Labor taps war chest for childcare, while Libs' agenda bare
When Scott Morrison was pressed recently on poor inflation figures which suggest the economy is struggling, the Prime Minister turned to childcare.
"The cost of childcare has fallen by 8 per cent and that follows the reforms we put in place to cap what was happening," he said.
It was a good effort at highlighting the government's success at overhauling the childcare sector, one of its real policy achievements.
What he failed to mention was how childcare costs are still 25 per cent higher than when his government came to power. And that even though childcare costs dropped sharply in the wake of the government's reforms, they have risen faster than overall inflation over the past six months.
Childcare costs are one of the most bread and butter of all bread and butter issues facing ordinary families.
Labor's move on Sunday to target $4 billion worth of changes at almost 1 million families highlights two important parts of the election campaign.
The ALP's tax policies mean it has a war chest to deploy directly at cost-of-living issues such as childcare. While both sides of politics want to talk about dealing with the cost of living, actually delivering a policy response is something else.
The childcare promise is the first real example of the campaign of Labor going to that war chest to make a promise that would have a tangible, measureable impact for voters.
The other important takeaway is what it reveals about the government's policy agenda.
In 2016, Malcolm Turnbull attempted to ride through an eight-week campaign on the back of a tax plan locked in via an early budget. Three years on, Scott Morrison is locked in to his tax plan unveiled in the early April budget.
Beyond tax cuts, which voters know won't deliver major relief until 2022-23, the government's agenda is as bare as the drought-hit paddocks the PM wandered through on Saturday morning.