Federal election 2025 as it happened: Dutton’s son joins him on campaign trail again amid housing deposit questions; PM sets sights on third term

Thanks for joining our live election coverage today. This is where we’ll end today’s coverage.

To conclude, here’s a look back at the day’s major stories:

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in Melbourne this afternoon, where he deflected questions on whether he’d help his son with a house deposit as the opposition leader admitted he’d do it for his own son.
• Meanwhile, the opposition leader and prime minister responded to reports Vladimir Putin wants to use an Indonesian air force base for long-range aircraft.
• Peter Dutton lashed claims he was similar to US President Donald Trump as a slogan from a “desperate government”.
• Greens leader Adam Bandt announced an $11.6 billion plan to provide free school lunches nationwide.
• Liberals in the Victorian seats of Goldstein and Kooyong are preferencing One Nation ahead of the teals and Greens.
• And in the markets, the Australian sharemarket lifted as tariff jitters cool.

We will be back bright and early with the latest political developments.

This week our revered economics editor, Ross Gittins, wrote an essay in which he lamented the state of the election campaign in particular, and Australian politics in general.

The essay was titled “They treat us like mugs”, and he did not miss with his critique of the timidity and cynicism of the two major parties’ campaigns.

Gittins joins Jacqueline Maley in the studio to talk through his searing critique.

Tune in below:

Housing is front and centre of the election campaign this week as both major parties outline big policies.

Both sides recognise that voters have become fed up with a problem that has been gnawing away at the nation for decades. But Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have been careful not to suggest house prices will fall as a result of their plans.

Today, Coalition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar told ABC radio that in terms of house prices it was “unquestionable” that he wanted to see wages outstripping the growth in property prices.

There is plenty of good data on this particular issue – and it’s terrible reading if you want to buy a home.

Since 2000, wages in NSW and Victoria have grown by 107 per cent (as measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics).

Peter Dutton and opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar on Tuesday.Credit: James Brickwood

Over the same 24-year period, Sydney’s median house price has soared by 352 per cent to beyond the $1.4 million mark. In Melbourne, the median price has jumped by more than 330 per cent.

Both cities (along with Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth) are among the most expensive cities in the world.

At the turn of the century, a household needed about six times their average income to buy a median priced house in Sydney. It’s now beyond 10 times.

People have been forced to make up this difference between price and wages in a few different ways.

The average mortgage has expanded over the past 20 years. In 2005, the average NSW mortgage was just under $290,000. Now it’s $811,000. In Victoria, it has climbed from $253,000 to $635,000.

Banks have responded by increasing the length of time borrowers pay the mortgage back. At the turn of the century, the standard loan was 25 years. It’s now 30 years and a growing number of lenders offer even longer terms.

Potential buyers have also become increasingly reliant on the bank of mum and dad, which by some estimates is now the fifth or sixth-largest lender in the country.

Trying to bring wage and house price growth into alignment might be desirable.

But that’s not how this nation’s property market – or just about any other in the developed world – has worked for the past 25 years.

Dutton has lashed claims he is similar to US President Donald Trump as a slogan from a “desperate government”.

Speaking on ABC Afternoon Briefing, the opposition leader said this about the comparison:

It’s a campaigning slogan from a desperate government who wants to talk about anything but what they have done over the last three years.”

He said former prime minister John Howard was his biggest political influence.

“He ran a stable government, cleaned up a Labor mess, implemented the gun law reforms. I want to keep our country safe, make sure the economy is well managed. That’s my political influence.”

Staying with the opposition leader, who is being questioned about what the government should do if it has been confirmed Russia asked to base aircraft in Indonesia.

Dutton said the government needed to make clear it wasn’t in Australia’s security interests to have Russian assets “not too far from our border”.

“We don’t think it’s in the interests of stability within the region to have those assets based in Indonesia,” the Liberal leader said on ABC TV this afternoon.

He was also questioned about whether the previous Liberal government, which he was a part of, discussed the AUKUS submarine arrangement with Indonesia and other neighbours.

“We spoke to our counterparts in relation to the AUKUS deal before arrangements were made. There were details we were able to provide, some we weren’t,” Dutton said.

He said he had a conversation with his Indonesian counterpart about the situation in the Indo-Pacific and the need for Australia to have a proper defence.

“We had that conversation with Indonesia and with other countries as part of the engagement out of respect for the relationship.”

