I see Gina is saying that she's very displeased with Dutton. Not in any way related by the fact that many people are complaining that Dutton lives in her pocket - it's not a fake distancing for the election at all, of course.
The Australian Federal Election - 2025 Edition
- Thread starter Cognac
- Start date
I posted about Labor adding home batteries to the SRES over in the Climate change politics thread as well, but wanted to add a bit extra here too, this bit at the end of the article caught my eye:
So they want to build nuclear plants that have to push out solar from the grid in order to remotely be able to recoup the cost, but also they want to encourage uptake of batteries because... ???
Dutton got a primo spot to spruik his credentials on ABC TV last night, just before the evening news. If you only had that specific 30 seconds to form a judgement, you'd think 'this guy comes across as a reasonably decent person'.
Hopefully when it comes to filling in their ballots on election day, voters will remember that based on his actions and the vast majority of his words over the past few years, he's heartless, divisive and overall a nasty piece of work.
Hopefully when it comes to filling in their ballots on election day, voters will remember that based on his actions and the vast majority of his words over the past few years, he's heartless, divisive and overall a nasty piece of work.
The Coalition habit of lightly hurting people while playing sport for the cameras continues (video cued up):
View: https://youtu.be/51xlDWsLp5M?t=95
Cameraman was fine.
I'll vote for the party that best represents my views and would take the country where I think it should go.
Generally I'll vote Labour but have voted Liberal and Green in past federal elections.
In this case I'm voting Labour not because I think they'll manage to do much (they don't seem to have done much in the past three years) but because I think they're better than the other options.
That said, I'm quite enjoying the Coalition saying they'll strip the Chinese of Darwin port when it was the Coalition that sold it to them in the first place. Bunch of plonks.
View: https://youtu.be/51xlDWsLp5M?t=95
Cameraman was fine.
I'll vote for the party that best represents my views and would take the country where I think it should go.
Generally I'll vote Labour but have voted Liberal and Green in past federal elections.
In this case I'm voting Labour not because I think they'll manage to do much (they don't seem to have done much in the past three years) but because I think they're better than the other options.
That said, I'm quite enjoying the Coalition saying they'll strip the Chinese of Darwin port when it was the Coalition that sold it to them in the first place. Bunch of plonks.
rainynight65
Ars Scholae Palatinae
The Coalition has backed away from plans to force public servants back into the office, as well as plans to forcibly cut 41000 public servant jobs.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-06/coalition-abandon-work-from-home-41000-jobs/105144090
This appears to be mainly an attempt to take the sting out of comparisons to Trump, Musk and DOGE. Clearly they're starting to realise that those kinds of policies don't have the kind of appeal or traction among the Australian electorate.
Thing is, what do they have left now? Those were key policies. I'll admit, it's good to see the Coalition on the back foot for a change, flailing and hastily retreating from full throated but unpopular policy announcements. I hope Labor can keep up the pressure and keep Dutton on his toes.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-06/coalition-abandon-work-from-home-41000-jobs/105144090
This appears to be mainly an attempt to take the sting out of comparisons to Trump, Musk and DOGE. Clearly they're starting to realise that those kinds of policies don't have the kind of appeal or traction among the Australian electorate.
Thing is, what do they have left now? Those were key policies. I'll admit, it's good to see the Coalition on the back foot for a change, flailing and hastily retreating from full throated but unpopular policy announcements. I hope Labor can keep up the pressure and keep Dutton on his toes.
Well, it's good that they have recognised that forcing all public servants back into the office 5 days a week was dumb policy.
The reduction in Commonwealth jobs would still happen though, but gradually. Services would still suffer. Outsourcing to expensive consultants would still happen. Maybe they're counting on the frog not noticing that the water is getting hotter.
The reduction in Commonwealth jobs would still happen though, but gradually. Services would still suffer. Outsourcing to expensive consultants would still happen. Maybe they're counting on the frog not noticing that the water is getting hotter.
Don't think you can uncrack the egg though. Coalition clearly want to end WFH arrangements, but now they realise that they don't want to say it right now. It would definitely come back on the agenda if they were to win.
Oh yeah, the whole "not a core promise" BS would be out on day 1 and full-time RTO for every APS staffer would be back in action.
Well, not a Labor fanboy but a brief perusal came up with this about the past three years:
Industrial Relations:
- Multi Employer bargaining - Allows unions to negotiate more effectively
- Same job, same pay - end labour hire rorts
- Wage theft and industrial manslaughter criminalised
- Increased minimum wage
- Long-term consistent casual employees given right to permanent employment (Employee choice pathway)
- Legislated right for workers to not answer their phones on their days off. (Right to disconnect)
- Employment agreements that prevent employees from discussing their pay with each other have been banned. (Pay secrecy clauses)
- $300 energy bill rebate
- Delivery of more housing and sought agreement from the states to streamline zoning and planning regulations (National Housing Accord)
- Establishment of fund to provide long-term consistent funding for social and affordable housing (Housing Australia Future Fund)
- First back‑to‑back increase to Commonwealth Rent Assistance in more than 30 years.
