About

It’s the third week of what has become an incredibly contentious campaign and Paula, Margo and Wes are back again this week to unpack just what is going on in between the raids and gaffes. We start by examining Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s call on Peter Murray’s Sky News show that increasing the refugee intake to 50,000 people would open the doors to “illiterate and innumerate” refugees who would both steal our dole and our jobs. Was it a gaffe or was it a little bit more calculated? We then turn to the AFP raids of the offices of former Labor communications minister Stephen Conroy and other Labor staffers last Thursday night. Was this politically motivated or just very bad timing? And does it even matter, politically, in the grand scheme of things? For our weekly look at policy we open up the hood on the ALP’s bid to unfreeze the indexation of the MBS and why this might just be a vote winner. In light of the 4 Corners special on political donations we talk about what a better system might look like, whether we should be annoyed that it takes up to two years to actually see who influences our elections and why some unlikely characters are coming out in favour of greater transparency, as Bill Shorten pushes Malcolm Turnbull to meet his pledge of making all donations over $1,000 declarable. Finally, we address a listener question from @redrabbleroz, who declared: “PEFO is worth a mention & what economic + fiscal constraints will be placed on whoever wins" Remember to follow @pidginpolitics on twitter so you can respond to the call out next week.