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Anthony Albanese press conference
The Labor leader is up now, talking about Labor’s commitment to restore Medicare for telehealth mental health appointments for those living in rural and regional areas.
It should never have been removed. It should have been a permanent level of support. Because we should regard people ‘s access to mental healthcare as no different from if someone breaks in arm, they expect to get treated by a doctor.
Psychiatric services, dealing with people ‘s mental health, whether they be young people, people in the workforce that older Australians, is an epidemic. We know that we need to be more in particular, we need to make sure that you have access to services wherever you live. Telehealth can be so important. That is why today’s announcement is critical.
Victoria to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games
Benita Kolovos
Victoria will host the 2026 Commonwealth Games, the state’s premier, Daniel Andrews has announced.
The opening ceremony will be held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, though the games will largely be based in regional Victoria, with Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong and Gippsland to each host their own athlete’s village and sport program. Shepparton will also hold sporting and cultural events.
The government will invest in community infrastructure, including housing and world-class sportsfacilities, ahead of the event.
Andrews says the games will contribute more than $3 billion to Victoria’s economy, creating more than 600 full-time jobs before the games, 3,900 jobs during and a further 3,000 jobs after it ends.
It’s a great honour to have Victoria chosen as the host venue for the 2026 Commonwealth Games – we can’t wait to welcome the world to all of our state.
The Commonwealth Games in regional Victoria is great for jobs, hospitality and our economy.
This press conference is expected to hear AFL boss Gillon McLachlan will be stepping down at the end of the season.
‘It won’t be easy under Albanese’: Morrison
And Scott Morrison has his new campaign slogan:
This election is a choice. And you know, for the last three years, he’s had plenty to say about me, he’s had plenty to say from the back seat. He’s had plenty to say on the Monday morning after the game on the weekend.
But when you have to actually step up and put your hands on the wheel, it’s a lot easier. It’s a lot easier sitting in that back seat. And it’s a lot easier sitting there on a Monday morning passing judgement.
Sledging me, making criticisms of me, seeking to attack me over these last three years, that’s not a substitute for having an economic plan.
It’s not a substitute for knowing the things you need to know about what’s going on in the Australian economy. It’s not a substitute for the strength you need to stand up to the many challenges going on in this country.
It’s not a substitute. He talks about being – he raised as one of his great credentials, as being the acting prime minister in this country. I don’t think he got through a total of 48 hours in that job. If he thinks filling in for 48 hours is preparation for this job, he’s got no idea. This is a tough job.
And it won’t be easy under Albanese.
Here is the other speech Scott Morrison wanted to deliver (on a question on Russian sanctions):
The sanctions are a badge of honour for Australia standing up for freedom. I have copped a lot of criticism not just from Russia but from countries in our own region.
I’m happy to wear that as a badge of honour for standing up for Australians. Australians know I’m not a pushover. Australians know I stand up for what I believe in. You can follow a clear … thread of the things that I have stood up for. Over my entire political life, whether it’s on the economy, whether it’s on the borders, whether it’s on national security, on social services policy. I have always been very consistent. I’m being exactly who I have always been going to this election. I’m not pretending to be anyone else.
On Sydney house prices, Scott Morrison says:
I know how hard it is to buy a home here. I lived my whole life in this city. I love being in the centre of this city today. I know what drives it. But it’s – it can be tough. And it can be really hard to buy a home.
That’s also why in addition to the support we give on tax relief and income support, to help people deal with cost of living pressures like rents, we also help those who want to get in and buy their first home – 300,000 Australians we have helped into owning their own home through the home guarantee program and ask – and the homebuilder program.
A week out from the last election, I announced that policy. I said it would get Australians into homes and despite the fact that we have seen strong increases in house prices, we have enabled Australians to get into homes by reducing their deposit from 20% down to 5%, and even further down to 2% for single parents.
Now, I have met those parents who bought their homes. They’re here in western Sydney. They’re up on the central coast of New South Wales, they’re over there in Western Australia and up in the suburbs of Brisbane, and I’ve seen the look on their kids, for the first time in their life, they’ve got a place they can call home.
They’re not getting kicked out in six months, seeing their schooling disrupted. That has changed their lives. The other thing that changes lives in this country, getting a job. You get a young person into their job and their risk of spending a lifetime in welfare – I learned this as social services minister, I have been around a while – you get them into a job in in their early 20s, their chances of spending a life time on welfare goes like that. It’s why it’s so important to our economic plan.
We get a couple more answers about CHOICE before Scott Morrison gets into a bit of an argy bargy with a reporter (I think it is Jonathan Kearsley from Nine) about Morrison’s personal unpopularity.
Q: You talk consistently about how Australians know you over the last three years. They don’t appear to like you. At the last campaign, you campaigned on your own. Today you have campaigned here with foreign minister Marise Payne and the treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Is it a sign your popularity is on the nose, you are damaged goods across Australia?
Morrison:
It’s not a popularity test. You go to the dentist*, it doesn’t matter if you like him or not. You want to know they’re good at their job. This is about whether people are good at managing the economy and have a strong economic plan. I have a great team. I’m happy to showcase my team every single day.
There’s a choice not just between me and Anthony Albanese, there’s a choice between Josh Frydenberg and his opponent. There’s a choice between Peter Dutton and his opponent. There’s a choice between Marise Payne and Penny Wong. You had your question, thanks for your ongoing contribution.
