Federal election 2025 as it happened: Inflation figures higher than expected; More than four million Australians have voted

And that concludes today’s live coverage of the federal election campaign.

As campaigning reaches a frenetic pace in the final days before the poll, there’s plenty to catch up on.

Here are some of the highlights from today’s blog.

• The best inflation figures in a decade are poised to deliver home buyers a post-election cut in official interest rates, with more to come by Christmas.
• Treasurer Jim Chalmers told a press conference he was “really pleased” with the inflation figures, claiming they prove responsible economic management is a “defining feature of Albanese government”.
• Meanwhile, Peter Dutton continued his attacks on the media, joking that people shouldn’t watch the ABC on election night, before visiting his 15th petrol station of the campaign while promoting his cuts to the fuel excise.
• As the Coalition faces questions about its preferencing arrangement with One Nation, Senator James Paterson denied that a formal deal was done, while Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie said she was “very comfortable” with the preferencing order including One Nation in second position in some seats.
• In his address to the National Press Club, a tradition in the final week of the election campaign for both leaders, the prime minister criticised Dutton for his attacks on the media and his decision not to speak at the Canberra institution.
• While at the press club, the PM continued to resolutely deny he would do a deal with minor parties or independents to form a minority government, while also rebuking suggestions that Foreign Minister Penny Wong declared the Voice to parliament was inevitable.
• US President Donald Trump has confirmed he is aware the Australian government has been trying to contact him to discuss trade – and that he is yet to take Albanese’s call.
• Figures from the Australian Electoral Commission released this morning show more than 4 million people have lodged a pre-poll vote, with about 800,000 people casting a vote on Tuesday.

The distribution of antisemitic flyers by neo-Nazis imitating the Liberal Party has escalated in Melbourne, as it’s revealed members of the National Socialist Network appeared in person at voting booths in Kooyong, where they imitated Liberal volunteers.

This is the latest from The Age’s Rachael Dexter and Sherryn Groch:

Liberal candidate for Kooyong Amelia Hamer has slammed the appearance of Neo-nazis impersonating her party at a Kooyong pre-poll centre this afternoon.

Joel Davis, of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network, appeared on the campaign trail Wednesday afternoon in a T-shirt imitating Liberal Party branding, handing out the pamphlets to people waiting in line to vote.

The pamphlets were the same antisemitic flyers distributed in several Melbourne suburbs earlier today.

He was flanked by men in costume beards and fake Orthodox Jewish clothing, and brandishing larger versions of the pamphlets that were distributed to homes in Jewish neighbourhoods in Goldstein and Macnamara on Tuesday morning.”

Read more about this latest development in The Age’s Victoria hot seats blog here.

If the opposition leader’s worried ahead of election day, he’s doing his best not to show it.

Peter Dutton on the campaign trail today.Credit: James Brickwood

Peter Dutton was just on 3AW Melbourne radio where he was asked how confident he was for Saturday out of 10.

“I’m an eight,” he said.

Dutton said the Coalition had internal polling, which was showing different results to what was being widely reported.

“If you go through the individual seats you’ve got, you know, really hardworking local members. I think people know that if they’ve got a local champion like Katie Allen in Chisholm, they’ve got somebody who knows the electorate. She’s worked hard, she’s doorknocked. That doesn’t come up in the national polling, but it adds to the overall vote.”

The woman behind a video being probed by the AEC over claims of foreign interference has spoken out against the “weaponisation” of the footage by the media.

Australia’s election integrity watchdog, which includes intelligence agencies and federal police, has opened a probe into a social media video that shows volunteers for independent MP Monique Ryan saying they were directed to vote for her by organisations with historical ties to China’s foreign influence operation.

Tharini Rouwette, the political advocate who filmed the video, said in a statement that the video was meant to “encourage political participation among multicultural Australians”, but that the coverage from the media had resulted in “disproportionate scrutiny and harmful speculation”.

Rouwette continued that while she welcomed a fair and transparent investigation by the AEC, “we must not allow one incident to fuel hysteria or racialised suspicion”.

Her statement continued:

Many migrants – particularly from countries like China – come from authoritarian systems where political participation is discouraged or even punished. Of course they maintain ties to their country of origin: family, business and cultural bonds do not disappear upon migration. But to suggest that such connections automatically compromise their intentions or actions here in Australia is both dangerous and deeply unjust.

This moment calls for discernment, not panic.”

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie says she is “very comfortable with [the Coalition’s] preference arrangements”, which in some seats include preferencing Pauline Hanson’s One Nation second.

“We want to make sure that regional Australia has a prosperous, sustainable, and safe future, and we know that the Greens and the Labor Party are the biggest risks to that, and that is why we are very comfortable with our preference arrangements.”

McKenzie on the campaign trail with Peter Dutton.Credit: James Brickwood

In comments made to ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, McKenzie wouldn’t answer when asked if she thought One Nation was Islamophobic.

“I don’t know,” she replied, adding that it was a question for Pauline Hanson.

