Is the Voice back? Peter Dutton wants you to believe it is

Welcome back to your daily election wrap. Stephanie Dalzell will catch you up on news from the campaign trail.

Anthony Albanese today freely gave up the secrecy shrouding cabinet confidentiality he usually protects.

“Ask any of the cabinet colleagues,” he warned a reporter at the National Press Club.

“They’ll explain why it’s a bad idea.”

The “bad idea” in question was, as the prime minister dubbed it, the “verballing” of Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

Wong had appeared on the Betoota Advocate podcast, where she said the proposal of a Voice to Parliament may in future be viewed in a similar way to the long, but ultimately successful, campaign for same-sex marriage.

If the prime minister will forgive me for verballing, she basically said people would one day look back and wonder what the fuss was all about.

“You said that an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is gone. Your minister, Penny Wong, seemed to suggest it may not be gone forever,” the journalist said.

Albanese swiftly responded, arguing that was not what Wong had said at all.

But the mere suggestion that perhaps in a decade the Voice could be viewed differently to how it is now, presented itself as an opportunity for the opposition.

The Coalition has been desperate to talk about the Voice, and it’s little wonder why — the referendum not only marked a devastating result for many First Nations people but also a turning point in the government’s fortunes.

The Coalition’s numbers started to surge in the polls, and now that those numbers have fallen behind Labor, it’s been searching for the way back.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton took large liberties with what Wong had said, declaring Labor had a “secret plan” to bring back the Voice to Parliament as a “first order of business”.

He also declared a Voice was “inevitable” under Labor.

Later, Wong was forced to clarify, telling SBS: “The Voice is gone.”

The Voice to Parliament has bookended this term of government, being the first promise of the prime minister the night he was elected, and now again a feature — this time in the final week of this campaign.

But this is 2025, not 2023. And the matter on the ballot on Saturday is about the parliament, not a voice to it.

Loading…

Call me maybe,Trump

Few teenage girls have waited by the phone for a boy to call more than Anthony Albanese has waited for the US President.

And just like many teenage boys, Donald Trump is now suggesting he might in fact call — right when Albanese needs it least.

For weeks, Albanese has been plagued with questions about why he has been unable to get Trump on the phone to try to secure a carve-out on tariffs.

Recently, he went so far as to suggest Donald Trump doesn’t even have a phone which the Coalition has seized on, with Dutton saying “it seems strange, like falling off a stage and pretending there’s no footage of that”.

But now, right when the campaign is coming to an end, Trump has declared “they are calling and I will be talking to him, yes”.

It’s very unclear who exactly Trump is referring to, or what the nature of the call will be. Does he mean the prime minister? The ambassador? Is it a trade chat, or is he talking about whoever emerges victorious on Saturday?

But regardless, rather than a long distance call, Albanese is trying to create a long bit of distance from Trump this close to the election.

Gone are the days of politicians being rewarded for being close to Trump, just ask Canadian Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre, who not only lost the election but also his seat in the parliament.

The pollster John Black, who is also a former Labor senator, has dubbed this moment a “Trump bump”, where leaders are rewarded for creating space, rather than closeness, with the global disrupter.

When asked about US-style politics Albanese told News Corp voters “don’t want that here”, and has instead sought to push Dutton in to a Trump-shaped trap, trying to outline similarities between the leader of the free world and the leader of the opposition.

When Dutton was asked to respond about whether voters saw him aligned with Trump, he gave a long-winded answer that encompassed the fuel excise cut, the ute tax, and home ownership — anything other than directly answering the question.

Loading…

Unsolicited text messages spamming unsuspecting voters

While Albanese has struggled to get Trump on the phone, many frustrated voters are now struggling to get Clive Palmer off theirs.

A slew of unsolicited text messages from the Palmer-backed Trumpet of Patriots are spamming millions of unsuspecting voters who are deeply frustrated they’re unable to unsubscribe.

Even the prime minister’s fiancee Jodie Haydon hasn’t been spared, in what Albanese has labelled an “extraordinary vanity exercise”. 

It has sparked questions about electoral reform, with Albanese declaring he’d be “happy” to ban texts from political parties but wasn’t sure if it would fit in with “other legal requirements”. 

Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie declared the major parties also use mass text campaigns — which are legal — but said there’s one key difference.

“It’s just that Clive Palmer’s got more money than what they have and he’s spamming a lot more,” Lambie said. 

“The only time you’ll see the major parties come together, is when they’re doing things like electoral reform, when it suits themselves and they want to try and get the independents out… It’s absolute filth.”

These messages are expensive and, largely, inefficient — as they are not targeted.

In the 2022 campaign the same method proved to be largely unsuccessful, but there is something to be said for name recognition when people go to cast their votes — and that’s what Palmer’s paying for.

Loading…

Inflation drops without recession or jump in unemployment

Timing counts for a lot in the fortunes of governments, and the release of inflation figures all but guaranteeing a future rate cut — three days out from polling day — has provided Labor with additional momentum as it heads in to the home stretch.

Headline inflation has remained steady at 2.4 per cent, but the Reserve Bank’s preferred measure of consumer prices — trimmed mean inflation — has now also fallen within the RBA’s target band for the first time in more than three years.

That is significant — and notably, unusual — because trimmed mean inflation has now fallen from a peak to 6.8 per cent to 2.9 per cent, and it has occurred without a recession, or any material increase in unemployment.

The consequences of sustained hip pocket pressures don’t often favour incumbent governments, but these figures have provided Labor with a clear line to spruik the economic credentials so often attacked by the Coalition.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers declared it was a “powerful demonstration of the progress” made in the economy, and proof of “responsible economic management”. 

Markets are now broadly expecting the Reserve Bank will cut interest rates at its next meeting just after the election.

The inflation figures were there for both sides to spin, with the Coalition arguing people were still doing it tough.

But with underlying inflation now also sitting in the target band, another line of attack for the Coalition has been eliminated.

Good day for…

Households, with lower inflation and a likely interest rate cut on the way.

Bad day for…

Liberal candidate for Kooyong Amelia Hamer, whose signs were once again confiscated, this time by the local council who said they presented a risk to pedestrians.

What to watch out for 

The Coalition’s costings will be released tomorrow, but given a sizeable percentage of the electorate have voted, it means many people have cast their votes without broadly knowing the total cost of Coalition policies.

Loading…

Where pollies have been

Catch up on today’s stories

LoadingLoading…

Having problems seeing this form? Try this link.