Only one more day to go. But before we get there let's look back on the day that was:
- the Coalition has released its policy costings which includes an extra $9 billion of savings;
- part of this is a $4.5 billion cut to the foreign aid budget to pay for infrastructure projects;
- there will also be a rephasing of the Murray Darling water buyback scheme as well as additional cuts to the public service;
- Labor says the document is a "farce" because it is only a list of cuts rather than a budget strategy;
- Labor leader Kevin Rudd gave his final set speech of the campaign and warned people life under a Coalition government would be "radically different"; and
- all parties and candidates are preparing for the last day of the campaign.
My thanks, as always, to you for reading and commenting. A big rap for Andrew Meares and Alex Ellinghausen.
We will be back in the morning.
(And a reminder we will also be with you for election day and the aftermath - whatever they may bring.)
And we head towards the end of the day with a different sort of selfie.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tours Thompson Square in Windsor, NSW, on Thursday. Photo: POOL/Mike Bowers
If you would like the see the documents released by the Coalition I now have them available for you.
The Coalition's foreign affairs spokeswoman, Julie Bishop, has released the party's policy in that area.
It mentions foreign aid.
"We are concerned about the rapid increase in foreign aid, described in the 2011 Independent Review Into Aid Effectiveness as 'steep and challenging', in light of real concerns about the ability of AusAid and other agencies to manage such a programme efficiently and effectively," the document says.
"We also do not believe that the Australian community is entirely comfortable with the government's doubling of an already large overseas development assistance budget rapidly without robust performance benchmarks - especially as Labor has slashed spending in important areas like Defence."
A Coalition government would also review Australia's diplomatic presence overseas within six months.
Business writer Michael Pascoe doesn't think much of the Coalition's costings.
"Even if you take year three and four budget projections seriously (and you really can't, as everyone should now know) that works out to be an average improvement of $1.5 billion a year on a $400 billion budget - all of 0.375 per cent," Michael writes.
"It's not even a rounding error. A half decent Queensland storm can blow that away in half in hour."
Michael's full article can be found here.
Greens leader Christine Milne is responding to the Coalition's costings.
"How much of what is left [of the foreign aid budget] is going to be spent on tent cities on Nauru and cruelty towards asylum seekers?" Senator Milne says.
Senator Milne says it is "shocking" to suggest foreign aid should be cut to fund infrastructure.
"Tony Abbott is not only bad for this country - he is bad for the region," she says.
UNICEF got its response out quickly to the cuts to foreign aid funding.
"It's clear the Coalition no longer has the same desire to deliver on poverty reduction and good governance it held during the Howard years," the chief executive of UNICEF Australia, Norman Gillepsie, says.
"Mr Hockey may well wish to argue the economy will grow faster under a Coalition but his costings are at the expense of children's lives."
Mr Albanese says the Coalition is the "favourite to win" on Saturday but he believes Labor can win.
Mr Albanese says the Coalition is making "vicious cuts" and names the Murray Darling funding rephasing which will affect the people of Adelaide and "anyone who cares about the environment".
Let's get Labor's reaction from Anthony Albanese.
"They're not policy costings, they're a farce," Mr Albanese says.
"That document is not a policy costing....What we aren't seeing is any of the documentation for any of this work. They've been hiding their costings, they've been hiding their candidates."
The Coalition's plan to trial marriage vouchers would cost $20 million over two years and its commission of audit would cost $1 million.
And that's it.
Less than 25 minutes on questions about the costings (not because there were none but because Mr Hockey called time.)
Our story will be constantly updated as we go through the papers. You can follow it here.
"Only an emphatic decision from the Australian people on Saturday....that's the only way we can fix the budget," Mr Hockey says.
(Just remember in all of this that a lot of the Coalition's savings depend on the scrapping of the carbon price - which has to be passed by Parliament.)
There will also be "modest new savings" from a rephasing of the Murray Darling water buyback scheme - $650 million - to spread four years of spending over six years.
A further $428 million will be saved with an additional 0.25 efficiency dividend on the public service which the document says will come from "prudent limitations on government advertising and consultancies as well as on government travel".
