Federal election 2025 as it happened: Dutton’s bus gets stuck in Sydney, Albanese visits NSW Central Coast

Thanks for joining us on the campaign trail today. Here’s a recap of the major events:

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did a flash tour of NSW electorates, including Robertson, Fowler, Banks and Bennelong, while Peter Dutton visited Paterson and Robertson on the NSW Central Coast.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Finance Katy Gallagher released Labor’s election costings, revealing it has offset all of its enticements to voters through a new crackdown on the use of external consultants and a rise in student visa fees. Treasurer Jim Chalmers revealed an improvement of $1 billion over the forward estimates for the budget bottom line. Deficits will now come in at $150.5 billion.

Dutton said Welcome to Country ceremonies should be “reserved for significant events of our country”, but that they were not appropriate for Anzac Day services, citing conversations he had with veterans following the booing of two services over the long weekend.

Dutton described the Greens as an “antisemitic, Jew-hating party” in Fowler, deflecting from Liberal candidate Vivek Singha who apologised for social media posts from 2023 that described Indigenous Australians as “lazybugs”. Greens MP Adam Bandt responded, saying the comments were “reprehensible, offensive and utterly untrue”.

Both Labor and the Coalition committed $20 million to establish a new women’s and children’s trauma recovery centre in Robertson on the NSW Central Coast, a seat that takes in Gosford and would be central to the election result. The centre would be a frontline service to help women and children get crisis accommodation and support.

One of the world’s biggest credit rating agencies, S&P Global, put the major parties on notice that Australia could lose its AAA credit rating if their election promises resulted in larger budget deficits. Treasurer Jim Chalmers welcomed the agency’s scrutiny.

The media pack has arrived in Brisbane after a flash tour of NSW electorates, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will join later after an appearance on the ABC’s 7.30.

The key seats in Queensland include Dickson, held by Peter Dutton on a 1.7 per cent margin, which covers suburbs on the northern outskirts of Brisbane. Teal independent candidate Ellie Smith and Labor’s Ali France are contesting the seat.

And Leichhardt, which covers Cairns and the Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland. The Liberal MP, Warren Entsch, is retiring, and so Labor is hoping to scoop up the seat. The Liberals hold it with a margin of 3.4 per cent, with the race between the party’s Jeremy Neal and Labor candidate Matt Smith.

There is also a focus on three inner-city Greens seats, Ryan, Griffith and Brisbane, two of which were won from Labor in the last election.

In Brisbane, Greens MP Stephen Bates holds the seat with a 3.7 per cent margin, moderate former Liberal MP Trevor Evans is standing again, and Labor will throw everything at Griffith with candidate Renee Coffey hoping to win it from Greens housing spokesman and MP Max Chandler-Mather.

Want to know more about your electorate? Plug your address into our interactive to find out who your candidates are and all the details from the last election.

Across Australia, a lot of people have been asking the same question in recent days: “How did these politicians get my number?”

The avalanche of text messages from political candidates – especially Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots – has many people frustrated and concerned for their privacy.

Evan Ekin-Smith from the Australian Electoral Commission was on ABC Radio Melbourne earlier with a few details about why and how this happens.

Asked what rights candidates have to bombard us with text messages, Ekin-Smith said there were a lot.

“They’re exempt – political parties – from the Do Not Call Register in the Spam Act, which is actually legislation of ACMA (the Australian Communications and Media Authority) and any change would ultimately be a matter of parliament to make.

“If you’re getting a text message, of course, you consider that if you want to. You can also ignore it, but if you’re thinking about complaining to a regulator, it’s not regulated. There is freedom to send bulk texts.”

Ekin-Smith said it appeared impossible for people to block these texts via their phone settings.

Asked how they got the numbers, he said he couldn’t confirm whether political parties were buying the information from telemarketing companies.

Liberal senator James Paterson has called for an investigation into claims that a community organisation with historical links to the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign influence operation directed them to vote for the Member for Kooyong, Monique Ryan.

This masthead reported that a video had emerged of a woman saying the instruction came from Ji Jianmin, the president of the Hubei Association, an organisation representing people from the Chinese province that had been accused of working with the United Front Department – a Chinese government agency that advances CCP interests internationally.

In a statement, Ryan’s spokeswoman confirmed one of the volunteers signed up to campaign against Liberal opponent Amelia Hamer after an April 21 dinner organised by another group which Ji leads, but distanced the MP from Ji.

“On April 21st, Monique attended a community dinner hosted by the Hubei Chamber of Commerce, which Mr Ji Jianmin also attended,” the spokeswoman said. “Following the event, some attendees, including Stephen – one of the people in the video – signed up to volunteer. Monique has had no interaction with Stephen beyond being present at that dinner.