- Expanded (and expanding) length of paid parental leave (PPL). Increased flexibility of PPL. Added superannuation to PPL payments.
- Improved China relationship (many tariffs ended)
- Legislated emissions reduction target - Climate Change Minister must update parliament annually on progress towards target.
- Safeguard mechanism (Reducing big companies carbon pollution)
- Capacity investment scheme - direct govt investment in renewables
- Environmental Protection agency established (In progress - before parliament) - independent from government and makes decisions on development - can regulate state decisions - can increase restrictions on native logging.
- Investment to double Australian recycling capacity
- Massive areas of ocean designated as Marine Parks which bans fishing. This is the biggest contribution to ocean conservation by area for two years in a row - 2023 and 2024.
- Double tax on superannuation above $3m.
- Bigger tax cuts for low and mid income earners (stage three tax cuts). Higher taxes for high income earners. Resetting of Morrison's tax bracket flattening for high income earners.
- 2023 budget delivered Australia's largest budget surplus. 2024 surplus the first consecutive surplus in an Australian federal budget since 2007-08.
- Multinational minimum corporate tax rate reforms
- Halved inflation. Wages are now growing faster than inflation.
- Highest level of job creation in a single parliamentary term. Unemployment rate well below OECD average.
- $4 billion dollars in savings from hiring fewer consultants and contractors in the Australian Public Service.
- Medicare Urgent Care Clinics - Bulk billed
- Medicines on PBS cheaper by 30%
- Fixing aged care (Nurse in every nursing home - in progress)
- Fixing NDIS rorts (in progress)
- Bulk billing reforms and investment which has stopped the slide and has led to an increase in the proportion of doctors visits that are bulk billed.
- National Anti Corruption Commission
- National Culture Policy (more funding, different priorities)
- 300,000 fee-free TAFE places over three years from 2024
- Prac payment for students of nursing, teaching, physio, etc.
That's much more than I thought, much more.
I would have liked to have seen much more work in the Clean Energy area, especially with regards to Renewables. I want to see progress with approvals for Solar and Wind farms so that there's something (anything) to backstop the ageing coal power plants while they're being phased out.
I would have wanted to the Australian Building and Construction Commission to be doing it's job and not closed - the ongoing saga with the Victorian unions highlights the amount of corruption involved.
I want serious tax reform. I want negative gearing scaled back.
Turns out I also want free unicorns with that list too
Seriously though, I'm voting Labour more because I abhor the policies and competance of the Coalition than because I think Labour has delivered on the big ticket items I was hoping for.
I would have liked to have seen much more work in the Clean Energy area, especially with regards to Renewables. I want to see progress with approvals for Solar and Wind farms so that there's something (anything) to backstop the ageing coal power plants while they're being phased out.
I would have wanted to the Australian Building and Construction Commission to be doing it's job and not closed - the ongoing saga with the Victorian unions highlights the amount of corruption involved.
I want serious tax reform. I want negative gearing scaled back.
Turns out I also want free unicorns with that list too
Seriously though, I'm voting Labour more because I abhor the policies and competance of the Coalition than because I think Labour has delivered on the big ticket items I was hoping for.
For sure I thought I had it right
(Also it's "Labor" not "Labour".)
Haha yeah, it's like the one thing that we have the American spelling for, just to be confusing. The Labor Party is fighting for labour rights! 
Cancelling/really scaling back negative gearing would be such a huge step in reforming out-of-control housing costs (both purchasing and renting). But as we saw last time around, that change is going to have to either be a boiled frog scenario of its own, or it will have to be a hill worth dying on for the Labor Party.
Deity forbid that you mess with people's property investments - never mind the fact that negative gearing is only a benefit for a few people.
It's one of the reasons I'm hoping for the Greens to end up with the balance of power in the House of Reps to be honest.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story!
Yeah, Albanese and co have just been, for the most part, getting on with governing. The media is to blame for many people not being aware of these things as well. It gets reported, but it doesn't get lauded. Instead all of the right-wing houses find things to attack/just make shit up to get people outraged that Labor is in power.
rainynight65
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I absolutely want to see the combination of negative gearing and CGT discount gone. The problem is, if it's not done with due care and proper guardrails - including telling the banks to suck it up - there's a good chance it could wreck the housing market, because all the speculators and parasites who like to call themselves "investors" are likely going to overreact. That in turn could negatively impact a lot of people who are at the absolute margins with their home loan for a place that they just want to live in and could barely afford in the first place.
