Following the leaders

TUDGE MATCH

Well, it’s official — Education Minister Alan Tudge, who was alleged to have emotionally and physically abused former staffer Rachelle Miller, would return to his job and to cabinet if Prime Minister Scott Morrison is reelected, ABC reports. Tudge strenuously denied the allegation, and the PM said he would “welcome” him back. Morrison made the comments at last night’s third and final leaders debate — Labor Leader Anthony Albanese was the winner of the evening according to the audience poll, with 50% siding with him, to Morrison’s 34% (the rest didn’t know).

The Labor leader clarified he would not ask Fair Work to increase the minimum wage by 5.1%, the broadcaster continues, but rather would welcome the industrial umpire doing so. The Australian ($) suggests we might see Labor’s proposed submission to Fair Work next week. Last night Albo says people on minimum wage often live by the skin of their teeth — their yearly salary is about $40,175 — and they’re the heroes of the pandemic, like carers, cleaners, and retail workers. Morrison retorted that small businesses can’t afford it (it would equate to an extra $2049 a year per worker), and yet the PM didn’t strike a killer blow, the Herald Sun‘s Tom Minear muses — “it was an opportunity missed for Morrison”, the Murdoch pen writes.

There’s more bad news for Morrison this morning — the SMH is reporting that Australian taxpayers forked out almost $20 million as an incentive for the Northern Territory to sell the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company. It’s sure to raise eyebrows in light of Morrison’s insistence on Sunday evening that he had no part in approving or rejecting the deal (he was treasurer at the time).

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THE HEALTH OF A NATION

Western Australia has recorded 17,033 new COVID-19 cases overnight, WA Today reports, while 68,893 people in the state are in isolation with the virus. It’s the most at any one time so far in the pandemic, but Premier Mark McGowan says the important thing is there are very few people in intensive care in the West. Interestingly, a third of the cases in WA are people aged 10 to 19 years old, which means a lot of parents are off work caring for them.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has claimed there are record levels of Medicare bulk billing — 88% — but is that the whole picture, Guardian Australia asks? The thing is, the 88% is the number of services from a GP that are bulk billed, not patients. The figure for patients is more like 64%, the Health of the Nation report says, meaning more than a third of patients pay completely out of pocket. And it’s a real problem for those with chronic illness — 14% of that cohort can’t afford to pay for healthcare or medicine, according to a March survey. Neither Labor nor the Coalition has announced plans to increase GP Medicare rebates.

A RINGING DISENDORSEMENT

It looks like Liberal MP Fiona Martin has confused her Labor challenger Sally Sitou with another Asian-Australian, Tu Le, SBS reports. You might remember Le, a lawyer, as the popular pick for Fowler until Labor’s Kristina Keneally was parachuted into the seat to some controversy, as ABC reports. Martin was in a heated radio debate on 2GB when she accused Sitou of being “kicked out” of Fowler by Keneally. The only problem? Sitou says she has no ties to Fowler and never has. A spot of casual racism or an innocent mistake? You be the judge. Martin holds the crucial Western Sydney seat by a 3.2% margin.

Martin is in the news this morning for another reason too — a former Australian of the Year says she selectively quoted him in political endorsement without his knowledge, ABC reports. Patrick McGorry, who is a professor of youth mental health at the University of Melbourne, asked Martin to delete a digital ad he features in, saying he was “extremely concerned” that an email he sent her before the election was called was unwittingly featured. Martin did. Libs behaving badly has happened twice this week actually: The Courier-Mail ($) reported that Ryan MP Julian Simmonds had distributed a personal endorsement from a priest without authorisation, and Guardian Australia reported that The Pyjama Foundation and Access Arts both demanded Brisbane MP Trevor Evans stop handing out material that appeared to offer him their endorsements.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

A high profile case is playing out in the UK courts, dubbed “Wagatha Christie” — on account of it being between two warring WAGs, an acronym for the wives and girlfriends of professional sports players. Here’s what happened: Coleen Rooney (the former wife of football star Wayne Rooney and a British TV personality) could not understand how her private Instagram posts were hitting the gossip pages. Like most high profile figures, Coleen has both a public-facing Instagram for the fans and a second, private one just for immediate friends and family. So crafty Coleen decided to smoke out the culprit with an impressively Machiavellian plan — she would post as usual, but restrict the post’s access so only a select group could see it. Then, she’d wait to see what (if anything) hit the tabloids.