The money will be allocated to Melbourne's East West link ($1.5 billion), Sydney's WestConnex ($1.5 billion) and the Brisbane Gateway Motorway upgrade ($1 billion).
The costings document says the Coalition remains "committed to the Millenium Development goal of increasing foreign aid of 0.5 per cent of GNI over time, but cannot commit to a date given the current state of the federal budget".
"As well, the Coalition will re prioritise foreign aid allocations towards non government organisations that deliver on the ground support for those most in need," the document says.
Mr Hockey says "all the numbers that are presented today show we are living within our means".
The Coalition has released 700 pages of policy during the campaign, compared with 200 pages from Labor, Mr Hockey says.
"We are going to cut the growth in foreign aid to pay for infrastructure," Mr Hockey says.
"We are reducing the growth in foreign aid by $4.5 billion over the forward estimates."
The accompanying document (which I've just received) says: "It is unsustainable to continue massive projected growth in foreign aid funding whilst the Australian economy continues at below trend growth. Australia needs a stronger economy today so that it can be more generous in the future."
Coalition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey and finance spokesman Andrew Robb are releasing the costings.
Mr Hockey confirms the budget bottom line will be improved by "over $6 billion".
He is announcing a further $9 billion in savings (on top of the $31 billion already outlined).
Team Abbott has left Brisbane bound for Melbourne.
Team Rudd has left Canberra bound for Sydney.
He hopes.
Coalition leader Tony Abbott during a street walk in Stafford Heights, Queensland, on Thursday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
A couple of things to deal with before then.
Keen observers might have noticed Labor is concerned about seats with margins that would once have marked them as safe.
Kingsford Smith, in Sydney's south east, is a case in point. Former senator and NSW Labor Party boss Matt Thistlethwaite wants to succeed Peter Garrett in the seat with a margin of 5.2 per cent.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Party has a problem on it hands by the name of Jaymes Diaz, whose unfamiliarity with party policy and subsequent disappearance from the campaign has become a bit of a joke.
Just to remind you - the Coalition's costings will be released at 2.30 pm at a press conference with Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb.
Thanks for that Wyatt:
Clive Palmer talking is about as appealing as Clive Palmer twerking.
— Wyatt Roy MP (@Wyatt_Roy_MP) September 5, 2013
And that's it for Mr Rudd's speech.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd replaces his watch - a 20 year anniversary gift from his wife Therese Rein - after his address to the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
"We're the party of the little guy. And I mean that in a non gender specific way," Mr Rudd says.
Mr Rudd says his priorities for indigenous policy would be constitutional recognition and continuing to work to reach the targets to "close the gap" on a range of health, education and other indicators.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd kisses his wife Therese Rein his address to the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
Mr Rudd says he is interested in further reform of the Labor Party ("a great beast, sometimes gainly and sometimes not") both in relation to preselections and policies.
He remains a fan of fixed four year terms.
Labor leader Kevin Rudd at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
"If Mr Abbott did not have anything to hide, why is he going to such extraordinary length to be evasive," Mr Rudd says.
"I don't get it, but I think the Australian people do."
Mr Rudd is asked if he will serve a full term as the member for Griffith if Labor loses the election.
"My intention is to continue to serve as a local member of Parliament....My intention equally is to serve them as prime minister," Mr Rudd says.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
Mr Rudd says a challenge for all politicians is to "keep our minds open to new ways of thinking from right around the country and right around the world".
Mr Rudd is invited to mention Julia Gillard by name.
He says he paid "appropriate respect" to all former Labor leaders at the campaign launch on Sunday.
Mr Rudd is now taking questions.
The first one is whether Mr Rudd will give the same guarantee given by Mr Abbott that whatever happens on Saturday he will not be opposition leader on Monday.
"I am fighting for the Australian people," Mr Rudd says.
He will be "content" with whatever the people decide.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
(FYI - the Coalition's costings will be released at 2.30pm in Melbourne in a press conference fronted by Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb.)
"I genuinely fear for what the Liberals would do in office," Mr Rudd says.
"The truth is it would not be the same Australia of a fair go for all. It would be a radically different Australia where there is a far go for some. I don't want an Australia that is divided into winners and losers. I don't want an Australia that is wrapped in dispute and division and thrown into a new culture of confrontation."