My point is, we’ve got a strong team. It’s a strong economic team, it’s a strong national security team, and that’s the team that has brought Australia through one of the most challenging periods that this country has seen since the second world war. As we come out of that, and we have set ourselves up for success, you can’t risk it on an inexperienced and unproven team that doesn’t have a plan for the economy and you know doesn’t know how to manage money.
* This dental analogy has been coming up a bit with Coalition MPs.
Morrison says Albanese’s unemployment rate mistake ‘staggering’
Here is the speech Scott Morrison called this press conference to give, making reference to Anthony Albanese yesterday being unable to name the national unemployment rate or the official cash rate:
I agree with John Howard in that, you know, leaders will not get every single figure right. That’s not really the issue here. The issue is there’s something Anthony Albanese should be apologising for, it should be that he doesn’t have an economic plan. That’s the real problem with Labor.
That they don’t have an economic plan that can underwrite the things they will talk about at this election. They don’t have the economic experience. They are not proven and tested.
Last time they were in government unemployment was higher, interest rates were higher, electricity prices were higher.
And what we know from the Labor party today and the information that has been released by the finance minister and the treasurer … they can’t stop spending. They don’t know what their promises cost.
But the other thing it says about yesterday, sure, he didn’t know the number, but he didn’t miss it by that much. He missed it by that much. And what matters about that is he thought unemployment had a five in front of it. Not even a four in front of it.
And it’s going to a number with a three in front of it. And what that tells me is his working assumptions about our economy and what Australians are achieving in our economy he doesn’t know and he doesn’t understand. Australians have worked hard to ensure there’s now 375,000 more Australians in work today than there was before the pandemic.
He hasn’t seen that. He hasn’t recognised that. He hasn’t acknowledged that. In fact, it was the Labor shadow treasurer who said the real test of our budgets is what happens to unemployment.
Well, it’s gone to 4%. And he’s not acknowledging that. And he hasn’t noticed it. Despite the fact, as the treasurer made fairly clear in the parliament, that’s exactly where it went.
But it’s not just on this issue. His assumption that unemployment had a five in front of it, that’s what I found more staggering. If he said 4.3 or 3.8 or something like that, it was a memory slip.
What this showed was he had no idea what has happened with Australia’s economy recovery. He’s also wrong on another thing – he’s been going around at the unions’ behest, talking about rising rates of casualisation in the workforce. His fundamental understanding of the economy is wrong.
He doesn’t know what’s happening in the economy. Casualisation, as has been set out in the Financial Review today, shows it’s been trending down.
And it’s been about the same level for about 20 years. So you’re going to hear a lot of claims made by Anthony Albanese in this election, another one he makes is about Medicare.
You know, Medicare bulk billing rates have lifted from 82% when we came to government, they’re now at 89%. Here in Parramatta they’re 98% Medicare bulk billing. Medicare has never been stronger than under this government. When you go to 2016, and they tried to say that if a Coalition government was in charge of Medicare, all would be lost, Medicare has never been stronger than under a Liberal Nationals government.
On to the questions to the PM:
Q: There’s a high proportion of religious people in this electorate [Parramatta]. You promised before the last election that religious discrimination bill. It never happened because you couldn’t get the support of your own MPs on the floor of the House of Representatives. So will you revive that legislation if you win? What’s the time frame and will it be the same legislation, the same package that did not pass the House and the Senate in the second-last week of parliament?
Scott Morrison:
Well, as promised, I put that legislation into the parliament, and I was hopeful it would have bipartisan support. But it didn’t. The Labor party used it as a trojan horse to seek to make other changes on other acts. I found that very disappointing.
That bill would have passed had the Labor party supported it*. And the Labor party didn’t support it. My views about protecting people against religious discrimination are well known and my credibility on those issues are not challenged or under question. And I hold those views just as strongly today as I always have, throughout my entire life. Unfortunately, those strong views have not shared by my political opponents.
* The bill didn’t pass because it didn’t have the support within the Liberal party. And the changes to the Sexual Discrimination Act with amendments to protect trans students.
On the labour force, there are more people working multiple jobs than ever before.
If you have three jobs, you are still only counted as being employed once, so there are more jobs in the economy than people employed.
For every entry level job being advertised, there are 23 people who have been on an unemployment payment for more than 12 months and they are competing with people who have been unemployed for a few months and with people who want to switch jobs.
Experts don’t know why there are now more people on unemployment benefits than before the pandemic hit.
Scott Morrison continues:
The key way we’ve been able to do that is we’ve been able to get people off welfare and we’ve been able to get them into work*.
You know how to balance a budget? You get people off welfare where they’re receiving benefits and you turn them into workers, where they pay taxes.
And under our government, only paying as much as is necessary and ensuring they can keep as much of what they earn as they possibly can. That’s what keeps our economy strong.
Now, through all of that, I have had a strong partner in this economic partnership that has been delivering this strong economy. And it is a team that I lead. And Marise is here and has done an outstanding job, having just returned from the Nato foreign ministers’ meeting, ensuring that Australia is well positioned to be dealing with the global international security issues. I lead a very strong team. But I’m particularly proud of my economic team.
And I’m very proud of my good mate, and treasurer, who has now delivered his fourth budget, and he knows exactly what he’s doing when it comes to managing a strong economy.
*Department of social services data shows there are more people receiving unemployment payments (jobseeker and youth allowance) now than before the pandemic hit.
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