She whittled away all the suspects until she was left with one name: Rebekah Vardy, her fellow WAG (and British reality TV star). The scandal! Coleen was as mad as a cut snake. She jumped onto her Twitter to announce the betrayal to her 1.2 million followers, explaining her sleuthing method and delaring that, in the end, Rebekah was the only one looking at content that was later leaked to the press. Coleen’s spectacular accusation went instantly viral. Rebekah was like, “see you in court” and sued Coleen for defamation. Coleen’s lawyers allege Rebekah had her agent lurk and leak to the papers — unfortunately, after a legal request to search the phone for evidence, the agent’s phone was conveniently dropped off the side of a boat in the North Sea.

Wishing you the chicanery of a slighted British WAG today folks.

SAY WHAT?

He has shown a great deal of determination … over that period of time to rise from very humble beginnings. I admire that in Australians and I admire that in Anthony.

Scott Morrison

The PM gave the Labor leader a rare compliment (when prompted by the moderator) at the end of the debate, which was rather more tame than its predecessors. Albo responded that he admired Morrison’s dedication to taking on mental illness in Australia.

CRIKEY RECAP

Life without Josh: how a Frydenberg loss would change the face of the Liberal Party

Kishor Napier-Raman

May 11, 2022

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“A slightly more likely scenario would be a Frydenberg loss and a Labor win. In that instance, it’s hard to imagine Kooyong being the only seat swept away in the teal wave. If the teals pick up more than one seat, it would represent a dramatic shift in the party’s base, with the most affluent areas of the country no longer assured Liberal territory …. with Frydenberg gone, and Morrison an election-loser, it would all but pave the way for Dutton to assume leadership of the Coalition.

“Dutton is more conservative and less obviously pragmatic than Morrison. He’s also a highly divisive figure in the cities. Any remaining urban moderates would get nervous about their futures. Dutton would be likely to continue with a turbocharged version of Morrison’s ‘suburban strategy’, tying the party’s electoral future to outer mortgage belts, regional centres and mining communities.”

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Campaign comes alive as Morrison stakes his reelection bid on cutting wages

Bernard Keane

May 11, 2022

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“There’s at least an element of consistency in Morrison here and, for once, some laudable honesty in policy. The Coalition has actively engaged in wage suppression in the interests of business over the past decade, using several techniques: refusing to support minimum wage rises and cutting penalty rates; increasing temporary migration to push wages down; placing caps on public sector pay; demonising unions; and refusing to fund pay rises in service sectors run by private enterprise but funded by government (like aged care — where Morrison is refusing to commit to funding the wage rise currently under consideration by the Fair Work Commission in its work value case for aged care workers).

“In that context, explicit support for real wage cuts continues the Coalition’s policy over the previous three terms in office. It’s saying the quiet part out loud: the Coalition supports businesses’ relentless opposition to wage rises for workers, which have vanished in real wage terms since 2013.”

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Albanese supporting real wages could be the most important policy in this election

Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer

May 11, 2022

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“So where can a 5.1% pay rise come from without driving up prices? It can come from the greater profit share companies have amassed in recent years. Or it can come from the colossal profits that some of our biggest companies pay without contributing a cent in tax. (Too bad Labor is refusing to fix up the rotten petroleum rent resource tax to collect some windfall profits from surging energy prices — we could learn a lot from Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, who has imposed an initial 10%, now 25%, windfall profits tax on energy companies in Italy. Just imagine doing that here.)

