This week, as US singer Christina Aguilera's "Back to Basics" tour rolls into town, State and Federal politicians employed a similar motto, with housing, grocery prices, unemployment and another WA budget surplus all making the headlines.
This week, as US singer Christina Aguilera's "Back to Basics" tour rolls into town, State and Federal politicians employed a similar motto, with housing, grocery prices, unemployment and another WA budget surplus all making the headlines.
Housing affordability
Last week Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd announced plans for a superannuation-style scheme for first-home buyers that would allow others to buy their homes through shared equity schemes to help ease the housing affordability crisis.
A Labor government, he said, would consider allowing for new home deposit savings vehicles, with higher returns and tax advantages to "supercharge" the savings capacity of young Australians.
Contributions would be made from pre-tax dollars and earnings could be taxed in the same way as super nest eggs with the money only able to be withdrawn to buy a first home.
But Prime Minister John Howard said a simpler solution would be for states to sell more land to reduce property prices.
"Every expert that has looked at it will tell you the shortage of land is the major problem. Stamp duty is an issue, certainly, but the shortage of supply of land is the biggest problem of all," Mr Howard told reporters in Sydney.
This argument was challenged by the release of treasury papers to Channel 7 the previous Wednesday, which claimed the impact of land release on housing affordability has been overstated.
"While better land release and land use policies by the states and territories are likely to improve affordability to some extent, the various reports probably overstate this effect," the document read.
Opposition treasury spokesman Wayne Swan said the documents scuttled the government's claims that wide-scale land release by state governments would help solve the housing affordability crisis.
"Clearly land release and planning policies have a role in housing affordability, but John Howard's calls for wide-scale land release could inflict serious financial pain if this lowers property values and forces existing home owners into negative equity," Mr Swan said in a statement.
But Mr Howard said the ALP was misrepresenting the analysis by ignoring large numbers of older home buyers who had remortgaged to buy investment properties or help their children buy homes.
"What that document shows is that the repayment burden for a new home buyer now is lower than what it was in 1989. Lower, not higher, lower," Mr Howard said.
"What they have grabbed hold of is the total interest bill payment, which includes a large number of older people who have paid off their homes and then borrowed again because they have huge equity in their homes and then used borrowing to buy an investment property or to help their children buy a property.
For her part, WA Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan hit back at calls for more land releases, saying Commonwealth red tape was holding back the development of 800 potential lots in Mandurah.
Ms MacTiernan said in an announcement that at least four proposed developments had gained State environmental approval, but were being delayed by the Federal Government's environmental protection assessments.
The debate continued this week with Mr Rudd announcing the prospect of tax breaks to developers and investors building affordable rental accommodation if he were elected.
But Mr Howard told reporters a federal Labor government would put upward pressure on interest rates and consequently, housing prices.
"As far as housing affordability is concerned, the best thing we can do as a government ... is keep interest rates as low as possible," Mr Howard said.
"I do add this, if there is a change of government there will be great upward pressure on interest rates," he said.
"If you think that is just a piece of political rhetoric, state Labor governments have gone into deficit, those deficits have put upward pressure on interest rates.
"And if you want to know how a federal Labor government would behave in relation to deficits, have a look at how a state Labor government has behaved."
Western Australia's budget
For his part, WA Opposition Treasury spokesman Troy Buswell said the state government had behaved very badly, despite the latest financial figures showing the state's budget surplus for the last financial year is likely to come in slightly above the estimate.
Mr Buswell criticised the state's tax regime, saying it was indicative of economic mismanagement.
"This record figure isn't a tick of approval for the Carpenter Government. Rather it's a condemnation of their inability to manage the State's finances in a way that delivers the maximum benefit to families and their businesses," he said.
He was supported by the WA Treasury Department, which said the surplus reflected higher payroll taxes, higher conveyance duty, higher motor vehicle taxes and higher land taxes, according to AAP.
Treasury figures show the surplus for the 11 months to the end of May 2007 was $2.02 billion, $187 million higher than for the same period in 2005-06.
In welcoming the figures, Treasurer Eric Ripper said the cash surplus would be dedicated largely to a special fund for the Fiona Stanley Hospital, with the remainder to be spent on other infrastructure or to retire debt.
"The surplus is an investment in our State's future so this is terrific news for all Western Australians," Mr Ripper said.
Indigenous concerns and the Gordon Report
In news that was good for some in Halls Creek, 12 people from the area have been charged with child sex offences as part of a police investigation into paedophilia in Aboriginal communities.
According to AAP, 12 people including two juveniles, from the Aboriginal desert community of Kalumburu, also in the Kimberley, have been charged with similar offences.
Perth magistrate Sue Gordon, who headed a 2002 inquiry into child abuse and domestic violence in WA Aboriginal communities, today urged the state government to stop resisting the commonwealth's offer of military personnel to help tackle the problem.
Ms Gordon said the military could build much-needed houses and infrastructure in Aboriginal communities.
