Federal election 2022 live: Morrison stands by Katherine Deves; Albanese says PM ‘has no plans for the future’

It’s legs 11 with just 11 days left in the campaign.

Thank Dolly. I’m not sure any of us could handle much more.

Scott Morrison’s handpicked candidate for Warringah, Katherine Deves, has backtracked on her apology for her previous social media comments (some as recent as earlier this year) in an interview with Sky News.

Chris Kenny: So when you said that the gender reassignment surgery for teenagers was mutilation, that was inappropriate?’

Katherine Deves:

Look, that is actually the correct medico legal term. Look, it’s very emotive and it’s very confronting, and it’s very ugly. So of course, people are going to be offended.

But when you look at medical negligence cases, that is the terminology that they use. It is also contained in the Crimes Act of New South Wales.

So was she apologising?

Well, I’m apologising for how people might have perceived it, and the fact that it is confronting and it is ugly, and I certainly don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But that is the correct terminology.

Deves says she is speaking for the “quiet Australians”.

Labor’s Catherine King was asked on ABC this morning if she was surprised Deves had walked back her apology.

No, I think this is an incredibly divisive debate and I think the prime minister has chosen a very divisive candidate to run in that seat and I think it’s really awful to see that happening in the context of a federal election campaign.

Meanwhile, aged care staff are planning to go on strike today, protesting low pay and conditions.

Thousands of staff are planning to walk off the job across the nation, in action which was flagged last month. The union is calling for at least a 25% pay rise.

King says Labor backs the pay rise:

A couple of things we have said, this is a damning indictment on the government. How can you have a royal commission where its interim report titled Neglect tells you there’s a problem with residential aged care and basically do nothing about it? We said 24-7 nursing staff, minimum times for people to – for workers to be with residents, again, that basically brings in more staff into residential aged care and we have said we’ll make a submission to the Fair Work Commission in relation to the waged case.

Scott Morrison is in Sydney, while Anthony Albanese is in Melbourne, where he is expected to campaign with Daniel Andrews.

Given there is less than two weeks in the campaign now, where the campaigns go tells you where the seats are to be won. It’s only going to rev up.

As usual, you will have Katharine Murphy, Paul Karp, Daniel Hurst, Sarah Martin and Josh Butler to help you make sense of it, and a very caffeinated Amy Remeikis on the blog.

Ready? Me either.