Federal election 2022 live updates: government announces freeze on deeming rates; Chalmers slams ‘economic jargon’

I’m not sure who thinks politicians are hard done by or need less accountability than the public sector, but Scott Morrison seems to think it is a winning argument:

Scott Morrison has ratcheted up his warnings against a powerful national anti-corruption commission, arguing handing control over to “faceless officials” could turn Australia into “some kind of public autocracy”.

Amid growing political pressure on the Coalition over its failure to meet its previous election promise to legislate a commonwealth integrity commission, the prime minister told the Nine newspapers politicians were accountable to voters at elections.

He argued elected members should be able to allocate funding for infrastructure and community grants and without undue fear of public servants investigating those decisions.

Updated at 19.44 EDT

The Antipoverty Centre is holding an online launch of its rental assistance overhaul policy this evening as it tries to drag the major political parties to a position that recognises the 21st century pressures people on income assistance face (Australia’s social security safety net has not really been updated since the 1990s):

Details can be found here but some of the centre’s research has found:

Updated at 19.38 EDT

The Coalition is running a dual line at the moment, which is essentially – we had no control over interest rates, but you can only trust us moving forward to keep things under control.

Here was Anne Ruston explaining how this wasn’t contradictory on ABC radio this morning:

Q: You seem to take the responsibility when the news is good. But then say that there are global factors. This is the disconnect, isn’t it?

Ruston:

Not at all. I think what you’ve got to do is we’ve got a look at our track record, a track record where invariably interest rates have been lower. Certainly the unemployment rate has been low and under the government, under Coalition government, we inherited a 5.7% unemployment rate at 4% today and expected to go lower. And you also have to remember that Mr Chalmers has actually set a test for the government coming through the pandemic where he said the government would be judged on the unemployment rate in relation to how we handled the pandemic. We came out of the other end of the pandemic with unemployment rates that are actually now seeing wage growth, which is something that obviously all Australians welcome at the same time as we are opening the economy.

Now, this is a supply-driven inflation increase, and it is true that supply issues are being driven by international factors, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ongoing Covid shocks. But there are domestic issues at play too. And wage growth in some sectors is not matching inflation. Overwhelmingly, wage growth has been stagnant, which is compounding the inflationary pressures, and late last week we also learnt power prices would be increasing because of the growing price of fossil fuels – which Australia’s power grid still relies on and under the Coalition has been very slow to shift from.

The government is relying on people hearing its message and not that disconnect.

Updated at 19.37 EDT

It’s not just new candidates who have problems with previous tweets. Those who have been in political life – in both opposition as well as government – haven’t seen all their tweets age so well either.

Updated at 19.29 EDT

Border Force won’t confirm reports of asylum seekers moved to Christmas Island

We asked Border Force yesterday morning to confirm that asylum seekers were being moved from the Melbourne immigration transit accommodation centre to Christmas Island and, this morning, received this response:

The ABF does not comment on the details of specific operational matters.

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said yesterday that it had spoken with people inside Mita who said some detainees had been handcuffed and loaded on to minibuses and were believed to have been taken to Christmas Island. Protesters, including Greens senator Lidia Thorpe, blockaded the centre yesterday afternoon.

They said they were attempting to prevent the transfer of 12 people. The ABF would not say why people had been moved.

The Morrison government reopened the Christmas Island detention centre in August 2020. There are now about 212 people held in detention on Christmas Island, 90 of whom had their visas revoked by home affairs minister Peter Dutton.

Updated at 20.46 EDT

Josh Frydenberg, who is one of those inner-city Liberals trying to hold on to their seat against an independent challenger, wouldn’t repeat the term “kangaroo court” when asked about it on the ABC today – but still tried walking both sides of the fence.

Q: Just about out of time but integrity is one of the key platforms that [challenger] Monique Ryan is campaigning on. Do you agree with the prime minister that the New South Wales Icac is a kangaroo court?

Frydenberg:

He’ll explain his comments. What I would say …

Q: Do you agree with the prime minister the Icac in New South Wales is a kangaroo court, yes or no?