“Monique cannot confirm whether Jessica [the woman in the video] attended the dinner, and, to her knowledge, she has not met her.

“They are not personally known to her. She is aware that they have handed out flyers at a pre-poll location in Kew but has no knowledge of any further involvement in her campaign.”

Ryan acknowledged repeated interactions with Ji but said she had never met him privately nor been lobbied by him about policy. There is no suggestion she sought the group’s endorsement.

Paterson called for the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce to investigate the claims, adding that Australian elections must be decided by Australians only.

“If confirmed, this would constitute an act of foreign interference in our democracy,” Paterson said.

“The Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce, led by the Australian Electoral Commission and incorporating ASIO and the Australian Federal Police, must urgently investigate.”

You can read Paul Sakkal and Cindy Yin’s story here.

The AEC has advised that for anyone wanting to cast a postal vote who hasn’t applied to, it may be too late to do so.

Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope said even though the legislated deadline for postal vote applications was 6pm on April 30, it was difficult to service some people who applied that late.

“If you can vote in-person, that’s what you should do,” Mr Pope said.

“We’ve received more than 2.4 million applications so far. Clearly most people have listened to our messages, and we thank them for that – including the more than 550,000 people that have already returned their completed postal vote.”

Peter Dutton has executed a flying visit to the seat of Robertson to meet with Liberal contender Lucy Wicks, who is trying to win the seat back after her loss to Labor’s Gordon Reid at the 2022 election.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton visited South End Social cafe in Gosford in the division of Robertson with the Liberal candidate for Robertson Lucy Wicks where they met with working mothers.Credit: James Brickwood

The two politicians met with a local family for a prearranged photo opportunity, held in a Gosford cafe, where they chatted before the cameras about issues like energy prices and petrol excise cuts.

Dutton also met with representatives from the Central Coast Women’s Health Centre following his commitment today to provide $20 million to establish a domestic violence crisis centre.

The campaign bus now departs once again for Sydney.

It’s the election billed as the battle between Boomers and Zoomers. By most estimates, it’s the first time Gen Zs and Millennials outnumber their parents and grandparents as a voting bloc.

Clockwise: Jiya Patel, 19, seat of Chifley; Nikki Rossendell, 25, Wentworth; Mary Anne Yosef, 22, MacArthur; Grace Vegesana, 26, Chifley; Jonty Mirow, 20, Bennelong; Muskaanpreet Kaur, 19, Lindsay; Angus Cosgrove, 21, Parramatta; Matthew Guthrie, 23, Cunningham; Arseen Yonana, 24, McMahon; Charlotte Thorne, 22, Wentworth.Credit: Photos supplied / Digitally altered

The parties have attempted to tailor their social media pitches accordingly on issues that disproportionately affect young people: the cost of living, HECS debts and housing. A tide of social media memes, AI ads and several diss tracks have been met with varying levels of enthusiasm from their target audience.

Reporters Nick Newling and Penry Buckley spoke with 20 voters under 25 across Sydney to find out what matters most to them. You can read their report, and watch the videos here.

A dispute over signage between a Labor volunteer for Wills MP Peter Khalil and a Muslim Votes Matter volunteer at a pre-polling station in Brunswick in Victoria led to police being called and the activist being questioned by officers.

A Muslim Votes Matter sign in front of Brunswick’s Davies Street pre-polling booths.Credit: Clay Lucas

The dispute, along with an argument between minor party volunteers, prompted the Australian Electoral Commission on Saturday to note “physical and verbal violence” at the pre-polling booth and to warn candidates and their teams to treat each other with respect.

“There have been incidents of physical and verbal violence this week between campaign workers and between campaign workers and voters,” the AEC’s divisional returning officer for Wills, Ashley Walker, said in an email sent to all candidates late on Saturday night.

You can read more of Clay Lucas’s story and Victoria’s hot seat coverage here.

If you’re wondering how Anthony Albanese has been promising money for various promises throughout the election campaign, but the budget has got slightly better, welcome to the advantage of incumbency.

Details of the government’s costings reveal multiple promises that were squirrelled away in the pre-election budget but weren’t announced at the time.

For instance, almost $590 million has been promised for what the government calls “major and local community infrastructure”. Almost all of that was in the budget, just waiting to be deployed by Albanese and his candidates through the election campaign.

The government has also dipped into a couple of its off-budget hollow logs – the Building Early Education Fund and the Clean Energy Training Investment Fund – to cover the cost of some of its commitments.

By releasing the costings on Monday afternoon, which is relatively early for a sitting government, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has sought to put pressure on the Coalition to reveal all its fiscal dirty laundry.

It also suggests the government doesn’t have any last-minute, big-ticket items to woo voters through the final days of the campaign.