How Australia celebrated Easter with prayer, sport, chocolate and family time
It was a time for prayer or chocolate eggs, the beach and family, when the nation took the opportunity to relax and give thanks. And wisely, our leaders took a break from bareknuckled political campaigning.
Here’s a shoutout to all those people who didn’t get a break this Easter and won’t be taking annual leave to roll their days off into the Anzac Day long weekend.
We’re indebted to our police, ambos, hospital workers, garbos and footy players. Not so much to the federal election try-hards who kept at it when most of us were doing our level best to switch off from the voting that kicks off at pre-polling stations on Tuesday.
At least Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton read the room.
Easter 2025 was a time for prayer or chocolate eggs, the beach and family, kiting or kicking back, when the nation took the opportunity to relax and give thanks before the winter weather closes in.
It was not a time for bareknuckled political campaigning, which the Prime Minister and his opposite number wisely dialled down.
Mr Albanese spent Easter Sunday morning at mass and praising his other creed, the South Sydney Rabbitohs. He took Holy Communion at St Mary’s Cathedral, where he was once an altar boy, before confessing to Andrew Johns and the blokes on the Footy Show at Nine that he had had limited prospects as a “skinny kid” playing rugby league.
“Well, I wasn’t good enough to make it to your … level so I stopped at about under-16,” the PM joked. “But I loved it.”
He and fiancee Jodie Haydon went on to lunch with Greek Orthodox Archbishop Makarios Griniezakis and other members of that community in Sydney, in a nod to the matchup of Easter in the Christian and Orthodox calendars this year.
The Opposition Leader also played it low key, turning sausages in an Ipswich park in the Queensland seat of Blair, high on the blue team’s must-win list. Mr Dutton was flanked by his wife, Kirrily, and their six-year-old spoodle Ralph, as well as LNP candidate Carl Mutzelburg.
Delivering a brief Easter message to the waiting cameras, Mr Dutton kept the gloves firmly in place. “We live in the best country in the world,” he said. “And it’s on these public holidays that we come together and play a bit of sport or eat and drink together.”
Elsewhere, though, the campaign went on. Appearing on the ABC’s Insiders program, Greens leader Adam Bandt tied himself in verbal knots to avoid repeating a claim that the Israeli military was committing genocide in Gaza. And opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar did no better trying to explain why his investment properties weren’t negatively geared.
Churches were busy for Christians’ most joyous day of the year, celebrating the resurrection of Christ following sombre commemorations of the crucifixion on Good Friday. In his Easter pastoral letter, Australia’s newest Catholic cardinal, Mykola Bychok, urged the faithful to keep his war-ravaged homeland of Ukraine in their prayers.
“The war continues to bring devastation, pain and heartbreak,” he said. “Yet even here, in the shadow of the cross, we cling to the promise of the empty tomb.
“We live in hope that this unjust aggression will be brought to an end and that a lasting peace will be established.”
In the City of Churches, Anglican Primate and Archbishop of Adelaide Geoffrey Smith said Easter was a time of hope, “the sign of victory over death, the sign of victory over evil, the sign of victory over chaos,” he told the ABC. “It symbolises, really, an invasion – an invasion of light into darkness and good into evil.”
Melbourne became the city of laughter as the International Comedy Festival took centre stage in Federation Square, with a free Good Friday night show featuring a talented line-up including Josh Glanc, Nat Harris and Hannah Camilleri, Dane Simpson, Kirsty Webeck and, yes, Clara Cupcakes. Mr Bandt, taking a cue from DJ Albo, kept the groove going at a dance party in Brunswick East.
At the Adelaide International Kite Festival flying event, a rainy Easter Saturday gave way to blue skies, attracting big crowds to seaside Semaphore. A rainbow of brightly-coloured kites dived and darted high above the beach, delighting spectators.
And for a change, a politician was the toast of Bluesfest in Byron Bay, northern NSW, after the state’s Music Minister John Graham announced the iconic Easter event was among five struggling festivals to be offered financial lifelines by the state government. Prior to this intervention, Bluesfest 2025 was billed as the 35-year-old carnival’s swan song.
AFL and NRL games were packed across the weekend, although Mr Albanese’s beloved Rabbitohs were carved up in a 32-0 drubbing by the ladder-topping Canterbury Bulldogs in front of a record regular season rugby league crowd of 65,305 at Sydney’s former Olympic stadium.
On Monday, all eyes will be on 17-year-old sprint prodigy Gout Gout when he lines up in the clinching rounds of the nation’s richest footrace, the Stawell Gift, potentially facing off against arch rival Lachie Kennedy in the final.
But first he will have to negotiate the hurdle of drawing the short-priced favourite position in the semi-final. This means Gout will start off a mark of 1m against well-performed South Australian John Evans running from the advantageous mark of 9.5m.
Only winners of the six semi-finals progress to the Gift decider. Gout looked impressive in his heat, clocking 12.31 seconds, which ranked him as the 12th fastest qualifier into the penultimate round, with Evans’ 12.13 seconds the fastest time of all.
Additional reporting: Scott Gullan, Noah Yim
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