The Coalition's rollout hit trouble after an aborted five-minute press conference on Thursday left major financial questions unanswered, prompting the Friday bus tour reset. Jess Wilson sought to defend her economic agenda amid Labor claims of a $6.35 billion black hole in Coalition policy costings. Wilson confirmed that full policy figures will be withheld until after pre-election budget updates and early voting begin, while also standing by a $1.3 billion government land sale strategy.
Key points
Full Coalition policy costings will not be released to the public until after early votin…: Full Coalition policy costings will not be released to the public until after early voting has officially commenced.
Jess Wilson rejected proposed debate formats from Nine and News24 that featured One Natio…: Jess Wilson rejected proposed debate formats from Nine and News24 that featured One Nation leader Warren Pickering.
The opposition maintains that independent Parliamentary Budget Office calculations factor…: The opposition maintains that independent Parliamentary Budget Office calculations factored in cleanup costs for a planned $1.3 billion land sale.
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Jess Wilson has barely put a foot wrong since becoming Victorian Liberal leader a little under a year ago. That was until this week, which ended with her campaign bus reversing into a small business.
The bus was launched on Friday, a few days earlier than planned, in what appeared to be an effort to reset Wilson’s relationship with the Spring Street press pack.
A day earlier, journalists had been left waiting for an hour as Wilson announced a $100m investment in medical research to an enthusiastic room of researchers at the Burnet Institute. But when it came to questions she stayed for just four minutes and 39 seconds – answering a single question from each of the nine journalists present before cutting the press conference short.
The pack had been keen to press Wilson on Labor’s claim that the Coalition’s election policies would cost $6.35bn more than they had disclosed.
The treasurer, Colin Brooks, had earlier spent 20 minutes taking journalists through a glossy booklet Labor titled “Jess Wilson’s Dodgy Costings”, which detailed 30 Coalition promises it claimed had…
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