They'll probably have to start by phasing out negative gearing for newly bought/sold properties - and who's to say that the next time the Libs get in, they just won't roll it all back because fuck the poor?
When the majority of mainstream media is right-leaning or fully right wing, that's what happens. Their only agenda is to put or keep 'their' people in power, and there's no line they won't cross to achieve that end.
True, and given the current state of the world I'm more than happy with "Dull boring gov't that actually gets things done. Okay, not as much as I'd like but at least they're moves in the right direction".
That’s the best argument for an ALP-Greens coalition. The ALP get to push a few policies over the line that they really want but electorally can’t show that they want (like killing off negative gearing and that franking credits thing that I don’t really understand) and they can claim they had no real choice because they needed to govern. People will bitch and moan but when they look at the swivel-eyed loons of the LNP coalition, they’ll swallow the bitter pill.
Not sure if the Greens still have members with property portfolios. Was a perception problem a few years ago.
Greens have been pretty open about dealing with Negative Gearing, and a number of their MPs/Senators have been open about eliminating or reducing Negative Gearing would impact them.
Looks like nothing major out of last night's debate. I didn't watch (seeing as it was paywalled), but by all accounts everyone was civil and fairly milquetoast about pretty much everything.
Gotta love Sky "News" woeful attempt to spin it towards Dutton:
Well no shit, of course the Sky News drones would never vote Labor.
I did like Albanese's little jab at Dutton:
"Dutton — initiating probably the only elegant sequence of the evening — asked Prith if she ever found that a Medicare card was sufficient. She said that she generally needed her credit card too. Points to Dutton, until Albanese sweetly asked whether he was the same health minister who pitched the $7 GP co-payment in the first Abbott government budget a decade ago"
"Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wins leaders' debate against Peter Dutton but fails to sway majority of voters at Sky News People's Forum"
Well no shit, of course the Sky News drones would never vote Labor.
I did like Albanese's little jab at Dutton:
"Dutton — initiating probably the only elegant sequence of the evening — asked Prith if she ever found that a Medicare card was sufficient. She said that she generally needed her credit card too. Points to Dutton, until Albanese sweetly asked whether he was the same health minister who pitched the $7 GP co-payment in the first Abbott government budget a decade ago"
rainynight65
Ars Scholae Palatinae
From the same ABC article:
Amazing how 'sound Coalition management and forward planning' led to a tripling of the national debt and nine deficits in a row, only to render a surplus when Labor got back into power. That's some serious forward planning!
Amazing how 'sound Coalition management and forward planning' led to a tripling of the national debt and nine deficits in a row, only to render a surplus when Labor got back into power. That's some serious forward planning!
The latest Guardian article on current polling is making me a bit more optimistic that the fucking Liberals won't get in. 
I won’t rest easy until after the election is won. I’ve seen too many “sure thing” elections that turn out to be a huge loss. I like polls that I agree with but we live in a world where Rupert Murdoch is still alive and John Pilger isn’t. Reality is perverse like that.The latest Guardian article on current polling is making me a bit more optimistic that the fucking Liberals won't get in.
rainynight65
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Completely agree. You only have to remember 2019, an election even the Libs themselves were fully expecting to lose.
Jacinta Price not shy about showing her political stripes. If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, then...
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...en-accuses-media-of-being-obsessed-with-trump
I expect the ALP to exploit rapidly.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...en-accuses-media-of-being-obsessed-with-trump
I expect the ALP to exploit rapidly.
rainynight65
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Although after the way she galvanised the 'No' vote in the Voice referendum, I wouldn't dismiss her lightly.
rainynight65
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I don't think that was just her. Warren Mundine had a lot to do with it too, as well as the way the Coalition absolutely weaponised division - they spread lies first, then capitalised on the uncertainty created by those lies, then pointed at the uncertainty as a sign of divisiveness.
And Lidia Thorpe didn't do the referendum any favours either - for different reasons, but ultimately to the same outcome.
In news that will surprise nobody, the Libs aren't talking much about their idiotic nuclear plan: https://www.theguardian.com/austral...-plan-would-go-ahead-even-if-locals-oppose-it
So, both Jacinta Price and the leader of the Nationals are saying that her 'Make Australia Great Again' comment yesterday was not channeling Trump - and then these photos surface of her wearing a MAGA cap and holding a Trump Christmas tree decoration.
Remind me again Jacinta, who is obsessed with Donald Trump - is it the media or is it actually you?