Asked how she could not know when Hanson came into parliament wearing a burqa, McKenzie said she “was sitting in the aisle” when that happened.

Senator Hanson wore a burqa into the Senate on Thursday, August 17, 2017. Credit: Andrew Meares

“Pauline Hanson can answer for her policies and her preferences, I’m very, very comfortable with our preferencing.”

Asked again if the Burqa stunt was offensive, McKenzie said she couldn’t comment on what people choose to wear.

“But if somebody walked into the parliament ... I don’t agree with what everyone chooses to wear ...”

Host Patricia Karvelas persisted, asking what McKenzie would say if someone came into parliament dressed to mock a Jewish person.

“People can wear what they like, we are in a free country,” McKenzie replied.

With key measures of inflation now falling within the Reserve Bank’s target range, the treasurer has cautiously weighed in on speculation that several interest rate cuts are forthcoming.

Speaking on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Chalmers was asked about his comments on the market’s “firm” expectations of rate cuts, replying that he made it clear that he wasn’t predicting decisions taken independently by the Reserve Bank.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“I was asked earlier today about market expectations of rate cuts and there is now an entrenched expectation amongst economists and amongst the market that there will be somewhere between four and five interest rate cuts this year, at the same time as the economy continues to grow,” Chalmers said.

“If that eventuates, then that would obviously deliver quite a substantial benefit to Australians with a mortgage, that’s what economists and the market is expecting ...”

Host Patricia Karvelas asks if Chalmers is saying, “stick with us and you’ll get your interest rate cuts”.

Chalmers responds: “I’m saying we’ve made progress on our watch. We’ve got that inflation down, we’ve got the real wages are, low unemployment, growth rebounding, interest rates have started to come down, we’ve been repairing the budget, getting the Liberal debt down.”

With polling suggesting support for One Nation is on the rise, the Coalition could stand to gain from preference flows in certain key seats.

But Paterson wouldn’t be drawn on the likelihood of this result when speaking to ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, noting that “no one knows” what will happen on election night.

“We are looking for primary votes, not preferences, and we hope to get enough of those to win enough seats around the country to govern in our own right,” he said.

Paterson denied speculation that the Coalition has done a preference deal with One Nation.

“Months ago Pauline Hanson publicly said that they will be putting the Greens last, the teals second-last, and Labor third-last, that was a decision they made independent of negotiations and discussions with the Liberal Party and their preferences are a matter for them, and they have decided to allocate them in that way and our preferences are a matter for us.”

Host Patricia Karvelas pushed Paterson on the point, asking why the Coalition would criticise Labor for preferencing the Greens, who they say are antisemitic, when they are referencing a party led by Pauline Hanson, who “has said many inflammatory things about the Islamic community”.

To that, Paterson replied that the difference was that Greens candidates had a genuine chance of securing lower house seats, whereas this was not a real possibility for any One Nation candidate.

After Canada’s left-wing Liberal government rode an anti-Trump sentiment to a turnaround electoral victory at the weekend, it’s been suggested that a similar phenomenon could benefit the Australian Labor government on Saturday, as voters look for continuity amid global uncertainty.

Senator James Paterson.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Liberal senator James Paterson, the Coalition’s campaign spokesperson, was asked to respond to this suggestion on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing.

“Well, the change that I think a lot of Australians are contemplating or worried about is a change to a re-elected Albanese government, but this time in minority, having to cobble together some kind of Coalition arrangement with the teals and the Greens,” Paterson said.

“That would be a change that would be very uncertain and dangerous.”

Paterson said the Coalition is offering strong leadership under Peter Dutton.

Making his 15th service station visit of the campaign, Coalition leader Peter Dutton stopped to fuel up at Scoresby, in the Aston electorate.

He rolled into the pumps with Liberal candidate Manny Cicchiello, who is challenging Labor MP Mary Doyle.

Labor claimed the seat in a 2023 byelection, after Liberal MP Alan Tudge resigned from parliament.

The visit ticked off electorate 11 of Dutton’s 28-seat final-week campaign blitz.

15th times a charm: Dutton drops by a petrol station in Scoresby. Credit: James Brickwood

Neo-Nazis have imitated the Liberal Party in fake election material, distributing antisemitic leaflets in Melbourne letterboxes days out from the election.

It’s the latest in a series of stunts on the campaign trail by the neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist Network, as they declare war on the Liberals as “traitors” and launch their own political ambitions.

The pamphlets, seen by this masthead and “authorised” by NSN figure Joel Davis, use Liberal branding, including the conservative party’s blue colour, as well as logos that have been edited so that the Israeli flag replaces the Australian one, in an imitation of genuine election campaign material.

“Our plan to give Jews everything they want”, they read, alongside a list of fake policies such as “abolish free speech” and “give Jews free money”.

The Zionist Federation of Australia said the leaflets were dropped in Macnamara and Goldstein – two Melbourne seats with large Jewish populations.

A Liberal Party spokesperson condemned the leaflets.

Read more in our Victoria’s hot seats blog here.