Today's campaign: tabloid declares open season on asylum seekers

It had to happen, I’m just surprised it took this long.

The Daily Telegraph has declared open season on asylum seekers.

Or rather, it has declared that Bill Shorten has declared open season for people smugglers by apparently laying out the welcome mat, a visual gag deployed to great effect on the Tele’s front page, to asylum seekers.

According to the Tele, Labor will give permanent residency to all 30,000 people now languishing on temporary protection visas, which the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, warned will cause chaos.

Border protection has not really been the vote winner this election that it was in 2013. Indeed, the only parties really gaining traction on it are the Greens, who oppose Australia’s offshore detention system as inhumane, and Pauline Hanson, who wants to ban all Muslims.

So the Coalition could probably use a little chaos.

As Game of Thrones watchers know: Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder.

The big picture

First let’s unpack that story in the Daily Telegraph article, which says Labor would give its legacy caseload of 30,000 asylum seekers permanent residency and “full work rights”.

Labor’s policy statement on asylum seekers says it would abolish temporary protection visas and “commit to processing people as quickly as possible and placing those found to be genuine refugees on permanent protection visas”, which is not quite the same. Moving on.

Reporters Daniel Meers and Simon Benson write:

Immigration minister Peter Dutton last night told the Daily Telegraph Labor’s border security policy was now “weak, equivocal and constantly changing”.

The potential for post-election rebellion appears to be far more widespread than was ­revealed at the beginning of the campaign, with public records confirming a total of 50 candidates or MPs opposing strong border protection.

Border protection was a stronghold of the Abbott government that has been adopted wholeheartedly by the Turnbull government, so watch this space today.

Meanwhile, both leaders are out talking about the economy, with the jobless figures for May released today.

Labor has announced details of a $68.6m policy to deliver “local jobs for local people” in 20 “communities of opportunity”, which are as yet unnamed communities with high rates of disadvantage and unemployment and low levels of education.

The program will apparently involve coordinators running jobs expos and workplace mentoring to connect unemployed people with training and employment in areas of skills shortage. It will also provide a “working communities fund” to address problems preventing employment in that area, such as a lack of affordable childcare, poor literacy skills or poor English language skills.

Sticking on jobs, Labor has pledged $100m toward Arrium steelworks in Whyalla, South Australia, doubling the SA government’s commitment of $50m.

And finally, the rise of the Nick Xenophon Team has caused continued rumblings from the major parties.

The latest salvo comes from the ALP national secretary and campaign director, George Wright, who wrote a letter to the Australian Election Commission asking it to investigate an alleged breach of financial disclosure laws by Xenophon’s now defunct fundraising arm, Support Nick Xenophon.

It apparently sold Xenophon merch online, including stress balls saying “Give Nick the Squeeze” and bags that say “Nick is Fully Sick”. Full details at the Australian.

On the campaign trail

Team Turnbull arrived in Sydney yesterday evening, after two days in Perth, and Malcolm Turnbull joined his wife, Lucy, and the New South Wales premier, Mike Baird, at a service at St Andrew’s Cathedral for the victims of the Orlando massacre. He’ll remain in Sydney today to talk about the economy, with a suspected guest appearance by Scott Morrison.

Bill Shorten, meanwhile, is returning to Adelaide after his latest visit was cut short by a need to tour areas of flood damage. This will be his third visit to SA of the campaign; his first, you’ll recall, was marked by that rather alarming snog ambush.

The campaign you should be watching

The former independent Lyne MP Rob Oakeshott announced on Friday that he would run as an independent for the neighbouring seat of Cowper, and, according to a poll commissioned by GetUp!, he’s in with a shot.

The poll showed Oakeshot’s primary vote was 28.4% compared with the sitting National MP Luke Hartsuyker’s 39.4%.

My colleague Paul Karp writes:

Oakeshott told Guardian Australia his primary vote of 25% in the poll suggested the result was “about 50/50 two-candidate preferred”.

“After five days of campaigning I’m really uplifted by that result, it shows a 13% swing against the Nationals already,” he said. “And it also shows a level of frustration within the community about local and national politics that is going to be expressed at the ballot box.”

If you’re wondering why Cowper: Oakeshottt said that while he hadn’t moved since resigning from parliament in 2013, the electorate boundaries had, and he no longer lives in Lyne.

And another thing(s)

The Queensland MP Bob Katter has made a campaign ad that even the Liberal National party senator Ian Macdonald thinks is offensive.

The add in question shows two men, marked as ALP and LNP respectively, putting up a “for sale” sign for Australia. Cut to Katter, who writes a decisive “NOT” on the sign and then blows on a smoking gun. The camera pans up and we see two bodies lying some distance away.

Katter released the ad on his official Twitter feed yesterday, three days after the Orlando shooting. He told the ABC he thought it was funny and anyway, he’d approved it weeks ago.

Said Macca:

Mr Katter’s video advertisement seems to encourage murder and gun violence to promote his strange views on a serious policy issue.

In other campaign add news, Scott Morrison has released a bizarre shouty music mashup attack add alleging the Greens have “infiltrated” the Labor party.

Morrison said it was not an attack campaign but a “scare campaign.” Political editor Lenore Taylor delicately tore its central premise to shreds here, so I’ll leave you with this burn from Bill Shorten:

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