.
Campaigning in Brisbane on Wednesday, the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, and Greens spokesperson on women, Larissa Waters, will call for a major expansion scheme at a cost of $7.7bn over the forward estimates.
The Greens’ plan would double the length of PPL to 52 weeks by 2030, with superannuation to be paid on payments for the entire year.
The party also wants to increase the payment – currently $915.80 per five-day week – to the equivalent wage of the parent taking time off work to care for their child. The government would fund up to $100,000 of the replacement wage, with their employer required to cover any amount above that.
The scheme would also be made available to PhD students, under the Greens’ proposal. Waters said:
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.
Greens open to negotiation with Labor in event of hung parliament, Bandt says
Josh Taylor
There’s more from the Greens after their leader, Adam Bandt, said last night he is open to changes to policies around housing and other key negotiation issues with Labor in the event of a hung parliament.
Bandt – who is campaigning in Brisbane this week in an attempt to hold the three Greens seats in the state – told ABC’s 7.30 last night that the housing policies announced in the election by the two major parties are “a house fire” but the Greens wouldn’t stand in the way of Labor’s policies in parliament.
He said big changes were needed around capital gains, and the Greens have put on the table “a sensible way of defusing that John Howard time bomb” if negotiations on guaranteeing supply in parliament with a minority Labor government are held after 3 May.
He said the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, had not told him privately he would support changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing after ruling it out publicly. But Bandt pointed to Labor saying there would be no changes to the stage-3 tax cuts before making changes to the policy.
He said the Greens would enter negotiations with an open mind and flagged potential changes to policy positions:
I think that’s how it would have to work, because we have the situation in a moment … where less than 1 in 3 people are voting for the government, a bit more than 1 in 3 are voting for the opposition and about 1 in 3 people in the country are voting for someone else.
We have one of the most diverse parliaments we’ve had for some time and I think that’s going to grow at this election. And with more voices at the table, it means ideas like this can get put on the table and I think the flip side of that is that if we’re in a parliament where no-one’s got a majority, there’s an obligation on us to cooperate and work together to get outcomes for people …
He said leaving Aukus or holding an inquiry into the partnership would not be part of negotiations, as he said that was an argument the Greens can win on its merits in the next parliament. He said a native logging ban was also achievable.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with some of the top overnight stories and then Krishani Dhanji will be along to take the wheel.
Energy is back at the top of the election agenda this morning with our story that a Coalition MP told a gathering of climate deniers that there was a “big political opportunity” to be made from power outages. “If I had my way I’d be building coal-fired power stations, full stop, that’s what I’d be doing,” Colin Boyce told the group. But that political opening could backfire as a group of international experts say the Coalition’s nuclear plans could leave the grid more vulnerable to blackouts, not less.
The big set-piece campaign event of the day is the second round of Anthony Albanese v Peter Dutton as the leaders of the two main parties face off at 8pm tonight at the ABC’s Parramatta studios. It is the second of four election leaders’ debates – Labor’s man was judged to have won the first one last week – but campaign veterans doubt whether the televised event will have any impact on voters. More coming up.
Perhaps not wishing to be overshadowed, the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, was on 7.30 last night to spruik his party’s chances. He told the program that, in the event of a hung parliament, he would be willing to negotiate with Anthony Albanese on key policy areas such as housing and tax reform. With the share of votes won by the major parties declining, he said more cooperation was needed to achieve reforms. More coming up.