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As it happened: Resolve poll reveals dip in Labor primary vote as third of voters set to shun major parties; Julie Bishop says future of Liberal Party ‘under threat’

Broede Carmody, Rachel Clun and Latika Bourke
Updated ,first published

Key Posts

Latest poll shows vote ‘down to the wire’
Entire future of the Liberal Party under threat: Julie Bishop
Growing confidence that Labor can win SA’s Boothby
Do you have voter’s remorse?
‘The government co-owning your house? I don’t like that at all’: Howard
66 Australians die with COVID-19 as NSW nears 95% double-dosed
More interest rates rises to come, RBA says
Watch: What Albanese said in Perth
Watch: What Morrison said in Darwin this morning

Wrapping up today’s coverage

By Latika Bourke

And that’s where we’ll end today’s coverage. Thanks so much for your company, we’ll be back tomorrow morning with our live coverage of the election campaign as it enters its final sprint.

Our final Resolve Political Monitor poll shows the race has tightened and the result on Saturday is too close to call.

Read more from our chief political correspondent David Crowe: The long election campaign has tightened the gap but many voters reject both leaders.

Today, the leaders sparred over policy costings, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison released his and Anthony Albanese said he would give his on Thursday following his address to the National Press Club in Canberra.

Morrison faced questions about whether his policy allowing first home buyers to access their superannuation will push up house prices.

PM asked if he ‘over-egged’ his pandemic performance

By Latika Bourke

Grimshaw now asks the prime minister if he “over-egged” it on the weekend when he said that his management of the pandemic had saved the country.

“You don’t hold a hose, you weren’t in your tinnie plucking people off rooftops, you weren’t doing 16-hour days in PPE on COVID wards, you didn’t get enough vaccines soon enough, you didn’t get enough RATs so that we could finally have a holiday interstate for Christmas, and China has set up base in the Solomons – do you think you slightly over-egged the part about ‘I saved the country?’” Grimshaw asked.

“That’s quite a long list you’ve been able to put together,” he said, before launching into a defence of the JobKeeper and apprenticeship program introduced during the pandemic.

“JobKeeper saved the country, that’s what I was specifically referring to,” he said.

“I was the one who shut the borders, remember, going back in the early days of February, pulled the country together with the national cabinet and ensured that we did not have the death rates that were experienced in so many other countries.

PM asked how his housing plan addresses supply

By Latika Bourke

Grimshaw asks the prime minister how his policy to let people withdraw superannuation to buy new homes addresses the shortages in supply. Morrison says new houses are coming online.

He says several existing policies also already help fund supply and new homes but that the super policy is combined with a downsizing policy that encourages the over-55s to downsize, thereby freeing up existing stocks for new and growing families.

Morrison says his policy achieves both goals of building up a nest egg and helping someone invest in their own house.

He says this model is better than big union funds purchasing overseas shares using the trillions in superannuation funds.

Grimshaw says encouraging boomers to downsize four-and-five bedroom homes won’t help first home buyers.

Morrison rejects this, saying this misunderstands who is downsizing and that people who have bought “very modest homes” in suburbs like Guildford or Moonee Ponds are the targets.

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‘How long have you known that you’re a bulldozer?’

By Latika Bourke

Tracy Grimshaw doesn’t disappoint. She opens her interview with Scott Morrison on A Current Affair by asking the prime minister when he first realised he was a bulldozer.

With a straight face, Morrison says that he has known for some time.

Asked what he could have done differently, he acknowledges that he could have been “more sensitive” and that he would have militarised the vaccine rollout earlier.

Grimshaw asks if he regrets referring to the “heroism” of firefighters as “holding a hose”.

The PM says that wasn’t the context of his infamous quote, “I don’t hold a hose mate”, but concedes, “of course”.

Some Liberals have ‘tested my faith’: Menzies daughter

By Latika Bourke

Reporter Chip Le Grand has interviewed Robert Menzies’ daughter Heather Henderson about the choice facing voters in the Melbourne seat of Kooyong, once held by her father, the founder of the modern Liberal Party.