"The government complied with Peter Costello's charter of budget honesty," Mr Rudd says.
"The Australian people are now left completely in the dark....This pattern of evasion continues through until this day."
"If you are in doubt after all this evasion on how Mr Abbott's massive cuts would hurt your jobs, schools, hospitals and the economy in these fragile times, don't vote for him."
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
Mr Rudd has mentioned former prime minsters Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating in relation to their achievements but avoids naming Julia Gillard when he talks about the national disability insurance scheme and the improvements to education and health.
"The jobs of all Australians are important to me," Mr Rudd says.
(The head of the Australian Workers Union, Paul Howes, is in the audience nodding intently.)
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
Mr Rudd is painting Labor as the party of big picture ideas that conservatives have "sneered at" and "opposed", including the national disability insurance scheme.
He moves on to the economy.
"Recession is not a risk we should ever entertain lightly," Mr Rudd says.
"This is no time to rest on our laurels because global economic circumstances are changing."
Ideas "above our station in life" include Medicare, free higher education and compulsory superannuation, Mr Rudd says.
Mr Rudd says conservatives always want to return to a "mythical" time in the past when "everything was fine and dandy".
"A cocktail of the 1950s, Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey all wrapped together where everyone did know their station in life," Mr Rudd says.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
Mr Rudd says among the "sound and fury" of the campaign that "there are some phrases that have managed to penetrate".
"Our national political mission, put simply, is to do whatever we can to make life better for them [ordinary Australians]," Mr Rudd says.
"This is the core mission of progressive politics, this is the core mission of our party."
Mr Rudd says Mr Abbott is "one of the more disturbing" voices of the campaign.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his wife Therese Rein at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
Kevin Rudd is making his traditional final speech of the campaign to the National Press Club in Canberra.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
Economics correspondent Peter Martin's interest was raised when Coalition leader Tony Abbott said earlier this week that: "If Labor sneaks back, the carbon tax stays and goes up to $38 a tonne by 2020 and an almost unimaginable $350 a tonne by 2050."
That was enough to give Peter something to research for today's instalment of Fact Checker.
What did he find? Click here to read.
At 12.30 pm I will bring you Labor leader Kevin Rudd's last set speech of the campaign.
Labor leader Kevin Rudd will address the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
At 11.02 am I directed you to news of Clive Palmer's application to join the "I'm not happy with News Corp" club.
The Age's national affairs editor, Tony Wright, could not resist: "If you thought Kevin Rudd was a mite annoyed with Rupert Murdoch, there's probably not a word that's adequate to describe Clive Palmer's Titanic fury at the media chief over an article on one of this newspapers that seeks to prick the substantial Palmer balloon."
Coalition leader Tony Abbott is visiting a leather goods business in the northern suburbs of Brisbane.
"We also want to make very good use of kangaroos," Mr Abbott tells workers.
"We might as well make proper use of the kangaroo....Any product made by leather is an environmentally friendly product."
Coalition leader Tony Abbott visits a leather business in Narangba, Queensland, on Thursday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
I've checked with the Australian Electoral Commission about the advertising blackout (see 11.17 am post) which began at midnight last night.
According to its electoral advertising guide: "This three day blackout effectively provides a 'cooling off' period in the lead up to polling day, during which political parties, candidates and others are no longer able to purchase time on television and radio to broadcast political advertising."
This means the ads people have seen popping up on my own website and on social media sites are not covered by the ban.
(I predict a few of you might be lobbying for an updated definition of "electronic media".)
The Coalition's treasury spokesman Joe Hockey has just held a picture opportunity with the Coalition's eminent panel of financial experts in which the four men signed some papers and spoke about the veracity of the documents but did not actually release them.
Just a note to people who have been asking about the advertising black out which started at midnight last night.
My understanding is that the black out relates to electronic media which, given the definition would have been before the internet, means radio and television.
But I am going to ask the relevant body about it because I would like to know too.
We all know that Labor is not super keen on News Corp.
Now billionaire political party starter Clive Palmer has joined them.
