Health News at Your Fingertips

With that, we will wrap up the blog for the evening. Amy Remeikis will be back bright and early tomorrow. With all eyes on the Reserve Bank, it’s likely to be another busy day.

Here were today’s major developments:

• The opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, spent Monday marching in Brisbane’s Labour Day parade alongside Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, and secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Sally McManus. Labor officially announced it would match the Coalition’s senior health card announcement.
• Meanwhile, Scott Morrison fronted the media in Geelong, where he batted away a potential interest rates rise to be determined by the Reserve Bank tomorrow, telling reporters “it’s not about politics” while also acknowledging “it’s always hard” to buy a first home – “but last year, 164,000 Australians did”.
• The third and final debate between the pair has been secured by Channel Seven this evening, to be chaired by Mark Riley and to air at prime time on 11 May.
• Robert Sisilo, Solomon Islands’ high commissioner to Australia, said the countries had endured “testing times” since the draft security deal between Solomon Islands and China was leaked in March, but affirmed that Australia remained the “partner of choice” for the Pacific country.
• And Labor’s call for a royal commission into the robodebt scandal has won the support of lower house independents, Indi MP Helen Haines and Clark MP Andrew Wilkie.

Meanwhile, the deputy leader of the Nationals party David Littleproud has been in Casino, announcing $6m for major agriculture events.

I wish I had been a fly on the wall when someone suggested taking the group photo in front of the somewhat comical cow statue.

AGL Energy has just sent us a comment on the move by Grok Ventures.

What’s interesting is that AGL hasn’t been contacted by Mike Cannon-Brookes’ company, an AGL spokesperson said:

The AGL board is committed to delivering the proposed demerger, which will ensure the value created through Australia’s energy transition stays with our shareholders.

The AGL Energy demerger is on track to be completed by the end of next month.

The timing is interesting, given shareholders are soon to vote on that demerger plan, splitting the generation assets from the retail one.

“It’s now or never,” is how one insider put it.

Energy issues may be about to resurface in the election campaign.

Just days after the electricity market operator showed wholesale power prices had doubled from a year ago and were heading even higher, it seems tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes is having another crack at AGL Energy, Australia’s biggest electricity generator.

Hours after AGL announced what is effectively a profit downgrade of as much as $100m following a unit failure at its Loy Yang A plant in Victoria (yes, it’s coal-fired, and no, it’s not so reliable), MCB has weighed with another bid for AGL stock.

According to the AFR which broke the news, MCB’s Grok Ventures wants to snap up as much as 11.5% in AGL. Unlike the previous skirmish, Grok is going it alone rather than teaming up with Canadian asset manager Brookfield.

Interestingly, AGL is not aware of the approach, except through the media.

As we reported in March, AGL did not think they had seen the last of the Atlassian co-founder, who has made renewables and climate change a regular feature of his public comments, including on Twitter.

So far, neither Grok nor AGL have said anything public about the share purchase. It’s worth noting in March, the offer was for a full takeover at $8.25 a share, valuing the company at about $8.5 billion, including debt.

Today AGL’s share price closed at $8.62, down 0.7% for the day, and before the news of a possible bid surfaced. The AFR says the share purchase appears to be aimed at blocking AGL’s plan to split itself into a mainly generating business and a retail one by 30 June.

Cannon-Brookes has been building a range of businesses that could well benefit from having access to AGL’s customers. The 185-year old company claims some 3.95 million “total services to customers”.

More details are expected before the market opens tomorrow. No doubt politicians will be asked their views.

More to come.

Amanda Meade

The Seven network has secured the third election debate between the leaders and will broadcast it on 11 May in prime time.

Seven’s political editor, Mark Riley, will moderate, it was revealed on Seven’s 6pm bulletin.

Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese are facing off for the second leaders’ debate on Sunday on Channel Nine.

The hour-long debate will be moderated by 60 Minutes presenter Sarah Abo, and feature a panel with Nine’s Chris Uhlmann, the Sydney Morning Herald’s David Crowe, and Radio 2GB’s Deb Knight.

Riley said details of the Seven debate would be revealed closer to the date.

The first debate, hosted by Sky News and the Courier Mail, was held on 20 April in Brisbane.

Hard to argue with this.

The third and last leaders’ election debate will be hosted by free-to-air broadcaster Channel Seven and moderated by Mark Riley on Wednesday 11 May.

The National Press Club and the ABC have also been pushing to host a leaders’ debate, however last week the prime minister indicated he would only debate on commercial channels.

The second leaders’ debate is set to be held this Sunday on Channel Nine, employing a panel of three journalists for an hour-long discussion.

The opposition leader has released a statement to Muslim communities celebrating Eid ul-Fitr.

Anthony Albanese:

The celebration of Eid al-Fitr … stands as a beautiful and enduring testament to Australia’s multicultural society, itself a profound success story built on the beliefs and experiences of communities from around the world.

As a nation, our breadth is our strength – and you are a deeply valued part of that strength.

Reporter Mostafa Rachwani earlier today followed the prime minister’s visit to Eid ul-Fitr prayers in Parramatta. Scott Morrison is the first sitting prime minister to attend an Eid prayer, drawing mixed receptions.

Former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd was also there, as were candidates Andrew Charlton (Labor) and Maria Kovacic (Liberal), as well as the immigration minister, Alex Hawke.

Eid ul-Fitr marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, and it’s the first time in recent history that it has coincided with an election campaign.

Earlier today, the prime minister was asked directly why he said five years ago the Victorian government pursuing a similar housing scheme to the one announced by Anthony Albanese was a good idea. He said:

What I was referring to in 2011, I think it was, was in the middle of a global financial crisis when there was a squeeze on credit so I was proffering sensible interventions that would enable the private sector to give people more choices. If people want to take the choices up, that is up to them, but in terms of the federal government effectively becoming an owner of your home – and there are questions about this.

A reporter followed with:

Just on that, you had a similar idea of a government or a private equity scheme in 2008. What has changed between now and then for you to be slamming Labor’s policy?

Scott Morrison:

I had no plan for the government to own people’s homes. Shared equity schemes have been around for a long time and some people choose to do them in the private sector. During the global – global financial crisis there was a squeeze and there was a focus on a Bendigo Bank because of the lack of liquidity in the debt market that was enabling them to provide the products they wanted to provide and the people by providing and seeking. So, that was a very different set of issues.

Scott Morrison, 2008, suggesting the government divert $500m already taken aside for “residential backed securities” and invest it into shared equity mortgages:

Shared equity mortgages are a really good opportunity … if you do get into mortgage stress you can reconsolidate your mortgage and you … can have the bank take effectively a portion of equity in your property and that way you can reduce your payments.