Peter Dutton has appeared on the ABC, speaking again about reports Russia asked Indonesia to base several long-range aircraft in the country.

Host Patricia Karvelas questioned the opposition leader on what he was criticising the government for, since it was seeking full details about the request.

Here’s what he told her:

If there was a functioning relationship with Indonesia, as there must be because Indonesia is an important ally and friend, we’d have been in contact at a departmental or ministerial level.

Penny Wong has set the standard very high in terms of what the engagement needs to be. And the expectation that she’s put upon others is that if there’s a decision that is taken without engagement, without some foreshadowing with the Australian government, that’s a catastrophic failure.

I think by her own standards Penny Wong has failed here.

Of course we don’t want Russian planes or other military assets in our region, based here. It’s not in our country’s best interests. It’s not in the best interests of South-East Asia, and Russia has demonstrated its capacities and President Putin’s standards in relation to the conflict with Ukraine.”

Peter Dutton’s decision to deploy his son Harry to front press conferences on housing this week shocked the opposition leader’s supporters, who have observed him guard his family’s privacy so closely there are no photos of his mother or father accessible online.

But the junior Dutton appeared at a press conference in Brisbane on Monday to testify to the difficulty of affording a house, where his father was unprepared for a question on whether he would help his children break into the market. Harry turned up again a day later at a town outside Melbourne.

Peter Dutton was accompanied by son Harry and Liberal housing spokesman Michael Sukkar on a visit to the Bacchus Marsh suburb of Maddingley, north of Melbourne, on Tuesday. Credit: James Brickwood

The decision to have Harry take centre stage on the campaign trail shows how eager the Dutton campaign is to soften the opposition leader’s image from that of a hard man politician to a dedicated father.

On Tuesday, Dutton conceded that he would one day give Harry financial assistance to buy a home.

“The prime minister and I might be able to help our kids, but it’s not about us, it’s about how we can help millions of Australians across generations realise the dream of home ownership like we did, like our parents and grandparents,” Dutton said.

Here’s the full story on the campaign.

The federal election campaign map of visits made by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reveals the daunting task for the challenger, who is working at a furious pace.

But the most revealing element of the campaign, which the leaders do not want you to know, is the marginal electorates where Dutton and Albanese do not show their faces.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have been crisscrossing the country to seek votes.Credit: Stephen Kiprillis

As J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote, “not all those who wander are lost”, and the political leaders have not missed these electoral battlegrounds by chance – it’s a strategic move to maximise the chances of victory in seats where the party believes the leader would be a drag on the local candidate’s chances.

Since the election campaign kicked off on March 28, Dutton has made 49 stops around the country, compared with Albanese’s 36.

Albanese is making only two, sometimes just one, visits a day as he seeks to minimise the risks of a damaging mishap while appealing to as many voters as possible.

Continue reading here.

In Queensland, the Electrical Trades Union is about to start directly targeting the opposition’s energy spokesman as it expands its advertising spending against Peter Dutton’s nuclear policy.

ETU national secretary Michael Wright said the union’s $2 million anti-nuclear campaign was about to launch in Ted O’Brien’s Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax, the seat once held by Clive Palmer.

The Electrical Trades Union expands its advertising spend against Peter Dutton’s nuclear policy.

“Mr O’Brien barely mentions nuclear when he’s asking locals for votes, so many people in Fairfax are not aware of the role their local representative played in cooking up this underpowered, overpriced plan,” he said.

“Australia needs new generation to keep the lights on today, in 2025. A nuclear power plan for 2045 is worse than useless – it is killing energy workers’ jobs.”

Wright said ETU members were already building Australia’s energy transition.

“But this plan kills 12,000 jobs in the transmission sector alone,” he said.

Earlier today, the prime minister was asked about whether he believed golf courses should be converted into homes.

In a long and rambling answer, he said Marrickville golf course would “be there for as long as I’m the local member and as long as there’s a Labor-controlled local council.”

And then he went down, as he described it, a “cavoodle hole”.

“Lewis the cavoodle holds his birthday parties there every year on the first green and fairway, every Sunday there is drinks on the first fairway ... It’s a real hub for the community ... I’m very pleased that the redistribution has put Royal Marrickville back in my ’hood, because it is an important part of the local community.”

So who’s this cavoodle, you ask?

Well, here’s the pooch in question, pictured earlier this month.