What We Know So Far
- Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull is in South Australia today, spruiking the government's plans to build a shitload of submarines there.
- Opposition leader Bill Shorten is in Melbourne, trying to scare the pants off everyone about the government's plans to privatise Medicare. (The government hasn't announced plans to privatise medicare)
- The latest Newspoll shows the government taking a narrow lead in the final week of the campaign.
Updates
Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells fled the scene after refusing to answer questions asked by BuzzFeed News reporter Mark Di Stefano following yesterday's Liberal launch in Sydney.
Upon spotting Di Stefano, the senator ducked into a bathroom for 10 minutes, before quickly leaving the building, claiming she didn't have time to answer questions.
The senator, whose career the prime minister recently saved in an "extraordinary" intervention, refused to answer several questions about serious allegations relating to her office.
BuzzFeed News revealed last month that 14 staff members had left Fierravanti-Wells' office since January last year. Several current and former staff members came forward to BuzzFeed News with their stories, but would not go on the record for fear of retribution.
Read the full story here.
Labor commits to Safe Schools funding.
Labor has promised to run the Safe Schools Coalition for an additional three years, committing $6 million from 2017-18 onwards to the LGBTI anti-bullying program. The current funding is set to run out mid-2017, and the Coalition has said it will not renew the program.
The Greens have called for the current funding to be quadrupled to $32 million over the next four years.
The inner-Melbourne seat of Batman will be a showdown between Labor's David Feeney and The Greens' Alex Bhatal this Saturday, which probably explains why the Greens have started targeting gay voters on Grindr with ads like this.
Some impressive target marketing from the Greens in Batman. Grindr warfare. #ausvotes
The latest Newspoll shows the Coalition taking a late lead.
The Coalition is ahead 51 to 49 in the two-party preferred stakes, while the Greens' primary vote has fallen one point to 9%.
Nick Xenophon's party (NXT) has 3% of the national vote, but is reportedly doing well in South Australia, where NXT is hoping to take a few seats off the government.
Smaller parties like One Nation, Family First and The Australian Liberty Alliance are sitting on about 1% each.
Both major parties have (finally) officially launched their campaigns now. If you're wondering why this took until week seven of an eight week campaign, it's simple: Money.
As our leaders criss-cross the country begging for votes during an election campaign, it's taxpayers who foot the bill.
Until, that is, the parties officially launch their campaigns. After that, it's up to the parties to pay their own way, and that's pretty expensive.
So basically, they are tightarses.