Six days out from the federal election, Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton are meeting in their fourth and final leaders debate.
While Albanese is ahead in the polls and holding out hope of forming a majority Labor government, the debate offers Dutton a chance to make ground in the final week.
The debate, which was hosted by Channel 7, became personal early as Dutton accused Albanese of lying and claimed he should be “ashamed” of the problems arising over the past three years.
Albanese hit back that Dutton could attack him but he wouldn’t let him “attack the wages of working people” in a debate that has touched on cost of living, tax and housing.
Dutton went straight in on the economy in his opening statement.
“This election is all about who can best manage the Australian economy, and if we can manage the economy, well, it means that we can bring inflation down. It means that we can help families with the cost-of-living crisis that this government’s created,” he said.
“We live in the best country in the world, but we do know that many families are doing it tough, and as we’ve moved around the country, we’ve spoken to families literally in tears.”
Albanese also focussed on cost-of-living.
“Australians have a real choice this Saturday to continue building Australia’s future or go back to the past,” he said.
“We know that we live in very uncertain times, and that’s why we need certainty. And during this campaign, we have put forward clear, decisive policies – the opposition have chopped and changed. Australians deserve certainty. What we will deliver is just that we will trust in our people. We will value our Australian values, and we’ll build Australia’s future.”
On cost of living, Albanese plugged his party’s pledges to cut prices on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and childcare.
He argued inflation had dropped from 6 per cent to 2.4 per cent under his watch and interest rates, which were cut for the first time in years in March, had started to come down.
Dutton went straight to the Coalition’s promised cut to fuel excise, which Albanese criticised as a temporary measure.
Dutton draw an analogy to the temporary relief offered during the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming it would “give us time to clean up Labor’s mess”.
Both parties have introduced significant policies to address the housing crisis but economists have raised questions about their potential effectiveness.
Dutton sought to blame rising house prices squarely on migration, claiming Labor had mismanaged “every aspect of the migration program”.
“It looks like a nightmare,”Dutton said, when asked about the great Australian dream.
“And it’s a nightmare because rents have gone up by almost 20 per cent, and this Prime Minister has brought in a million people over the course of the last two years through the migration program.”
Albanese said his government was not just looking to identify the problem but working towards a solution.
“That’s why our measures, whether it be increased private rentals through our incentive for build-to-rent programs or first home buyers scheme or whether it be the increased support for social housing, we are concentrating on supply, not just demand, because we know that’s the key going forward,” he said.
Questions on tax revealed little new from either man but led to the most heated confrontation of the night.
The major parties have laid out a fairly clear choice for voters on tax between a $5 a week tax cut for the average earner next year, and another the year after, or a 25c/L cut to fuel excise now.
Both leaders doubled down tonight on the benefits of their own approach before things got heated when the answers strayed into other areas.
Dutton continued his established tactic of accusing Albanese of lying when the Prime Minister said the opposition would get rid of same-job, same-pay measures introduced by his government, something Dutton has denied this campaign.
“That is just not true, Prime Minister. Honestly, this whole campaign, it’s hard to believe anything you say,” he said, before claiming Albanese “should be ashamed” of the problems arising in his term in government.
Albanese responded by saying “Peter can attack me”.”I tell you what I won’t let him do. I won’t let him attack the wages of working people,” the PM said.
“I won’t let him attack the changes we’ve put in place for cheaper child care. I won’t let him abandon free TAFE so that people can get an opportunity in life.”I won’t let him get away with this nonsense about economic management. We inherited a deficit of $78 billion. We turned that into a $22 billion surplus.”
In the wake of the universally condemned booing that disrupted an Anzac Day ceremony in Melbourne, both leaders were asked a series of questions on the ceremony and Indigenous issues more broadly.
Dutton said the ceremony was “overdone” and should be performed for major occasions but scaled back in other moments.
“For the opening of parliament, fair enough, it’s respectful to do but for the start of every meeting at work or the start of a football game, I think a lot of Australians think it’s overdone and it cheapens the significance of what it was meant to do,” he said.
“I think a lot of Australians think it’s overdone and it cheapens the significance of what it was meant to do.”It divides the country”.
Albanese said it was a matter of respect for Indigenous people.
“It is up to them and people will have different views and people are entitled to their views, but we have a great privilege from my perspective, of sharing this continent with the oldest continuous culture on earth, and when I welcome international visitors to Parliament House, they want to see that culture,” he said.
Albanese said he accepted the outcome of the Voice referendum but stressed it was still important to find ways to consult with Indigenous people on issues affecting them.
Both leaders condemned the neo-Nazis who interrupted the Anzac Day ceremony and said they wouldn’t change the date of Australia Day.
