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Like anxious householders clearing the gutters and packing up family photos as a bushfire approaches, the two aspirants to the prime ministership did some disaster prepping for Tuesday's widely-anticipated RBA rate hike.
This is, to be clear, the interest rate increase now deemed necessary because of last week's higher-than-expected inflation figure. In a cogent reminder of why nobody likes economists, one of the leading ways to stop everything getting more expensive so quickly is to make mortgage repayments more expensive straight away. Here's Michael Janda to walk you through that one.
It's not a plan that really appeals to anyone (except people living off large lump sums of money, who will cheer the return of interest rate rises, but VERY quietly because no-one likes them either), so Australia's prime ministerial rivals have been careful to compose a set of policy undertakings that will almost certainly work smoothly against what the RBA is trying to do.
It's one of the most fascinating offshoots of the psychologically complicated co-dependent relationship we have with real property in this country.
Sydney is the second most unaffordable city in the world behind Hong Kong, according to the new Demographia study. Nobody likes this, or the fact that many of today's children aren't likely to be able to afford real estate unless they inherit it from their parents. House prices are absolutely ablaze; the significant policy responses from both sides of politics involve the judicious squirting of accelerant onto exposed portions of the population.
Why did the cost of new housing increase by 5.7 per cent in the most recent inflation figures? The inflation police are still interviewing witnesses, but surely the Government's HomeBuilder scheme — in which eligible punters receive $25,000 towards their new home or renovation — will be expected to assist with their inquiries. Same with the recently expanded Home Guarantee scheme (refresher here).
Labor leader Anthony Albanese, meanwhile, offered to go in with up to 10,000 first homebuyers by actually committing the federal Government to paying a chunk of their mortgage.
Do these policies do anything to address the central issue, which is the insane escalation of house prices? No, they do not. It's like responding to a drug epidemic by sending your Mum out to score for you. But such is the pressure for governments to hold a hose in this conflagration, it matters not that they're squirting kerosene.
The Labor scheme copped some mild excoriation from Morrison, who wanted to know whether an Albanese government would profiteer off properties renovated and improved by the sweat of a co-owner's brow. And certainly, the prospect of the Labor leader putting in his two cents on the crucial question of benchtops and plunge pools is a distracting one.
"I mean, sometimes you guys always see things through a totally political lens," he told journalists assembled in Geelong. "I don't."
Somehow — and I know not how — the man who is mainly famous for his ability to see absolutely anything through a political lens, and who indeed recently changed his Facebook photo to more strategically display his wedding ring mid-campaign against divorced Albanese, avoided being struck by lightning upon utterance of this remark.
If you need a primer for Tuesday, here's Mike Janda again, explaining the interaction between inflation, interest rates and the — one assumes — nervous as hell RBA governor
And an excellent piece by Gareth Hutchens, looking at ways in which policymakers could get out of these housing policy headlights.
Good day
It was a good day for self-funded retirees, a further 50,000 of whom will be eligible for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card. The Prime Minister announced the $70m extension to the scheme, and Labor has endorsed the policy and promised to match it.
Bad day
It has not been a fun day to be related to a Kooyong candidate. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg — who managed with some trouble to find a space between Frydenberg billboards in his electorate to gather a few hundred people for his official campaign launch — told the gathered faithful a story of having been assured by an elderly lady of her vote, only to discover that she was the mother-in-law of his Teal challenger Dr Monique Ryan. Dr Ryan's diagnosis? Not cool.
Medical attention, meanwhile, may be required in the Morrison household, after a triumphant social media post from the PM featuring his latest curries featured a distinctly pinkish chicken korma.
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What to watch out for
Spare a thought for the RBA Governor Philip Lowe, who will manage to annoy one of the major parties.
At 2:30pm the RBA's decision on rates will come out. If they're increasing rates, you can imagine how well that will go down among the Coalition's campaign. If they don't increase rates, brace for allegations of politicisation in the independent central bank
Catch up on Monday's stories