Mr Palmer is threatening to sue Rupert Murdoch and accused the media mogul's ex wife of "spying", less than 24 hours after filing an $800,000 defamation suit against Liberal National Party candidate Mal Brough.
You can read about the threatened law suit here.
The Greens are claiming a surge in support from voters disaffected with the stance of both major parties on asylum seekers and have launch an advertising campaign to highlight it, The Age's political editor Michael Gordon reports.
The party has spent more than $30,000 on newspaper ads funded by some of the 10,000 people who sign up to a "not in my name, not with my vote" website.
This follows Greens leader Christine Milne's speech yesterday in which she said she had "no regerets" about the party's decision to vote against the 2009 carbon pollution reduction scheme.
Senator Milne reminded people the Greens would still have the balance of power in the Senate until the end of June 2014 regardless of the outcome on Saturday and that the party would use that time to hold Labor to account on its position on carbon pricing.
You can read more about Senator Milne's speech here.
Chief political correspondent Mark Kenny has written his column about Labor's malaise.
"On Wednesday morning, reporters on the Rudd campaign again found themselves in Melbourne, and again found themselves in the middle of a disorganised Labor campaign," Mark writes.
"Warehoused for hours as Rudd (somewhere else) made unheralded appearances on TV and radio, there was an unmistakable sense in the travelling media pack that the time spent in Melbourne is more about sandbagging Labor seats rather than winning Coalition ones."
You can read Mark's column here.
Policies that have not been modelled as part of the Coalition's costings are broadband, immigration and climate change (direct action).
A spokesman for treasury spokesman Joe Hockey confirmed that the reason the three policies have not been sent to the Parliamentary Budget Office is because they have "input from a range of external sources".
Mr Abbott tells people voting for independents is a waste of a time.
"Independents mucked up the last Parliament. Let's not let them muck up this Parliament," Mr Abbott says.
(It's hard to see why he and Tony Windsor didn't exactly get on, isn't it?)
Coalition leader Tony Abbott addresses the media at the Brisbane Metropolitan Transport Management Centre in Brisbane on Thursday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Team Abbott is in Brisbane today.
Mr Abbott is visiting a traffic management centre accompanied by his deputy Julie Bishop.
Ms Bishop says that since this is her last press conference with Mr Abbott before the election she would like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to him "as my friend, my colleague and as our leader".
"He has been a uniting force in the Coalition," Ms Bishop says. "I've started to think of him as our captain coach of the footy team. When the game's over, when we're back in the change room, that's when Tony's real talents come to the fore because he unites us."
"We wouldn't be in the position we are today without Tony Abbott."
Coalition leader Tony Abbott and deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop address the media in Brisbane on Thursday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Labor has focussed on the Coalition's costings throughout the campaign.
But how many voters care? Given the large number of people who have already voted one might conclude that those people are not interested or had already mind up their minds.
What do you think? Should the Coalition have given voters more time to digest its costings? You can have your say here in online readers poll.
What do we know about the costings so far?
We know that the Coalition will not say when the budget will be back in the black. Instead of showing us an alternative budget the costings will reveal the final cost of Coalition election promises and where the savings will come from.
As chief political correspondent Mark Kenny reports the costings will contain the promise that the budget will be better off by more than $6 billion and that gross debt will be $16 lower in that time.
The costings have been conducted by the Parliamentary Budget Office.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd walks around Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
Labor has been calling on the Coalition to show them the money throughout the campaign. The Coalition promised it would do so and that it would not be on the last day.
So that leaves us with today - the second last day and after the advertising black out has begun - for the release.
But how late in the day can the Coalition leave it? Given Labor leader Kevin Rudd is due to give his final set speech of the campaign at the National Press Club in Canberra at 12.30 pm one might be safe to speculate the costings will come out after that.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd walks around Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra on Thursday. Photo: Andrew Meares
Good morning. Thank you for joining me, Andrew Meares and Alex Ellinghausen for the day's campaign news. We've got the release of the Coalition's campaign costings and Labor leader Kevin Rudd at the National Press Club in Canberra.
It's going to be a big second last day.
(And thanks for Judith Ireland for filling in for me yesterday.)
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