Robert Menzies and daughter Heather in 1955.Peter Leyden

Menzies held the seat of Kooyong, first for the United Australia Party (UAP) in 1934, after successfully transferring from state politics in Victoria.

He held onto the seat during tumultuous times, including his first stint as prime minister in 1939, representing the UAP, and the formation of the Liberal Party of Australia in 1944.

He went on to become Australia’s longest-serving prime minister, meaning the seat has a special status within the Liberal Party.

Greens to push future Labor government to greater climate action

By Mike Foley

The Greens say they’ll demand Labor cut methane emissions ahead of the next climate summit.

The Global Methane Pledge is a commitment to cut methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030, based on 2020 levels. It has been signed by the US and UK and more than 100 other countries but not Australia.

Labor climate spokesman Chris Bowen is yet to commit to the pledge.Alex Ellinghausen

Burping dairy and beef cattle, gas production, and coal mining are major sources of Australia’s methane emissions.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said last year the Coalition would not sign the pledge, and Labor climate and energy spokesman Chris Bowen has not yet committed to it.

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Morrison ‘easy-going’ but ‘very direct’, says Howard

By Latika Bourke

Former prime minister John Howard isn’t just appearing in marginal electorates such as Kooyong – he’s popping up in the national media too.

Speaking to Kieran Gilbert on Sky News, Howard, 82, had a blunt message for voters in Liberal-held seats who think they can send a message to the government by voting independent, hedged by the belief that the Liberals will ultimately still form government.

“Forget it – if you want a Liberal government, you have to vote for a Liberal candidate,” he said.

He rejected the idea that Scott Morrison was unpopular, saying there was a lot of respect for the prime minister in the community.

The former PM said he personally found Morrison “easy-going, very direct but committed”.

Howard again declined to make a prediction about who will win on Saturday, saying he found this election very hard to call.

Latest poll shows vote ‘down to the wire’

By Latika Bourke

And our final Resolve Strategic poll shows a fall in Labor’s primary vote from 34 to 31 per cent and only a one per cent gain in the Coalition’s primary.

Chief political correspondent David Crowe writes that the exclusive survey, conducted by Resolve Strategic for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, reveals a divided electorate, with 34 per cent of all voters rejecting the major parties in favour of independents, the Greens and smaller parties.

Putin would welcome a hung parliament, claims Tim Wilson

By Latika Bourke

Vladimir Putin is trying to work out how to claim some semblance of victory in Ukraine, where his forces have suffered heavy defeats since they were sent in to “liberate” the Donbas region in a “special operation”.

While Europe, and no doubt the president, is gripped by Russia’s progress – or lack thereof – in Ukraine, the Victorian federal MP Tim Wilson, who is being challenged by former ABC foreign correspondent Zoe Daniel in Goldstein, believes the Russian leader and other authoritarians will be watching Saturday’s election result with interest.

“Authoritarian governments want our country to turn inward so they can advance their interests while we are distracted,” he said.

“A hung parliament would deliver ... a distraction,” he said in an online video.

Read more from foreign affairs and national security correspondent Anthony Galloway: Tim Wilson says China and Russia will benefit from a hung parliament

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Entire future of the Liberal Party under threat: Julie Bishop

By Latika Bourke

Some interesting remarks made today by Julie Bishop, former deputy leader of the Liberal Party and foreign minister, reported by the Australian Financial Review’s Mark Ludlow.

Bishop, who made a disastrous and failed bid for the leadership on behalf of the moderates against Scott Morrison in 2019, said that Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese had failed to inspire voters or provide any “big picture vision”.

Julie Bishop speaking at the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association conference today.Russell Shakespeare

She warned that without the moderates, the entire future of the Liberal Party was at stake.

“There would have to be a lot of soul-searching within the Liberal and National parties if the teal independents get up one, two, however many seats,” Bishop told the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association conference in Brisbane on Tuesday.

“There would have to be a lot of soul-searching as to why progressive and moderate Liberals, who have been such a significant part of the success of the Coalition over decades, as to why seats like Curtin, Goldstein, Kooyong, Bennelong, Wentworth, which have always been in their column, [have been lost].

“That would eat the heart out of the party in terms of support, volunteers, fundraising.”

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