Squiz Shortcuts - Week 3 of the election campaign

Your Shortcut to… Week 3 of the election campaign

In the words of the great Bon Jovi, we're halfway there (to polling day that is)... And we reckon there'd be more than a few candidates livin’ on a prayer as we get into the business end of the election campaign. There were a few big things that went down this week, so in this Shortcut we’ll get you across:

• The housing policy initiatives of the 2 major parties 

• What Labor and the Coalition focused on in debate #2 

• And why Russia has entered the chat

To wrap us up, we have some more excellent questions from Squizers in Ask The Squiz, including one on how preferential voting works. How's that for some sizzle...  

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Squiz the Shortcut

So what were the biggest topics this week?
Housing was the biggest policy announcement of the week - and what the Labor Party and the Coalition unveiled came on the same day at the same events, so there's a bit of symmetry there... 

Why all this talk about housing?
We've been talking for years now about housing shortages and problems with affordability and access to somewhere to live for everyone including first-home buyers. And not just first-home buyers -  renters, upsizers, downsizers and rightsizers are struggling to find homes and because of that, housing is one of the major issues that could decide the 2025 federal election.

What did Labor announce?
There’s a lot of numbers to get across here so we’ll point you to this article on Domain if you’d like to delve further into them… But as a top-line, Labor announced it would allow first-home buyers to purchase homes with a 5 per cent deposit. It also pledged $10 billion to go towards building 100,000 new homes over 8 years, exclusively available to first-time buyers. 

How about the Coalition?
The Coalition's policy would see interest payments on mortgages taken out by first-time buyers on newly built homes be tax deductible for 5 years, up to an amount of $650,000.

Uhuh… do experts have anything to say?
Economists say both policies will most likely drive up demand, and in turn, housing prices. Chris Richardson labelled the announcements a "dumpster fire of dumb stuff". Saul Eslake called the Coalition's planned tax deduction "candidate for dumbest policy decision of the 21st century", and he wasn't so flattering about what Labor announced either...  

Yikes… have the leaders responded?
PM Anthony Albanese and Coalition leader Peter Dutton weren't perturbed, they're continuing to pitch their approaches to voters - and given how big the issue is, that's to be expected. It was also a feature of the second leaders debate on ABC TV on Wednesday night…

What were they asked about?
Insiders host David Speers pushed them on the criticism that their policies would push up home prices, but he also tackled them on the things that many experts say would help address the problems - things like negative gearing and capital gains tax. Those are things that the experts say would make a real difference... 

Remind me what negative gearing is…
Negative gearing lets taxpayers claim deductions on their tax for the expenses relating to owning an investment property. They can save on tax as the property potentially rises in value. They can also be eligible for reduced capital gains tax when they sell the property.

So why not change it?
It would be hugely unpopular with a group of voters. About 10% of all taxpayers own negatively geared properties - these are people who have bought a place and rent it out. And in that group, about 70% have one investment property - so we're not necessarily talking about people who have major property portfolios and are mega wealthy. Changing those negative gearing and capital gains tax arrangements could really mess with the personal wealth and retirement strategies of a lot of people.

Did any other big issues crop up in the debate?
Cost of living, electricity, dealing with US President Donald Trump - but probably the most compelling moment was when Speers asked about the men's vision for the nation… 

What was Albanese’s take?
The PM talked about universal childcare being his great game changing proposal – although some are saying to beware of the extraordinary cost of this if Labor is re-elected. 

And Dutton?
The Coalition leader talked about the central role of affordable and reliable energy - but we should note that if we’re talking about big ticket items, the Coalition's nuclear power policy is expensive. 

Did anything else get a run?
Plenty… national security also got a good run in the debate - and that's been a topic of discussion this week because of guest appearances in the campaign by Russia and Indonesia... 

Oh yeah, what was that about?
The military publication Janes reported on Tuesday that Russia had requested permission for its aircraft to be based in Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua - that's just 1,300km away from Darwin. But Defence Minister Richard Marles issued a statement denying the report, saying his Indonesian counterpart assured him there would be no Russian planes based in Indonesia. 

What happened next?
In a Tuesday press conference shortly after the report was noted in the Australian media, Dutton asked: “Did the prime minister know about this before it was publicly announced by the president of Indonesia?” - But there was a problem with that statement.

What was that?
It hadn’t been announced by the Indonesian President, which saw Dutton apologise for the mistake during the debate. 

How much does that impact things?
Some say it reflects on Dutton's suitability to be PM - you can't go around verballing world leaders, and certainly not from a nation as important to Australia as Indonesia... Whether voters care about that is another matter. It was also Dutton's second mea culpa of the campaign following his backtrack on a policy to force public servants back to the office.

Ask the Squiz

From Tiffany and Lyn: How does preferential voting work?
The preferential voting system is pretty fundamental because it's how the House of Representatives election is run. Essentially, you number all the candidates based on how high they rank in your preference, starting with 1 being the highest, 2 the second and so on. As officials are counting the vote, they discard candidates as they go and their preferences are allocated to another candidate - so if your first preference doesn’t get enough votes, officials will take your second choice so that your vote still counts. And that process goes on until someone has a majority. This system provides for multiple counts of ballot papers to occur to determine who has acquired an absolute majority of the total votes - so getting to more than 50% of the count.

From Jak: What’s the truth in the phrase “a vote for the Teals is a vote for the Greens”?
Iterations of that come up in every election. For example, a vote for the Greens is a vote for Labor, or a vote for One Nation is a vote for the Coalition - this comes down to the preference deals that get done behind the scenes. When you vote you'll have campaign volunteers out the front of the polling both wanting to give you ‘how to vote’ cards. It's the parties’ - or the candidates’ - suggestions on where to put your preferences. Those cards are designed to put the candidates and their backers in the best position of winning... But there's also some practical considerations - if you're of a mind to put #1 next to the Green's candidate's name, chances are you're not going to put a #2 next to the Liberal or Nationals' candidate name. Their agendas are just too far apart. So you're likely to preference the Labor candidate ahead of the Coalition's...

From Danielle: What are the costs of holding an election?
There's a couple of ways to look at this - the first is how much the parties and candidates spend on their campaigns, and the second is what the cost to taxpayers is. They are 2 very separate buckets and it’s compulsory for these numbers to be publicly recorded. This is important, particularly when it comes to what the campaigns spend, because their money mostly comes from donations. And our political parties remain highly dependent on a small number of powerful individuals, businesses, and unions, to fund their campaigns. 

As an example, the parties collectively spent $418 million in the year leading up to the 2022 federal election, and in that campaign, the Coalition outspent Labor $132 million to $116 million. In fact, the Coalition has been the biggest spender at every federal election since 2007.  

So there's the cost of putting on the show - that's about $500 million... And there's what's called election funding payments to political parties and candidates. Every candidate or party that receives at least 4% of the vote in the House of Representatives and the Senate receives about $3 for every first preference vote. And that can add up... 

To put some figures around that, in 2022 Labor was paid more than $27 million and the Coalition received $26 million - the AEC discloses how much is paid out. Here’s a link to the AEC guide to costs for the 2022 federal election if you’d like to have a closer look.

Keep ‘em coming…

Keep sending us your questions about the election to [email protected]. You can ask us whatever’s on your mind about politics or how the election works, and we'll pick a few to answer next week.

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