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Key events
Earlier this morning, the Coalition announced it wanted to see the serviceability buffer changed, and would work with APRA ā the body that makes the rules ā to do that.
Michael Sukkar was on RN Breakfast, explaining the policy and said industry bodies told the Coalition that if the current rate of 3% was lowered to 2.5%, which was the rate before 2001, that could open up tens of thousands of opportunities for buyers into the housing market.
Just a recap here ā what the buffer does is make banks consider whether you could pay back your mortgage if the rate is 3% higher than it currently is now ā which APRA describes as a ācontingencyā if the rates go higher over the period of your loan.
Sukkar said there should be more flexibility in the rules.
I think most Australians could understand a high serviceability rate when the cash rate was 0.1% during covid but now that we have elevated interest rates, a serviceability buffer that hasnāt remained flexible with those changes is just blocking first home buyersā¦
Estimates from the industry is that nearly 40% of potential first home buyers are not able to get finance for a loan, and therefore unable to buy a house, because primarily that serviceability buffer is now at 3%,ā
Benita Kolovos
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, is holding a press conference at parliament this morning following Peter Duttonās announcement he would cancel $2bn in funding for the Suburban Rail Loop project and spend $1.5bn on Melbourne Airport rail instead.
She says the announcement is akin to a cut. Allan says:
Well, itās April Foolās Day today but Peter Duttonās cuts to Victoria are no joke. Peter Dutton has announced today that he will cut funding to the vital projects that Victorians want, the projects that Victorians need, projects that support jobs.
His cuts will cut thousands of thousands of jobs, but those job cuts also mean cuts to the pay packets of those workers cuts to those families household budgets the rely on those pay packets coming home every single week.
What do the people of Adelaide want from this election? We find out for you
Weāve been bringing you some great stories about how people are feeling in different parts of the country. Today, we report from Adelaide, where the PM is this morning.
What are the challenges facing people in Adelaide? How are they feeling? Guardian Australia reporter Tory Shepherd visited the city of churches to find out.
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Day five: Albanese kicks off with a visit to Adelaide marginal seat, Boothby
Weāre off and running on day five of the federal election campaign, with Anthony Albanese starting in the seat of Boothby in Adelaideās southern suburbs.
The prime minister will visit also the Flinders hospital precinct this morning to commit $150m for a new healthcare centre.
The shadow health minister, Anne Ruston, quickly matched the pledge this morning, continuing the Coalitionās record of going dollar-for-dollar with Labor on health spending promises this campaign.
Albanese is trying to sandbag Boothby with Labor MP Louise Miller-Frost under threat from Nicolle Flint, who wants her old seat back after quitting parliament in 2021.
The seat sits on a notional margin of 3.2%.
Julie Bishop: election could result in a hung parliament
Julie Bishop has largely kept herself away from the media pack since leaving parliament, and it seems sheās keen to stay out of the political commentary.
News Breakfast host James Glenday gives it a red hot crack, asking her whether the Coalition has clawed back enough support from female voters.
Bishop says her focus has not been on the election campaign:
If I am to believe the polls ā and now that Iām out of politics I can assure you that politicians follow the polls very carefully ā it would appear [to be] a close contest, maybe even a hung parliament and there have only been a few of those in federal history. It could be an interesting one to watch.
Julie Bishop: getting foreign aid into Myanmar could be difficult
Former Liberal foreign minister Julie Bishop, now the special envoy of the special counsel on Myanmar, has joined ABC News Breakfast, and described the earthquake that hit Myanmar.
Bishop says she was in Bangkok at the time (1,000km away from Myanmar), which also declared a state of emergency because.
I was in a high-rise building and it was swaying and creaking and you could hear concrete cracking. It was terrifying. I, along with thousands of others, evacuated all buildings in Bangkok and gathered in a park until the aftershock passed so you can just imagine the impact in Myanmar.
Itās been really challenging getting humanitarian aid into the country, Bishop says, and thatās not been made easier by the freezing of foreign aid by the Trump administration, before the earthquake occurred.
I was in Bangladesh about two weeks ago when the USAID freeze was announced and the impact on the refugee camp, Coxās Bazar, where there are about a million Rohingya ethnic refugees, I know the impact was profound.
So I understand that the Trump administration has provided a couple of million in support but I donāt know how easy it will be for the administration to get it into Myanmar.
Health promises roll in from Labor and Coalition
Speaking to Nova Adelaide, Anthony Albanese says Laborās announcement in Adelaide this morning is a ācrackerā.
What it will be able to do is to have 1,300 work-ready graduates each year. So, 490 nurses, 250 social workers, 100 paramedics, physios, more than 50 midwives ā¦
What we need is more health professionals, and we need more facilities for people to be able to get that care. This facility will be able to treat 100 patients at any [one] time.
Over on News Breakfast a short time ago, shadow health minister Anne Ruston promised the Coalition would match the $150m commitment from the federal government for the facility, and partner with Flinders university.
We were always prepared to support it so we will absolutely commit to supporting the $150m of the $300m to build this health hub precinct. Itās a great project.
Jason Clare: Duttonās nuclear plan will take funds from critical infrastructure such as trains
A little earlier, Labor education minister Jason Clare was asked about the Coalitionās plan to scrap federal funding for Victoriaās suburban rail loop if it wins government.
