The launch of the Coalition’s tax policy (which is mainly about taxes they oppose, and two further reviews of the Henry Review) was “overshadowed” by Mark Latham yesterday, and by “Treasury leaks” today, with the only bit that really made it through the noise filter being the idea of giving people a receipt when they file their tax return, showing where the money’s been spent. It’s probably intended as a stunt, but if implemented, might have some interesting and unintended effects.

On the substance, such as it is, Peter Martin has it covered.

Read LP’s tweets here.

Update: Well, that was most unenlightening.

Joe Hockey has seemed to be in a very grumpy mood all campaign, and he was allowed to get away with his usual bizarre contradictions. Swan’s lines on infrastructure and human capital could have been recycled from 2007. Meanwhile, Kerry O’Brien appears stuck in a time warp – the template being the 1987 election campaign where Paul Keating skewered John Howard on a costings black hole. Very poor performance by O’Brien, allowing both to get away with just reciting their talking points. The emphasis on leaks really was a waste of time, with the only salient point – that the Coalition is evading scrutiny, being lost in a morass of counterpoint which seemed to occupy about half the time allocated.

None of the very serious problems we have in this country even really got an airing.

Continuing an irregular series commenting on how the election looks to commercial tv viewers: commercial free to air is the biggest single source of information for voters.

Channel Nine led today with a local protest by fisherfolk “venting their fury” about Labor’s plans for marine protection (and Bob Brown got a brief grab with his plans). Nine’s “fishing expert” said “no one is happy, all round this country of ours”, and we heard a lot about “protecting our Australian way of life”. National Party Senator Ron Boswell was there, but there was no attempt to give anyone from the government a chance to respond.

Anyway, that was the lead item on Channel Nine Brisbane. Story #2 was about a mix up where some old folks had been wrongly charged for using the Clem7 tunnel, because their motorised wheelchairs ‘pinged’ the system. Read more »

Let’s face it. Everyone’s more interested in discussing leaks and polls than policy in this campaign. Why is this? In part, it’s because of the political theatre of the horse race and the personality contest, and in part because of the effects of the unprecedented deposition of a first term Prime Minister.

But there’s another reason. What’s on offer is bite sized policy, which at best only addresses a part of the problem. And that part is carefully selected on the basis of what electoral message it sends, not because it’s the highest priority in a time of fiscal stringency.

Take, for example, Labor’s announcements on mental health on Tuesday and disability today. Read more »

Continuing an irregular series commenting on how the election looks to commercial tv viewers: commercial free to air is the biggest single source of information for voters.

The election’s still still back at number one on Channel Nine Brisbane, probably because it enables them to talk about Laurie Oakes’ role. The item led with the newsreader citing Julia Gillard’s statement that her concern in Cabinet about paid parental leave was fiscal responsibility. A large number of grabs from her press conference were shown, and Joe Hockey was giving a weird grin when Tony Abbott started his spiel, before returning to the now traditional nodding role. Read more »