“And it can from the $40-odd billion in JobKeeper that Josh Frydenberg gave to companies unnecessarily. As that forensic foe of JobKeeper, The Australian Financial Review’s Joe Aston pointed out today, where did the bulk of the approximately $112,000 per job saved by JobKeeper go? ‘To subsidise private schools, megachurches, car yards and retailers like Harvey Norman already revelling in the best trading conditions they’ve ever seen’.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Nazi swastika set to be banned in Victoria under ‘landmark’ new laws (SBS)

Shireen Abu Akleh: Al Jazeera reporter killed by Israeli gunfire (Al Jazeera)

Hong Kong national security police arrest Cardinal Joseph Zen (The Guardian)

Judge lifts contempt order against Trump in civil inquiry (The New York Times)

Ukraine to try Russian soldier for war crimes (The Wall Street Journal) ($)

Lufthansa apologises after barring Orthodox Jewish travellers from flight (The Guardian)

Paraguayan anti-mafia prosecutor killed on Colombia honeymoon (BBC)

Report catalogues abuse of Native American children at former government schools (The New York Times)

Democrats push doomed bid for federal abortion law (BBC)

Cryptocurrency TerraUSD plunges as investors bail (The Wall Street Journal)

THE COMMENTARIAT

How well off you are depends on who you are. Comparing the lives of Australia’s Millennials, Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers — Peter Abelson (The Conversation): “Net national disposable income per capita has been climbing over time, meaning that Millennials aged 25-35 are 51% better off than Generation Xers were at that age, and 91% better off than Boomers at that age. And those figures are likely to understate how much better off their standard of living is. The quality and range of goods and services from food to cars to healthcare to computers to mobile phones with cameras has improved in ways figures can’t capture. Many didn’t exist in the 1970s.

“Although the Bureau of Statistics attempts to adjust its measures for improvements in quality, it concedes its efforts are incomplete. The Bureau’s underestimation of quality improvements is likely to be significant. Millennials are also wealthier than Gen Xers and Boomers were at the same age, although recently the wealth of older Australians has been climbing more rapidly than the wealth of younger Australians, due in large measure to home prices. Offsetting this, in due course, should be big inheritances passed from Boomers to Gen-Xers and Millennials.”

Australia must avoid entrenching a US-style ‘working poor’ — Warren Hogan (The SMH): “Australia deregulated and opened its economy at the end of the 20th century, but unlike the United States, we have avoided the formation of an underclass of working poor. People who work but struggle to pay the rent and feed their families. But Australia is now heading in that direction with big cuts to the living standards of low-income earners driven by surging costs of living. A central tenet of the modern Australian economy is that those on low incomes have participated in the rising prosperity that economic reforms have delivered.

“This is consistent with that very Australian sense of egalitarianism, but more importantly, it is a foundation stone of a strong and stable domestic economy. Low and middle income households provide a baseload of demand that generates labour-intensive domestic economic activity. From food and grocery to entertainment and tourism, a boost to wages for those at the bottom of the scale quickly finds itself back into the economy. A 5% lift in the minimum wage in 2022 is about a one-off reset to the wage level to counter real wage destruction. It is not a new norm.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Stoney Creek Nation Country (also known as Launceston)

• Liberal MP Bridget Archer and Labor hopeful Ross Hart will speak at a debate hosted by The Examiner newspaper and the Launceston Chamber of Commerce.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• The 2022 Stella Prize Winner Evelyn Araluen will be in conversation at The Wheeler Centre.

• Labor spokesperson for Charities Andrew Leigh and Greens spokesperson Janet Rice will speak at the Connecting Up conference’s pre-election forum at the Melbourne Convention Centre. Liberal assistant treasurer Michael Sukkar is not expected to attend.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Greens senator David Shoebridge and independent Zali Steggall MP will be among the speakers at the Warringah debate. Liberal hopeful Katherine Deves is not expected to attend.