Federal election 2025 as it happened: ASX finishes up 4.5 per cent after Trump pauses most tariffs, but escalates trade war with China; Coalition’s climate target unclear after mixed messages

Thanks for reading today’s rolling coverage of the election campaign. This is where we’ll end our live updates. Join us early tomorrow as we bring you all the action from the election trail.

As you settle in for the evening, here’s a wrap of the headlines you need to know.

• Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume committed a future Coalition government to remaining in the Paris climate change deal, contradicting the party’s climate spokesman, Ted O’Brien.
• Opposition Leader Peter Dutton made three stops in Melbourne today, including a sixth petrol station visit since last Friday. His announcements included $15 million towards suicide prevention.
• The Coalition also promised to introduce two new future funds, the Future Generations Fund and the Regional Australia Future Fund, in a move designed to capitalise on Australia’s resources.
• The Future Generations Fund would help pay down debt and the Regional Australia Future Fund would pay for improvements to childcare and healthcare services.
• The Australian sharemarket delivered shareholders an almost $100 billion windfall on Thursday, trading sharply higher all day after US stocks soared to one of their best days in history as President Donald Trump said he would back off on most of his tariffs temporarily.
• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in Cairns, as his party makes a push to gain the seat of Leichhardt. Albanese pledged $10 million for the Great Barrier Reef.

In the fiercely contested Victorian electorates of Wannon and Monash, candidates are eyeing the ocean in their battle to win over voters.

These marginal seats cover much of Victoria’s coastline where offshore wind projects, undersea cable routes and seismic blasting for resources are among the big issues playing out in local campaigns.

The pristine beach at Waratah Bay. Offshore wind company Gippsland Skies had planned to explore a cable route at the beach.Credit: Justin McManus

In Monash, which takes in Phillip Island and stretches along much of the Gippsland coast, residents say the looming election helped defeat an offshore power company’s plan to explore a possible cable route through the pristine Waratah Bay near Wilsons Promontory.

The proposal sparked fierce community resistance. Some candidates for Monash also publicly voiced their opposition.

Read more here.

Tanya Plibersek has been campaigning everywhere this election, but she was nowhere when it counted most for her.

Labor’s environment minister was absent from Anthony Albanese’s caravan as it toured the Great Barrier Reef on Thursday, though her name was on the funding package the prime minister was there to announce.

As Albanese walked on a beach, did a live interview from a boat and held a press conference, complete with local fauna scurrying past, to spruik Labor’s package for the reef that its environment minister is closely tied to … there was no sign of Plibersek.

Read more here.

Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume has just committed a future Coalition government to remaining in the Paris climate change deal, contradicting the party’s climate spokesman, Ted O’Brien.

Earlier on Thursday, during a debate with Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen, O’Brien hedged his bets about Australia sticking with the emissions reduction deal if the opposition formed government.

Asked if Australia would leave the Paris Agreement, as the United States has done under President Donald Trump, O’Brien said: “I can commit that we will always act in the national interest, and we will be up front with the Australian people.”

Opposition Finance spokeswoman Jane Hume.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

But in an interview on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program, Hume had a very different message when asked about O’Brien’s comments and whether a Coalition government would remain signed up to the Paris deal.

“Yes. There is no doubt about that, but on Labor’s current trajectory the idea of cutting 43 per cent is an absolute fantasy and I think that’s exactly what it was Ted was alluding to,” she said.

“Labor’s policies are not working. They promised $275 off your energy bills, they failed to deliver it and they have no solutions.”

“That’s why the Coalition government has said we will inject more gas into the system in the short term and deliver in the longer term when those coal-fired power stations retire.”

Following the comment from Hume, O’Brien’s spokesman contacted this masthead to clarify the Coalition’s position.

“To be clear, we are committed to the Paris Agreement, including net zero by 2050,” O’Brien said.

“But under Labor’s trajectory, Australia’s chances of hitting the 43 per cent target by 2030 is pure fantasy. Unlike Labor, we’ll be upfront with Australians about how we assess these factors and how they shape our targets.”

Will the major parties achieve an outright majority or will crossbenchers be the kingmakers?

Voters are increasingly rejecting Labor and the Coalition’s duopoly by opting to vote for independents and minor parties. That makes the outcome harder to predict and increases the likelihood of a hung parliament.

Three ways to federal election victory 2025.Credit: Nathanael Scott

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.

Read more here.

The Australian sharemarket delivered shareholders an almost $100 billion windfall on Thursday, trading sharply higher all day after US stocks soared to one of their best days in history as President Donald Trump said he would back off on most of his tariffs temporarily.