Frydenberg:

I would put it to you like this. I think the Icac has produced results where good people have left office without convictions being made and without huge amounts of evidence.

Q: Would you use the words kangaroo court to describe that body?

Frydenberg:

I would use different words.

Q: Are you angry with the prime minister for using those words? Integrity, a stronger anti-corruption body, is a key issue in your seat, as you well know.

Frydenberg:

We’ll all use our own words to explain our own positions. I support a commonwealth integrity commission. We have a model for doing so. It’s got a public sector division, it’s got a law enforcement division, I put more than $100m towards its establishment. It’s got to be the right model. In terms of having people proven guilty when they’re not.

Your reminder that the government model does not look into non-criminal corruption, Icac does not make findings or pass judgment, it hands a brief of evidence to the Department of Public Prosecutions which makes the decision whether or not to press charges and take it to court, and Gladys Berejiklian and Barry O’Farrell both resigned.

Updated at 19.23 EDT

I was getting to this, because it is very important – despite the criticism from outgoing Icac commissioners, despite the reports that this rhetoric is playing very badly in inner-city Liberal-held seats and despite the untruths – Scott Morrison is continuing his attack on Icac. He told Nine Newspapers:

Outgoing NSW Icac commissioner Stephen Rushton didn’t hold back while speaking to a parliamentary review about the attacks against the commission, taking aim at those who had called it “a kangaroo court” – a term Morrison has repeatedly used to describe the commission.

Rushton:

To those buffoons who have repeatedly described this commission as a kangaroo court, I would say three things.

First, it is deeply offensive to the hard-working staff of the commission. It undermines the institution.

Second, there are vast differences between the functions of the commission and a court.

Those differences are readily accessible, and there has been much written about those vast differences. To describe us as a kangaroo court is not just misleading, but untrue.

To make an uninformed comment that this commission is a kangaroo court has a real capacity to undermine the commission’s work, and just as importantly, public confidence in public administration.

Updated at 19.19 EDT

NSW reports 21 lives lost to Covid, Victoria reports 11 deaths

Covid continues to make an impact across the nation:

Updated at 19.05 EDT

Social services minister Anne Ruston is not exactly known for her communication skills. But the South Australian knows how to stick to a line when she has to. And stick to it she will, as she did on ABC radio RN this morning.

Has the government done the numbers on how many mortgage holders will find themselves in economic distress from the rate rises (some reports put it at 300,000)?

Ruston:

Well, certainly the banking sector has indicated they believe there is great resilience being built into all people who have done, have taken out loans in recent times when the interest rates were as low as they have been through the pandemic and they have built into those those rates the buffer that allows people to have some confidence that they have got the scope for the normalisation of interest rates going forward.

But we’re not under estimating in any way shape or form the pressures that are on Australians at the moment, and it’s not just about interest rates, it’s more generally about cost of living. And that’s why we put the measures that we did in the budget, things like the halving of the excise and the $250 hit people’s bank accounts last week, the extension of the low and middle income earners tax offset, as well as continuing to put tax relief policy in place for Australians and Australian families and Australian businesses because collectively the government understands that it’s a suite of measures that will support Australians.

Updated at 19.03 EDT

Here’s the official government announcement on that:

A re-elected Morrison Government will guarantee the rate used to determine the income earned from financial assets will be frozen at today’s record low level for the next two years to ensure payments are not reduced as earnings increase from deposit accounts held by social security recipients.

The Prime Minister said about 450,000 Age Pensioners and 440,000 other payment recipients would benefit from greater certainty around their fortnightly social security payments because of the Government’s deeming rate freeze.

“This is another shield to help protect Australians from the cost of living pressures people could feel from an increase in interest rates,” the Prime Minister said.

“In addition to our indexation of social security payments, we will guarantee the rate of income for people who could otherwise see their social security income drop because of the increase in interest rates.”

The lower deeming rate will be frozen at 0.25% for financial investments up to $53,600 for single pensioners and $89,000 for pensioner couples.

The upper deeming rate will remain at 2.25% on investment assets over the amount of $53,600 or $89,000 respectively.

Updated at 19.02 EDT