Get up to speed with all the latest updates from the federal election campaign as the final week gets underway.
Follow all of Monday’s updates in our live blog.
Live updates
By Jessica Riga
Fears Coalition scheme allowing home buyers to use super will raise prices, fail to address affordability
The Coalition’s campaign promise to allow first home buyers to dip into their super to help pay for a deposit is being welcomed by the real estate, housing and building industries, but criticised by economists.
It was floated back in 2017 when Scott Morrison was treasurer and dismissed by then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who in 2021 called it “the craziest idea I’ve heard”.
It has been criticised by economists including Saul Eslake who says it will only push house prices up and do nothing to address the root causes of housing affordability.
“My initial reaction was that I wanted to scream that this reckless inflation of house prices must stop,” he said.
“Anything which allows Australians to pay more for housing than they otherwise would, which this scheme undoubtedly does, results primarily in more expensive housing, rather than in more people owning that housing.”
“It will be greeted with despair by those would be first home buyers who will see it rightly as pushing their dreams further out of their reach than they already are.”
By Jessica Riga
Analysis: Morrison’s launch was another reset moment — but an unscripted joke laid bare the real battle
Fresh from a late-campaign image reboot, Scott Morrison, behind in the polls and with flailing personal popularity, uses his campaign launch to elevate those who will serve alongside him, hoping to pull off another unexpected election win, writes Brett Worthington.
Anthony Albanese launched Labor’s campaign two weeks earlier in Perth, a city home to seats Labor will need to win if it’s to form government.
Morrison’s Coalition used a different strategy, heading to a state where his “miracle” 2019 election brought with it plenty of seats it now needs to defend if it’s to stay in power.
But in picking the last Sunday to make his final pitch to voters, Morrison did so after more than 2.5 million votes have already been cast.
So anything he said yesterday, and the new policies he’s unveiled, have been lost on these voters.
By Jessica Riga
Coalition defends housing policy
Prime Minister Scott Morrison used the Liberal Party’s campaign launch in Brisbane on Sunday to announce a plan to allow first home buyers to use their superannuation to purchase a property.
Mr Morrison went on to announce the Super Home Buyer scheme, which — if the Coalition is re-elected on Saturday — would enable first home buyers to use up to 40 per cent of their super, up to $50,000, to put towards buying a home.
Minister for Superannuation and Financial Services, Jane Hume, defended criticism of the Coalition’s policy from some economists and the superannuation industry on News Breakfast this morning.
“This is your money. It’s not their money. It’s not the government’s money,” she said.
“It’s individuals’ accounts and they should be able to do what they need to do in order to create economic security in retirement but also throughout their working lives.
By Jessica Riga
Good morning
Welcome to the final week of the 2022 federal election campaign!
Can you believe Australia heads to the polls this Saturday?
I’m Jessica Riga and I’ll be keeping you in the loop today as we enter the downwards sprint of this marathon of a campaign.
Everyone ready? Let’s go.
