CANBERRA—Labor leader Kevin Rudd today unveiled his first major promise of the election campaign – but was immediately accused of copying the government.
On a second day of campaigning, Mr Rudd travelled to south-western Sydney to talk about housing affordability, while Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello visited the key seat of Eden-Monaro to sell their plan for $34 billion of tax cuts.
Mr Rudd refused to say when he would release Labor's tax policy, instead announcing a plan to identify surplus commonwealth land which could be released for housing developments.
He said the government was sitting on land worth $6 billion which could be used to ease the housing affordability crisis.
But Mr Howard pointed out that Mr Costello had announced an audit of commonwealth land in July.
"Thank you Mr Rudd, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," Mr Howard told reporters in Queanbeyan.
Mr Howard made his first campaign gaffe last night when he told a television interviewer that the official interest rate was 6.25 per cent. It is 6.5 per cent.
Mr Howard laughed off his slip-up and denied that it showed he was out of touch.
"There's one interest rate that every Australian remembers and that is the 17 per cent housing interest rate that was hit during the Keating years. No Australian has ever forgotten that," he said.
Mr Costello said no-one could be expected to remember every number.
But Mr Rudd said the five successive rate rises since Mr Howard won the 2004 election on a promise to keep rates low showed that he could not be trusted.
"Mr Howard at the last election said that he would keep interest rates at record lows and since then they've gone up five times," Mr Rudd told reporters at Ingleburn.
"I ask people to bear very closely in mind how much Mr Howard's promise was worth at the last election - five interest rate rises.
"For people who are on mortgages, if you're a first home buyer on a mortgage, $240,000 or so, that's the average - Mr Howard's broken promise on interest rates at the last election has cost you something in the order of two and a half thousand dollars for the year."
Mr Rudd said Labor's housing policy was a fundamental revamp of the way commonwealth property disposals are handled.
He promised that large parcels of land would not be released if there was any danger of sending surrounding house prices plummeting.
"Obviously each of these land releases around the country will be targeted on the impact it has on surrounding property prices," he said.
"But let me tell you, if you're making sensible planning judgments into the future, and this goes to land release judgments in general, you can get that right.
"The problem right now is there is no strategy."
Both leaders will cross paths tomorrow at the memorial service for Trooper David Pearce, the Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan last week.