Opposition Leader Paul Omodei is supporting her call, suggesting the military could use its peacekeeping experience in the communities.
"We're not talking about a military presence as in armed soldiers. We're talking about engineering, building roads, building houses and in the process bringing the community with them," he said.
Mr Omodei has also called for an audit of the $120 million the State Government has spent on Indigenous concerns since the implementation of the Gordon Report.
Acting Premier Eric Ripper told AAP the military was not needed and commonwealth support for more police and basic infrastructure were best suited to address the problem.
Groceries
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd looked at installing a different kind of cops in supermarkets across the nation this week, launching a plan to give the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission powers to monitor supermarket prices to make sure families are getting a fair deal.
It would also direct the ACCC to conduct a National Grocery Pricing Inquiry to report to the government within six months, taking submissions from individuals, consumer groups, retailers, businesses along the supply chain, and other interested parties.
Mr Rudd said the expanded role of the ACCC will complement Labor's plan to appoint a petrol commissioner within the agency to monitor and investigate price gouging and collusion.
"What we're concerned about is establishing the facts," he told Southern Cross Broadcasting.
"Are the prices going up just because of seasonal factors like the drought, or are there other factors at work including market concentration amongst the major supermarket chains?"
Federal Treasurer Peter Costello says Labor's plan to monitor supermarket prices is not new, and the consumer watchdog already has powers to deal with unfair price hikes.
Labor says it plans if elected this year to empower the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to monitor grocery prices to encourage competition and a national inquiry into grocery prices would be held.
"It's simply to get to the bottom of what's going on out there in terms of the retail grocery market," Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd told ABC Radio today.
However, Treasurer Peter Costello says the Australian Bureau of Statistics already complies a comprehensive publication on what is happening with prices.
"That's not a new idea, that's probably be going on for 70 years, and unfortunately for Mr Rudd, when you have a look at it that, prices rise twice as fast under Labor," Mr Costello told Sky News.
The treasurer also questioned what Labor intended to do with the information, "another point Mr Rudd hasn't thought of by the way".
"Where there has been evidence in markets of misuse of market power or collusion, the ACCC has taken action, action in relation to the bread market, and it took action in relation to the liquor market, just to name two cases," he said.
For his part, former ACCC head Allan Fels told ABC Radio he would support an inquiry that focused on the extent of competition within the grocery trade, rather than simply looking at shelf prices.
"If the ACCC really turns the spotlight on how much competition there is within groceries, I think that will be a useful thing," Prof Fels said.
"I think there's a lot of experience to indicate that regulation of retail prices is not a very fruitful activity, and I'm also a bit sceptical if the inquiry focuses principally on margins rather than on the underlying state of competition.
"A valuable inquiry would probe deeply into the state of competition in retailing with some look at pricing, rather than starting at the other end - prices - and working back a bit towards competition."
A Rudd government would be unlikely to reintroduce retail price regulation, Prof Fels said.
"It's really a question of whether monitoring of prices is consistent with having a free market," he said.
"The bigger emphasis should be on the analysis of competition."
The final word
In a week where news spread of the Queen pointedly telling a photographer that headwear is pretty much essential in official portraits and the Prime Minister forgot the name of a federal Liberal candidate in a Tasmanian seat (Vanessa Goodwin, who will need a 7.6 per cent swing to win), the final word goes to Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns.
In an interveiw with ABC adio station Triple J earlier this week, Johns said that he, wife Natalie Imbruglia, Mr Garrett and U2 lead singer Bono smoked marijuana in a Sydney house while listening to the new Silverchair album.
"(Bono) invited me over to the house he was staying at in Sydney and asked if I'd play the demos and it was really one of the most surreal moments of my life," Johns told the broadcaster.
"It was me and Natalie and Peter Garrett and Bono laying on Bono's bed smoking joints listening to the Young Modern demo."
The Opposition Environment spokesman's office was inundated with phone calls after the comment, forcing the former lead singer of rock band Midnight Oil into admitting he had smoked marijuana in his 20s but had not done so since.
He has refused to elaborate on that comment.
"That information is all on the public record," Mr Garrett said.
But the news brought revelations from federal Finance Minister, Nick Minchin, that he too had partaken of the evil weed at high school and university.
"For me to suggest that I have never smoked marijuana, I would be lying through my teeth," he said.
But the Senator was keen to express his reformed attitude: "I do very strongly believe that the consumption of marijuana is very dangerous, to be actively discouraged."
As for Mr Johns, whose agent issued a press release retracting the comments within a half hour of them going to air, he referred to his remarks as a "stupid joke" which the media had taken seriously.
"At no time have I ever smoked a joint with Bono or Peter Garrett," he said.
"They are both well known to be very anti-drugs so that's why I assumed everybody would know I was joking when I made that comment."
"I really should just shut up and stick to singing," he said.
He said the gaffe had reminded him why he doesn't like doing interviews.
In that case, Arch reckons he should probably stay out of politics.