Election Diary: post-election rate cut and phone call from Trump in the pipeline

It used to be de rigueur for the prime minister and opposition leader to turn up to the National Press Club in the final week of the election campaign. But now Liberal leaders are not so keen.

Scott Morrison gave it a miss in 2022, although he was there in 2019. Nobody expected Peter Dutton, who has often been reluctant to face the Canberra press gallery in the past three years, to front the club this week.

It’s also happened in the past that a leader has said something significantly newsworthy during the Q&A session on these final big occasions.

Bob Hawke, days away from becoming prime minister in 1983, flagged he would be willing to break election promises if he found, on reaching office, that fiscal circumstances were different from what was anticipated. They were, and he did.

Anthony Albanese on Wednesday made his appearance, but he was not going to grab a headline with anything unexpected.

He delivered a spirited stump speech concentrating on everything Labor is offering voters – improvements to Medicare, tax cuts all round, and much else. He played and replayed his familiar mantra about nobody being left behind or held back. When it came to questions, the prime minister defended and deflected.

Are Australians better off than before he was elected? Well, they’d be worse off if Dutton had had his way.

Will whoever is in government need to increase the tax base in the next decade? “We’ll have not one but two income tax cuts.”

Would he consider a compromise on Labor’s plan to tax unrealised capital gains on some superannuation balances? “We have our policy.”

Is there something he regrets from the last three years? “I don’t pretend to be perfect.” So no regrets? “I’m not saying that at all.”

What he is saying is that the final sprint of the campaign is not the time to enter the confessional.

With the polls, and even most Liberals, at least privately, expecting Albanese to still be PM next week, whether in minority or majority government, he knows he has two challenges in these last days: to avoid being caught on any sticky paper, and to continue to project a sense of momentum by going full tilt (Labor people remember Bill Shorten easing up just before polling day in 2019). He is visiting every state, before he votes in his home electorate of Grayndler where, he indicated, his talisman dog Toto will accompany him to the polling booth on Saturday.

Before his press club appearance, Albanese had encouraging news from the latest consumer price index quarterly figures, which showed underlying inflation falling to 2.9%. This points to another cut in interest rates.

Westpac said, “Inflationary pressures have moderated, and the door is open for a rate cut in May”.

The Reserve Bank doesn’t meet until May 19-20, but the prospect of a cut can be a mood lifter for stretched households – just as the pre-campaign February decrease was.

Also able to be cast positively, US President Donald Trump, who has proved elusive in the face of the government’s attempts to get him to pick up the phone to discuss a tariff deal, confirmed a call would come. Asked whether he would speak to Albanese about trade, the president said, “they are calling, and I will talk to him, yes.”

There is no detail of whether, or what, deal could be in the offing, but Trump, by signalling the call, has given (inadvertently) another bit of help to the government in an election in which the “Trump factor” has played all Albanese’s way.

Instead of the press club, Dutton had done an hour’s “Ask Me Anything” appearance on Tuesday with Paul Murray on Sky, taking around a dozen viewers’ questions. It was an easy, friendly gig, directed squarely at his base. That might be one thing if he’s seeking the preferences of those voting One Nation or Trumpet of Patriots, but it is not where the middle-ground swinging voters are.

In this last week, Dutton has put his anger at a section of the media on display. Earlier in the week he lashed out at the ABC, Guardian and “other hate media”.

On Wednesday he doubled down, in a bit of pointed but embittered humour on FM radio when quizzed on tips for a good election night party. “I think alcohol is the first essential ingredient, I’m sure of that. Responsible drinking as well, but not watching the ABC would be a good start. For any young ones listening at home, forget the ABC.”

Dutton’s disdain for the ABC is long-standing and well-known. But in an election campaign, why he thinks it is a good tactic to expose it so blatantly is a mystery. It shows questionable judgement and a lack of discipline.