The coalition and Labor both commit $77m for a cancer research centre at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute

“This further investment will ensure patients in Adelaide receive state-of-the-art cancer treatment,” Mark Butler, Labor health shadow and member for the Adelaide seat of Hindmarsh tweeted Wednesday.

Which was what Social Services Minister Anne Rushton (a Liberal senator for SA) and Finance Minister Simon Birmingham (the same) said on a Wednesday visit to SAHMRI.

It’s part of a pattern. U Tas advises both sides agree that what the timber products industry needs is $100m for an innovation centre and that the Launceston campus, in the ultra-marginal seat of Bass, is the place for it (CMM May 4).

There’s an opportunity here for an education (or more likely) health spokesperson who thinks they are about to lose to promise really expensive kit for a university in so close a seat that the other side will immediately match it.