Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton are into the second week of their campaigns. Follow our rolling coverage here.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton are into the second week of their campaigns. Follow our rolling coverage here.
Both sides of politics are scrambling to find the magic number of 76 House of Representatives seats required to form a government.
To help understand the numbers game that will decide the election, let’s walk through the pathways to the three possible outcomes: an outright Coalition majority, an outright Labor majority and a minority government.
US President Donald Trump officially unleashed chaos on the world’s financial markets.
It’s a strange time to be campaigning for election, but Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton must adjust and carry on. So how is the incredible international volatility impacting the election campaign?
Will all this disruption be favourable for the incumbent PM?
For the full analysis tune into our podcast Inside Politics, as former Labor adviser Sean Kelly discusses this disruption and why Dutton’s working-from-home backflip was the right call.
Thanks for joining our coverage so far today, helmed by Olivia Ireland. I’m Caroline Schelle, and I’ll be steering the blog for the rest of the afternoon.
In case you need a refresher, here’s what happened earlier today:
- Dutton just held a press conference, where he said a recession would happen under a Labor government and the treasurer’s comments on rate cuts back that.
- A climate protester interrupted Albanese’s protest this morning, yelling about coal and gas investment.
- The Australian sharemarket opened higher this morning after yesterday’s bloodbath, as overnight US stocks careened after President Donald Trump threatened higher tariffs.
- The Greens are demanding the Reserve Bank hold an emergency board meeting to slash interest rates.
- Dutton and Albanese will formally launch their election campaigns with major set-piece events this Sunday.
- Dutton has denied ex-Liberal candidate for Whitlam Benjamin Britton’s claim that being pulled from the campaign was a factional “witch-hunt” after he had said women shouldn’t be in combat corps.
- And this evening, Albanese and Dutton will debate each other for the first time ahead of the election. We’ll bring you all the debate news live.
We are on the campaign trail with Dutton, who has held a press conference in Liverpool, Sydney. Here are some pictures.
Dutton denies he is avoiding nuclear sites and says there will not be a backflip on the policy.
“I’m certainly not [going to backflip],” he said.
“Our country deserves a better debate and frankly the prime minister should be up for it, but he’s not.
“[South Australian Premier] Peter Malinauskas certainly [strongly supports] the nuclear policy, as does [British PM] Keir Starmer, as does [former US president] Joe Biden and many others who have looked at the technology.
“I think it’s a very significant way in which we can reduce costs and decarbonise, and we can have reliable power in that way people will invest in our economy.”
Dutton has dismissed former Liberal candidate for Whitlam Ben Britton’s claims there was a factional witch-hunt to oust him from the party.
“There were a number of issues, not just those made public in relation to the candidate, and we took a decision to replace the candidate,” he said.
Before preselection, Britton had said women soldiers shouldn’t be in combat roles. More recently, he claimed Coalition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie shared his view, which Dutton said was not the case.
“I think you saw my record as defence minister in relation to women serving in any role they wanted to serve in the Australian Defence Force and that would be the position under any government I lead,” Dutton said.
“Andrew Hastie’s view is the same as mine.”
Dutton has made a cheeky remark about Daniel Andrews helping Albanese prepare ahead of the Sky News debate tonight, saying he hopes the former premier of Victoria is present tonight.
This masthead reported earlier Andrews is helping Albanese run lines before the debate.
“I hope that Daniel Andrews is out publicly with the prime minister if it’s good enough for him to tell the prime minister how he should run the debate on how we should run the economy and how good he did in Victoria … if there is a spare seat, why not Jacinta Allan,” he said.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers saying there could be rate cuts because of Trump’s tariffs means he knows a recession is coming, says Dutton.
“The treasurer of our country is talking about the prospect of a recession … coming very quickly,” Dutton said.
“That’s why he’s talking about a 50-point reduction in interest rates, unless he’s doing it for political reasons, but if he believes that it’s necessary to drop interest rates by 50 points in a month’s time, he’s telling Australians that there are difficult times ahead under Labor.”
Use our interactive map to find your electorate and candidates – and to help you see how close the 2025 federal election will be in your area.
Dutton says a recession will happen under Labor.
The first question is whether Australia is facing a recession, which Dutton answers quickly.
“It is under Labor. The government hasn’t prepared our economy. Labor has made decisions in subsequent budgets now which make it harder for the economy to function with international headwinds,” he said.
“We’ve seen with Labor governments at a state level, but previous Labor governments as well, there is always a desire to spend and then to tax.”