Election wrap: Policy jousting and the lewd Lib
A summary of this morning’s action on the campaign trail.
Labor says lewd Lib should be sacked
Labor is demanding Opposition Leader Tony Abbott disendorse a Liberal candidate whose personal website contained lewd and sexist content.
Kevin Baker, who is contesting former minister Greg Combet’s NSW seat of Charlton, has been forced to shut down his “Mini-Mods” forum site for car enthusiasts.
The site contained references to incest, domestic violence, racism and child abuse.
The content can still be viewed under cache settings.
Baker has since apologised but Labor campaign spokeswoman Penny Wong says Abbott must disendorse Baker.
“He can’t hide from this,” Wong told reporters in Melbourne on Tuesday.
Baker issued an unreserved apology, saying the comments were “inappropriate”.
Murdoch backs Abbott on Twitter
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Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has praised Tony Abbott as a “conviction politician” on Twitter.
Murdoch tweeted to his 460,383 followers on Tuesday that conviction politicians are hard to find.
“Australia’s Tony Abbott rare exception. Opponent Rudd all over the place convincing nobody.”
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s daughter Jessica was quick to respond.
“Thanks for taking the time each day to tell us what to think,” she tweeted back.
Rudd’s relationship with Murdoch has been strained in recent weeks after a string of News Corp front pages criticising the government, starting on day one of the election campaign when Sydney’s Daily Telegraph urged voters to kick Labor out of office.
Rudd questioned whether Abbott had consulted with Murdoch about the future of the national broadband network and if if it posed a commercial threat to the media mogul’s Foxtel business.
Abbott denied there had been any talks on the NBN.
Promises for health and roads
Abbott is today campaigning in the Victorian marginal seat of Corangamite, where he’s pledging $25 million to upgrade Victoria’s iconic Great Ocean Road.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will announce $250 million for medical research in Brisbane and continue his campaign against the coalition over its costings and spending cuts.
Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey says Labor claims that a coalition government will cut education and health spending are “lies”.
Hockey insists he doesn’t believe in austerity-style cuts but admits the coalition is looking at “all other areas” outside of defence, health and medical research for savings.
Hockey made the comments on Monday in an hour-long debate with Treasurer Chris Bowen.
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“If you don’t have any sense of prudence, then you are not going to get the budget back into surplus,” he told ABC television’s Q&A program.
“I don’t believe in austerity, as it’s defined, but I believe in being respectful and careful of other people’s money.”
WA to co-operate with paid parental plan
West Australian Premier Colin Barnett says he’s received clarification of the federal coalition’s paid parental leave plan and the state will cooperate with it.
The Liberal leader told reporters in Perth on Monday that the scheme was overly generous.
While WA would assist with its administration, he said, it would not help to pay for it.
The federal government pounced on the comment, asking if Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell and NT Chief Minister Adam Giles agreed with Barnett that the “Rolls Royce scheme” was “a rolled gold dud”.
The scheme would largely be paid for by a levy on big business.
On Tuesday, a WA government spokeswoman confirmed the federal coalition had provided clarification of details of the scheme overnight.
“We understand that under the scheme, the coalition would fund the gap between the current state schemes and the coalition’s 26-week scheme, and the WA government would co-operate,” she said.
“The WA government wouldn’t directly pay funds into a Commonwealth scheme.”
South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill says the state government won’t commit to the coalition’s paid parental leave scheme before learning the details.
He says Opposition Leader Tony Abbott owes the state the courtesy of communicating about his plans.
“I haven’t heard anything from Mr Abbott about this. I don’t think there’s even been a piece of correspondence,” Weatherill said.
“I understand that we’re being asked to make a contribution but I’d like to see what the nature of the detail is.
“I also don’t know what else he is proposing to cut to fund his promise of paid parental leave.”
Weatherill said if proposed cuts had an adverse impact on South Australia it wouldn’t make sense for the state government to endorse the policy.