The S&P/ASX 200 finished up 334.60 points, or 4.5 per cent, at 7709.60, lifting its market value by $99.5 billion.

The market spiked as much as 6 per cent in early trading and then levelled out from late morning, more than recouping its 1.8 per cent loss from Wednesday when the punishing tariffs kicked in.

All 11 industry sectors advanced, led by tech, mining and energy, which all ended up by more than 5 per cent.

The Australian dollar recovered from below US60¢ on Wednesday to trade at US62.01¢ shortly after the ASX closed.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is making his first petrol station stop in Melbourne. We’re in the suburb of Caulfield which is in the Labor-held electorate of Macnamara.

Yesterday was the first day this week that Dutton skipped what seemed by now to be an obligatory daily fuel-stop picture opportunity.

But he’s wrapping up the day with an appearance at the bowser with Victorian opposition leader Brad Battin. Former Liberal MP and candidate for the next-door seat of Goldstein, Tim Wilson, arrived with Dutton in a van.

As we’ve been reporting, the outer suburbs of Melbourne are a crucial path to a Coalition victory at next month’s election. The Liberals also think they’re in with a chance in the independent-held seat of Goldstein, where Wilson hopes to unseat teal MP Zoe Daniel.

Dutton’s backdrops this week have leaned heavily on fuel and industry — settings chosen to promote his two main policies, a 25 cent fuel excise cut and boosting domestic gas supply.

There have been six petrol station stops since last Friday, and two visits to suburban factories in the last two days.

Not strictly election coverage but noteworthy nonetheless.

“Unintelligible” allegations in a class action supported by Clive Palmer over claimed COVID-19 vaccine injuries have been thrown out of court.

The lawsuit, filed by three men on behalf of all Australians adversely affected by COVID-19 vaccines, seeks damages from the federal government, which approved the Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca jabs.

But trying to understand their case has proven difficult for the government and the Federal Court.

One of several Clive Palmer billboards in Melbourne.Credit: Eamon Gallagher

When the fifth iteration of the statement of claim came in the length of a large novel, Justice Anna Katzmann on Thursday grappled with whether to bin all 819 pages.

The document was accurately described by the class action’s own barrister as “tortuous”, Katzmann said.

Despite her grave doubts, the judge gave the trio one more chance to fix up their statement of claim.

She also knocked back an attempt by the federal government to have the plaintiffs tip in $312,000 as security to cover the government’s future legal costs.

Palmer’s company Mineralogy offered to stump up the security and also offered to provide “its personal promise” to the government in lieu of other forms of security, the court was told.

The former Palmer United Party MP, who once held the seat of Fairfax in Queensland, is spending big this election through his Trumpet of Patriots campaign, which includes giant billboards in Sydney and Melbourne.

AAP, Alex Crowe

Peter Dutton has promised $15 million towards suicide prevention, during a brief second stand-up in Melbourne, this time alongside shadow health minister Anne Ruston and Chisholm candidate Katie Allen.

An elected Coalition government would restore funding for the Suicide Prevention Research Fund that was cut under Labor, the opposition leader and shadow health minister said in a joint statement.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Liberal candidate Katie Allen (left) and shadow health minister Anne Ruston.Credit: James Brickwood

Dutton said the Coalition would reverse Labor’s mental health cuts to support Australia towards the goal of zero suicides.

“Sadly, too many Australians have been impacted by suicide. The Coalition is committed to working towards zero suicides in Australia because that is the only acceptable number,” he said.

A re-elected Albanese government has promised to invest $1 billion to provide free mental health services, including $225 million for 31 new and upgraded mental health centres and more than $200 million for youth mental health service headspace.

Lifeline 13 11 14

The biggest thing the Coalition would do for young renters is reduce immigration, shadow housing minister Michael Sukkar says, claiming renters are the “centrepiece” of its plan to cut migrant numbers.

“We know whether it’s international students, whether it’s the permanent migration program, whether it’s other visa classes, bringing more than a million people over the last two years has driven rents up by nearly 20 per cent,” Sukkar said.

“At the heart of a reduction to the Big Australia policy that Labor’s trying to progress is ultimately a policy to support renters, because the only way you can help them is to reduce the demand on the rental market.”

The Coalition has vowed to cap the number of international students at 240,000 – a figure that is 30,000 less than Labor proposed last year.

Peter Dutton said on Wednesday that he would cut net migration by a further 100,000 people than the budget forecasts if he won government.

Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Sukkar said the Coalition would get migration back to a sustainable level.

“If we do that, I think one of the biggest beneficiaries will be younger renters,” he said.