Dutton saying he'll give tax deduction for mortgage interest payments. What a dumb as fuck idea.
1. It'll drive a hole into the federal budget. I know federal government debt doesn't really matter, but a nicely balanced budget would be better than one with a structural deficit built in. Because, eventually, federal debt does matter.
2. It won't help hose prices do anything except go up. Giving people more money to spend on mortgages, just means they'll go for bigger mortgages.
Xi Jinping is right. Houses are for living in, not investment.
We need both major political parties and probably the greens to all agree to a plan and agree to stick to it, rather than try and screw the other party over. My thoughts are ...
To make houses more affordable will take time. LOTS of time. A decade or so. At least.
We can't just drive the price off a cliff, or you'll end up like the Chinese real estate market. Utterly & totally fucked. No one wants that.
We want to encourage private individual home ownership.
ONE home.
1. Capital gains tax on the house you live in should probably drop, but that would never fly, so ... do nothing. You won't get far any way. Lets try and go for things that are achievable. Besides, we want to encourage private individual home ownership.
2. CGT on first investment properties, drop it from 50% to zero in 10 easy 5% drops / year. Everyone can make a decision anywhere along the line that now is the right time to get out of the market. But for the rest of your investment properties, it's a 10% drop / year. This includes corporate ownership.
3. Negative gearing. Same basic idea. But drop it by 10% / year. Again, you can jump out of the market and sell up when you feel it's right. And again, it falls faster for multiple properties (20% / year)
Owners get to decide which is their "first" investment property. But they don't get to change it later. If you pick in a sub optimal manner, to bad.
Holiday homes don't get any tax benefit at all.
Yeah, this will cause a 'lost decade' of real estate price growth. And that is a good thing. It is the point of the exercise. It means that prices will stay about the same, maybe drop a little. But with pay rises, more people will be able to afford more houses to live in.
It also has the happy side effect of helping balance the federal budget.
If you want to invest, the stock market is just over there.
1. It'll drive a hole into the federal budget. I know federal government debt doesn't really matter, but a nicely balanced budget would be better than one with a structural deficit built in. Because, eventually, federal debt does matter.
2. It won't help hose prices do anything except go up. Giving people more money to spend on mortgages, just means they'll go for bigger mortgages.
Xi Jinping is right. Houses are for living in, not investment.
We need both major political parties and probably the greens to all agree to a plan and agree to stick to it, rather than try and screw the other party over. My thoughts are ...
To make houses more affordable will take time. LOTS of time. A decade or so. At least.
We can't just drive the price off a cliff, or you'll end up like the Chinese real estate market. Utterly & totally fucked. No one wants that.
We want to encourage private individual home ownership.
ONE home.
1. Capital gains tax on the house you live in should probably drop, but that would never fly, so ... do nothing. You won't get far any way. Lets try and go for things that are achievable. Besides, we want to encourage private individual home ownership.
2. CGT on first investment properties, drop it from 50% to zero in 10 easy 5% drops / year. Everyone can make a decision anywhere along the line that now is the right time to get out of the market. But for the rest of your investment properties, it's a 10% drop / year. This includes corporate ownership.
3. Negative gearing. Same basic idea. But drop it by 10% / year. Again, you can jump out of the market and sell up when you feel it's right. And again, it falls faster for multiple properties (20% / year)
Owners get to decide which is their "first" investment property. But they don't get to change it later. If you pick in a sub optimal manner, to bad.
Holiday homes don't get any tax benefit at all.
Yeah, this will cause a 'lost decade' of real estate price growth. And that is a good thing. It is the point of the exercise. It means that prices will stay about the same, maybe drop a little. But with pay rises, more people will be able to afford more houses to live in.
It also has the happy side effect of helping balance the federal budget.
If you want to invest, the stock market is just over there.
rainynight65
Ars Scholae Palatinae
That's the whole point. They want to deprive the government of tax revenue, so that it is forced to cut spending and slash services. That's why Howard wasted the mining boom on tax cuts and created the structural deficit that we see to this day. That's why Morrison and Frydenberg legislated massive tax cuts the moment they got a whiff of there maybe being a meagre surplus that one time. Reducing tax revenue is the fucking point.
As far as I am aware, selling your primary residence is exempt from CGT already. Or am I misreading your intent?
There are some pretty well defined limits on the proposed deductions: interest payments on mortgages (up to a maximum value of $650,000) taken out by first home buyers (with incomes of less than $175,000, or $250,000 combined for couples) who purchase newly built houses or apartments will be tax-deductible for the first five years.
What's missing (I think) is that the mortgage must be on the borrower's residence, which would prevent it from being exploited by investors.
The Libs are implying that this will increase supply, although I'm not convinced.