Election 2025: Leaders begin campaign of fear for May 3 poll

Anthony Albanese has launched a 37-day trench-warfare battle with Peter Dutton and linked his rival’s policies with Donald Trump, as Mr Dutton sharpened his cost-of-living pitch by declaring ‘energy is the economy’.

The federal election has been called for May 3, with Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton vying to be the next prime minister.

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Anthony Albanese has launched a 37-day trench-warfare battle with Peter Dutton in dozens of marginal seats and immediately linked his rival’s policies with Donald Trump, as the Opposition Leader sharpened his cost-of-living pitch by declaring “energy is the ­economy”.

In an early sign the five-week campaign will be one of the ugliest and most negative in recent history, the Prime Minister attacked Mr Dutton for “cutting, wrecking, aiming low, punching down and looking back” after calling the election about 7am on Friday.

Ahead of the leaders beginning their campaigns in the battleground state of Queensland on Saturday morning, Mr Albanese declared he would win majority government at the May 3 election and pleaded with voters to stick with Labor “so we can keep building Australia’s future together”.

As ALP and Coalition campaign headquarters in Sydney kick into full gear, Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton are preparing policy blitzes in coming days, seeking to win the fight over energy prices, cost of ­living, housing, migration, defence and national security.

Anthony Albanese arrives at Government House early on Friday to meet Governor-General Sam Mostyn and advise a May 3 election. Picture: Getty Images

With the first week of the campaign punctuated by a Reserve Bank board meeting and Mr Trump’s “Liberation Day” next Thursday (AEDT), the Labor ­leader targeted Mr Dutton over proposed public service cuts after being asked if his opponent was “copying ideas from Donald Trump”.

As Labor abandons efforts to win reprieves from new reciprocal tariffs imposed by the White House, which could hit Australian pharmaceuticals and agricultural goods, Mr Albanese said: “Everything in Peter Dutton’s record tells us that he will start by cutting Medicare and he won’t stop there … he will cut everything except your taxes.”

Speaking in the Prime Minister’s courtyard ahead of the government entering caretaker mode, Mr Albanese said there was “a range of ideas that have been borrowed from others”.

“We need the Australian way. The Australian way is that we look after each other,” he said.

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Mr Dutton, who has pledged to cut migration and reduce public sector employment, which has grown by 41,000 since Labor won the 2022 election, said the Prime Minister was “too weak” and Labor “too incompetent to fix the problems that they’ve created and that are facing our country today”.

Peter Dutton starts his election campaign with a press conference at the Queensland LNP headquarters in Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Launching his campaign in the marginal Greens-held seat of Brisbane, which the Coalition and Labor are desperate to win, Mr Dutton said “the sledge-a-thon is on by the Prime Minister, because he doesn’t have a good story to tell about his three years in government”.

“If the Prime Minister had done really good things for our country, if people were better today than they were three years ago, he’d be talking about that plan – but of course he’s not,” Mr Dutton said.

“The trouble is that the Prime Minister has done a lot of damage to our country. He’s hurt a lot of people, and a lot of people are really under the pump financially at the moment, and it’s going to get worse if he’s re-elected.”

With Labor, the Coalition, Climate 200, Clive Palmer and the Greens amassing massive campaign warchests to fund attack ads, ALP and Liberal strategists believe the election result will end in a minority government and are bracing for historically low primary votes driven by disillusioned Australians shifting to minor parties and independents.

Facing criticism that both major parties are avoiding real economic reforms to drive growth, productivity and fiscal accountability, Mr Dutton said the election was a choice of “who can better manage our economy” and putting “Australians first”.

Amid growing animosity between the leaders and the rollout of big-spending attack ads, The Australian can reveal that negotiations between senior ALP and Coalition operatives over campaign debates have broken down.

ALP campaign chiefs want the famous “election worm” removed from debate formats and are holding firm that debates be conducted at the National Press Club and with the ABC.

In a letter obtained by The Australian that was sent by ­Coalition campaign director Andrew Hirst to ALP national secretary Paul Erickson on Friday, Mr Hirst asked his counterpart to finalise arrangements for campaign debates after not hearing back from a March 3 note. There were three leaders’ debates during the 2022 election campaign.

Mr Hirst is proposing four ­debates: with Sky News/The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, the Nine Network at an unidentified location, the Seven Network in Perth and the ABC in western Sydney.

The Australian understands Labor supports the principle of at least three debates but will not accept the use of the worm. The ALP wants the National Press Club to host a leaders’ debate and believes the ABC should host at least one of the debates but has not yet communicated this to the Coalition.

As Jim Chalmers ramps up pressure on opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor to engage in weekly debates, The Australian understands the Coalition is likely to accept at least two debates between the pair.

With opinion polls and betting markets indicating support for the Coalition is slipping, Mr Dutton faces a tough battle to win the more than 20 seats he requires to form a majority government.

Mr Albanese, who won a wafer-thin majority in 2022, is seeking to avoid plunging into minority government, with more than a dozen Labor seats at risk from Coalition and Greens candidates across the country.

Mr Albanese, Mr Dutton, Greens leader Adam Bandt and Nationals leader David Littleproud have prepared non-stop campaign blitzes of marginal and target seats, with the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader expected to spend most of their time in NSW, Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland.

Vulnerable Labor seats include Gilmore, Paterson, Bennelong, Richmond, Robertson, Reid and Dobell in NSW, Aston, Chisholm, Macnamara, Wills and McEwen in Victoria, Boothby in South Australia, Tangney and Hasluck in Western Australia, Lyons in Tasmania, and both Northern Territory electorates.

Coalition seats under threat from teal independents and Labor include Braddon and Bass in Tasmania, Wannon in regional Victoria, Cowper and Bradfield in NSW, Leichhardt in north Queensland and Sturt in Adelaide.

The Coalition must also win back the seats of Calare, Moore and Monash from crossbench defectors who are all running as independents alongside Climate 200-backed candidates. Greens seats under threat are Brisbane, Ryan and Griffith.