Meanwhile Melissa McIntosh doubles down on suggestion Liberals might need a ‘rebrand’ to win back voters. Follow today’s news live Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Chalmers defends house price forecasts The government has been facing some heat over the cooling house market around Australia with falling auction clearance rates, and forecasts that house prices in Sydney and Melbourne could fall more than $100,000. Auction clearance rates in Brisbane came up on the weekend, if you compare the preliminary numbers from the week before. They also came up in Adelaide. They came up nationally in aggregate, as I understand it. But in Sydney and Melbourne, we saw some softness there, that actually predated the budget announcements. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to replac