PM says Opposition leader’s criticism ‘the comments of an armchair critic’ – as it happened

Much of today’s focus was on the fallout from the Coalition’s housing policy announcement. The future makeup and role of the crossbench was also a theme. Here are today’s headlines:

• Scott Morrison faced the ABC’s Leigh Sales in a rapid-fire interview on 7.30. There were no huge revelations, but he did appear to say seats with teal independents are rich enough to be insulated from economic woes. Voters will love that.
• The Coalition’s housing policy is likely to push up property prices, experts say. Greg Jericho named five housing policies that wouldn’t.
• The Greens had their campaign launch, and their leader, Adam Bandt, outlined seven demands of the future government.
• Bandt and independent MP for Warringah, Zali Steggall, said they’d hesitate to work with Morrison.
• In a rare intervention, former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard spoke out to back Katy Gallagher for the Senate.
• Paul Karp and Josh Butler filed from the campaign trail, and have all the latest (along with Daniel Hurst) in today’s election briefing.
• There was a barney about the Coalition apparently pushing back against requests from the US to involve Labor in the Aukus discussions.
• And we asked: Will the opinion polls prove accurate this time?

It’s going to be a big week. And a bigger weekend. Amy Remeikis will be back in the morning to guide you through the next stage. Deep breaths. It’s going to be fine. See you tomorrow!

Morrison is refusing to speculate on the election’s aftermath – whether he’ll remain as Liberal leader if he loses, or how he might negotiate with a crossbench.

He says:

The scenario that my team is working for, is not to have a weakened parliament. To not to have a government that has to negotiate for its existence every day. If I had to do that, Leigh, over the last three years, Australia would not be in a stronger position than we are today. We would be in a weaker position. People would be worse off. I want to avoid that.

Asked who he would blame if he did lose, he says:

I would always accept the result of an election because I trust my fellow Australians.

He squeezes in one more (truncated) stump speech, and it’s over.

Sales asks why the teal independents have such appeal. Morrison hints that maybe those blue ribbon seats are rich enough that they don’t have to worry about cost-of-living issues:

Many of these places, I suppose, are less vulnerable to the impacts of the economy.

Now we’re on the “red line” that Morrison declared when it came to the security deal between Solomon Islands and China.

Sales pushes him on what it means, he doesn’t answer. He says it’s not true the government was “blindsided” by the pact.

We’ll work constructively with our partners to make sure it [building a naval base] won’t occur. I’m not going to speculate on those actions. Governments and countries have to be very clear about what we understand to be acceptable and unacceptable circumstances both in the regional security interests and the national security interest.

Morrison says the floods were a “massive crisis” and it took time to deploy defence personnel. The Coalition gave $2.9bn for the bushfire victims. And he says:

We had challenges in the early phases of the vaccine rollout. What happens when you have challenges and set in a pandemic? You don’t get everything right. When it’s not going to plan, you change the plan, you get on top of it. General Frewen was appointed. The vaccine program was turned around ... we ended up having one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. My point is, it’s easy to make criticisms in the middle of a pandemic after the event.

Sales: Aren’t the examples Labor leader Anthony Albanese gives – that you reacted “too little, too late” on the bushfires, vaccines, the floods – “indisputable”?

Morrison says:

They’re the comments of an armchair critic.

Sales: To get to net zero, do we need to shut coal-fired power stations by 2030?

Morrison: “No.”

Carbon capture and storage and other technologies will do the job, he says.

Time for another factcheck:

Sales: If you don’t support a pay rise in line with inflation, isn’t that supporting an effective pay cut?

Morrison says:

I support the Fair Work Commission making decisions on wages, taking into account all the factors that impact on people’s cost of living and whether they’ll be better off. I support wage increases.

Now he’s off into more general cost-of-living pressures, and comparisons with other developed nations. At which point I’ll recommend Paul Karp’s factcheck:

Sales asks about the 1.3m jobs the Coalition has promised, and says employers say there are plenty of jobs, but not enough workers. Morrison says yes, that’s the biggest challenge facing the economy. (So there are not enough workers to fill existing jobs, but the Coalition will create more jobs, so where will the workers come from?)

“The economy will be bigger,” Morrison says:

That means the economy will be bigger because we’re investing in the skills of Australians. The jobs we’re creating are skilled jobs.

The debt “saved the country”, Morrison says. “[It] saved lives. Saving the country, I thought, was worth the investment,” he says.

Sales moves on to the Coalition’s housing policy, and Morrison says that superannuation minister, Jane Hume’s comments that it would push up housing prices was wrong because the government will also increase supply.

What Jane was referring to was in isolation, when you take all of our housing policies together, in particular the downsizing policy. The downsizing policy actually gets more housing stock into the market.

Sales lists all the Liberal people who’ve criticised the idea of raiding super for house deposits in the past, and asks why this was the Coalition’s “break glass” policy.

Morrison says they were talking about different policies. He says:

Because the policy we put forward here is not that people take money out of their superannuation and never put it back. This policy actually invests it back into your superannuation so it doesn’t impact on your long-term retirement savings.

And Jenny gets her first mention, with a well-worn line about a home being your biggest asset.

Sales: In nine years, you’ve racked up a trillion dollars in debt. What do you have to show for that?

Morrison says Snowy Hydro, Sydney Airport, inland rail ... and so on. He says (talking over Sales repeatedly):

But are you suggesting we should have been cutting hospitals and schools and things like that to get there?

(No one was.) Morrison continues:

We said we wouldn’t do that. We said we would balance the budget by growing the economy. Now I was treasurer for three of those years and we went into the pandemic, we balanced the budget, that meant we could respond with jobkeeper, the tax incentives, the Covid supplements, all of these things and record spending on health to get Australia through. That’s a lot to show for it. We’ve a country today that is strong.

Sales:

What would you have done differently for example when it came to the way your government used community sports grants as a slush fund to channel money to marginal seats?

Morrison says he completely rejects that, and Sales rightly points out that it was the audit office that found that was the place. He says he doesn’t “buy into this narrative”:

Elected leaders, ministers, ultimately make decisions. We’re the ones accountable to the public. Not public servants. Not Sport Australia.

Sales: How did you conclude people didn’t like you, the bulldozer?

Morrison:

I’m just being honest, Leigh. I can be. And during the last two or three years, but frankly, at other times in the various jobs I’ve had, that’s been very necessary.

You have to move quickly, decisively, and you’re not always right, he says. Wow, he is churning through his talking points.

Morrison is in Cairns. The first question from Sales is about how he campaigns, considering his personal drag on the Coalition’s vote. He says:

Because we’ve got the economic plan, Leigh, that I know can take Australia into the future and seize the opportunities there. I know that’s the case. I know our economic plan is working because Australians are working.

He’s speaking very quickly.

They’re calling it “The Final Pitch”. ABC’s Leigh Sales will interview the prime minister, Scott Morrison, on 7.30 – up shortly.

Meanwhile, please have some pity for whoever forgot to change out the placement copy here: