FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN: DAY 16
WHERE THE LEADERS CAMPAIGNED:
* Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull: Anglesea on Victoria's Great Ocean Road, in the marginal Liberal seat of Corangamite.
* Labor leader Bill Shorten: Perth, in the notionally-Liberal seat of Burt, created after an electoral redistribution gave Western Australia an extra seat in parliament's lower house.
WHAT THE COALITION TALKED ABOUT:
News that makes sense
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* A $60 million promise to fix 900 mobile phone black spots.
* Labor's "spendometer" which it claims has created a $198 billion black hole.
WHAT LABOR TALKED ABOUT:
* Its plans to enshrine in law public ownership of Medicare.
* Rebutting coalition claims about its black hole.
THE LATEST POLLS
* Essentially unchanged. Labor leads coalition 51-49 per cent after preferences.
* Health tops economy as the number one issue of the campaign, a special Newspoll finds, and voters back Shorten to best manage both. The cost of living, education, national security, leadership and unemployment all considered important by more than 50 per cent of voters.
* One in five voters in Sydney's west are undecided and the preferred leader is level pegging, a NewsLocal commissioned poll finds.
WHAT MADE NEWS:
* Labor is scrambling to find a new Senate candidate in the Northern Territory after the sudden resignation of Nova Peris.
* Pauline Hanson could return to parliament as a senator for Queensland.
* Turnbull and Shorten will face off in the first formal leaders debate of the election campaign on Sunday in Canberra.
* The Australian Taxation Office reviewing a ruling on deductions for parliamentarian tax allowances.
* The coalition would win the election if it were held today, despite what the major opinion polls show, because Labor has not yet won enough votes in the seats that matter, according to the coalition and Labor.
THEY SAID WHAT
"Jacqui [Lambie] has done a good job. She spoke up on behalf of a lot of people."
- Pauline Hanson reviews the Tasmanian senator's first term in parliament.
"She is too right wing for me."
- Lambie doesn't return the favour.
TWEETED:
"Mixing up Billions & Millions From his press conference it Sounds like Scott Morrison is taking budget advice from Barnaby." @rroodd.