I think you ask anyone in the country, do we need to invest more in critical infrastructure? And theyāll say yes. I think what this tells you is that Peter Dutton has already begun the task of cutting to help fund the $600bn that he needs to build nuclear reactors. It wonāt just be rail loops, it wonāt just be roads.
But host Sally Sara pointed out ā more than once ā that thereās still uncertainty on how the whole project will be paid for, and that Infrastructure Australia has low confidence the project can be delivered.
Clare skirts the question and sticks to why the government should be investing more in infrastructure and how the Coalition is pulling money out of it.
What we should be doing is investing in the sort of key infrastructure that Australians need to get around their cities ā¦ and the fact that Peter Dutton wants to cut funding to infrastructure, whether itās road or whether itās rail, gives you just a small insight, Sally, into whatās ahead if he ever becomes prime minister.
Dutton says mortgage serviceability buffer too tough
Staying on housing, Peter Dutton has promised to change the āserviceability bufferā to make it easier for first home buyers to enter the housing market.
Whatās a serviceability buffer?
The buffer sits at 3% and requires banks to consider whether a potential mortgage holder could continue to pay their mortgage repayments if interest rates rose.
The Coalition says the system is ālockingā Australians out of home ownership, and it said it will tell APRA to consider the impact those rules have, especially on first home buyers.
It would also require the regulator to adjust the capital treatment of loans backed by mortgage insurance by rewriting the statement of expectations.
In November last year, a Senate committee report made a recommendation for APRA to prepare guidelines for a lower buffer just for first home buyers that could be adjusted based on the economic cycle. It stated:
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority to prepare prudential guidelines for a lower first home buyer serviceability buffer that can be adjusted responsively to the economic cycle and to support financial stability settings within APRAās prudential standards.
The report was chaired by Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, but a dissenting report by government senators said the recommendation to change the buffer would be āasking those who are more often in a financially insecure position to take on increased risksā.
Homeowners hold their breath ahead of todayās RBA cash rate decision
After interest rates were lowered for the first time in almost five years in February, mortgage holders might look like April Fools predicting a second cut, AAP reports.
The Reserve Bank will hand down its latest decision about the cash rate today ā the first time the board has met since it reduced interest rates to 4.1% in February.
While economists have forecasted mortgage repayments to be lowered by the central bank several times in 2025, the April meeting is unlikely to shift the dial.
The two-day meeting, which began on Monday, will be the first time an interest rate decision will be made by the Reserve Bankās monetary policy board as part of reforms to the central bank.
Real estate advertising company REA Groupās senior economist Eleanor Creagh said while conditions showed future interest rate cuts were on the cards, there would not be a further reduction in April as the central bank was being cautious.
Inflation is moderating, with both headline and underlying measures easing further, reflecting the significant progress in bringing domestic inflation back under control.
Butler: Coalitionās plan to increase subsidised psychologist sessions will create bottlenecks
Despite Laborās big health-focused campaign, mental health hasnāt receive much attention in the budget and on the election campaign trail, so far.
Butler says increasing the number of subsidised psychologist sessions from 10 to 20 (like the Coalition is promising) would create bottlenecks in the system.
The problem is, you canāt double the number of sessions without doubling the number of psychologists ā¦ You create bottle necks that mean a whole lot of people go without care. Weāve been busy training more psychologists.
Itās always had a cap on 10 sessions. Generally, the average is about four to sixsessions that people use. The former government introduced a higher cap for a fixed period of time, for the Covid lockdown periods, thatās all.
Mark Butler: Labor making it easier to recruit doctors from overseas
The health Minister, Mark Butler, has been right beside Albanese so far in the campaign, with the strong focus on health and hospital funding.
Heās on ABC News Breakfast this morning spruiking more hospital fundingin his home town of Adelaide.
Earlier this year, the government announced $8.5bn in funding for bulk billing, to raise the rate to 90% by the end of the decade. But how will Australians get to see a doctor if thereās a shortage of GPs?
We need more doctors. We added 17,000 new doctors to the system in the last two years ā¦ But we need more. This year, weāre training more junior doctors to become GPs than we have ever done in Australia. But we need more.
Weāre making it easier to recruit doctors, in particular, from jurisdictions weāre very confident in ā UK, Ireland, New Zealand ā where we know their training regimes are pretty much exactly the same as ours.
Dutton only thinking about āputting our positive plan on the tableā, Bridget McKenzie says
Thereās more reaction this morning to Peter Duttonās comments yesterday about living in Kirribilli as PM (I mean, who wouldnāt want a waterfront Sydney home ā¦ sigh).
Marles repeats the āmeasuring the curtainsā line and says, sure Sydney is nice, but itās no Geelong, is it (where Marles resides)?
I mean, itās no secret, heās been wandering around measuring the curtains. On any given Sunday, youāll see Peter sneaking around the ministerial wing, working out where heās going to put his pot plants. And heās been doing this for a while now, and now heās worked out which house heās going to live in.
Over on the Today show a bit earlier, Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie took a slightly different tack ā¦
Weāre focused each and every day on actually getting out in front of the Australian people and putting our positive plan on the table ā¦ So thatās all Duttonās thinking about. Itās all Iām thinking about, itās all Angus is thinking about.
Weāve just got to get in front of the Australian people with our positive plan for their future, not where weāre going to live after the election.
(But thereās been at least some thoughts on where theyāre going to be living after the election ā¦)