Federal election 2025 as it happened: Taylor, Hume release Coalition costings; More than a quarter of Australians have already voted

That’s where we’ll leave today’s federal election coverage. Thanks so much for reading.

To close up shop, here’s a look back at the key topics we covered in today’s blog.

• Both leaders crisscrossed the country as the pace of campaigning peaked. Anthony Albanese started his day in Perth, before heading back east to Adelaide. Meanwhile, Peter Dutton’s campaigning got underway in Brisbane, continued in Tasmania and finally converged with the PM in Adelaide.
• The Coalition’s costings revealed federal budget deficits would widen by $7.9 billion over the next two years before improving sharply in the final years of the decade.
• Chalmers lambasted the Coalition’s costing as a “joke”, “sham” and “con job”, suggesting the documents leave large holes, while criticising a proposed excise on vaping.
• Jane Hume confirmed voluntary redundancies are not a part of the Coalition’s plan to cut 41,000 public servants, despite senior Liberal James Paterson saying weeks ago they would be.
• At a Perth press conference this morning, Albanese said he would like to revisit truth in political advertising laws if he’s re-elected, and got into a heated exchange with journalists over questions about a homophobic outburst by a Labor MP’s father.
• Speaking in Brisbane this morning, Dutton denied that his office had recruited members of the Exclusive Brethren to volunteer, while accusing Labor of having “secret plans” to reintroduce the Voice.
• One in four Australians has already voted as the AEC issues a warning to campaigners amid various incidents of aggression and violence outside pre-polling centres.

The Supreme Court of Victoria has sided with the Liberal Party in its challenge against Boroondara council, finding the council cannot restrict the number of political signs outside a pre-polling booth in Kooyong on Friday.

Boroondara council officers confiscating signs in Kew.Credit: Rachael Dexter

Justice Kerri Judd today granted an injunction preventing the council from enforcing its permit system for A-frame signs or seizing signage from candidates or parties.

The order was sought by the Victorian division of the Liberal Party.

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

Albanese’s second campaign stop in Adelaide is in the marginal seat of Boothby.

Labor’s first-term MP Louise Miller-Frost won the seat after former Coalition MP Nicolle Flint retired in 2022, but this time Flint is back, the margin is a slender 3.3 per cent and Labor is desperate to hang onto the seat.

Albanese and Miller-Frost will be joined by Deputy PM Richard Marles and the wildly popular, Premier Peter Malinauskas, at a TAFE in Tonsley, in her seat of Boothby, which is training tradies.

It’s a safe bet that Labor will mention the fact it has made TAFE free, too.

The group will talk to a plumbing and carpentry class.

The leaders’ campaigns are converging in Adelaide, with Peter Dutton just touching down in the City of Churches.

He’s also jetting in to barrack for the two seats that are in play – Liberal-held Sturt on a wafer-thin 0.5 per cent margin and Labor-held Boothby, on a 3.3 per cent margin.

The opposition leader left Lyons in Tasmania, having visited 14 seats in his final-week campaign blitz, in which he plans to visit 28 electorates.

Arriving in South Australia from Perth, Albanese made a brief visit to a pre-poll station in the Liberal-held seat of Sturt in Adelaide.

The prime minister joined Labor’s candidate for Sturt, Claire Clutterham, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas at the Marden Shopping Centre.

Sturt is a blue-ribbon Liberal seat that was held by former senior minister Christopher Pyne until he retired in 2019.

His successor and former staffer, James Stevens, has a much lower profile and Labor has been talking up its chances in the seat for more than a year.

Clutterham is an accomplished lawyer and has been working the seat for months.

Sturt, as well as Boothby, where Albanese will soon appear for his next event alongside first-term MP Louise Miller-Frost, are considered to be the only two suburban seats in Adelaide that are in play.

The PM talks to volunteers.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

At the booth, Albanese spoke to a young woman who had just finished voting before talking to a group of Labor volunteers at the polling station.

They asked the PM to take a picture, and one of the girls said, “should I do a 0.5”, referencing a popular selfie setting among Gen Z.

The stop lasted about eight minutes.

While the election campaign has swung the momentum securely in Labor’s favour, you could have said the same thing in 2019, when Bill Shorten’s opposition confidently campaigned its way to defeat.

Asked about the confidence levels on the ground, Gallagher told ABC’s Afternoon Briefing that Labor had run a “good campaign”.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong, former prime minister Julia Gillard and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher at Labor’s campaign launch.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“It is very tight in lots of seats, but the Australian people decide on Saturday, we take nothing for granted and you’ll see all of us campaigning until 6pm Saturday [when polls close].”

But with polling all looking like a Labor win, is there a risk of complacency both within the party and in the electorate?

“I don’t think there is any complacency at all on the Labor side,” Gallagher said.

“We know how hard it is for Labor governments to win federally. We’re all very passionate about the work we have done over the last three years together with the Australian people, and all hopeful we can secure enough support to continue that work. The Australian people will decide.”

Gallagher criticised the Coalition’s accountability for the cost of its nuclear policy, after Taylor suggested it was sufficient to provide forecasts in the medium term.

“Look at what is happening around the world. In Hinkley, a [proposed] $35 billion nuclear reactor is over a decade late and costs $90 billion, and that is in [the UK] where there is an existing nuclear industry, which we don’t have here,” Gallagher said when asked if she believed the Coalition’s nuclear policy was achievable.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“I think it is laughable to suggest you don’t need much more investment over the short term, if you are actually going to build these nuclear reactors. They are either not committed to it or are hiding the numbers from people,” she continued.

Afternoon Briefing host Patricia Karvelas then raised Taylor’s claim that Labor hadn’t provided forecasts of how it would pay for things in the future, asking if it was reasonable that the Coalition had given a medium-term forecast.

“We aren’t suggesting taxpayers find a whole new energy system, which is what they are suggesting,” she replied.

“We accounted for our investment in energy in which they want to cut through their costings today, and we have been very clear about that, including with the role the private sector will play in investing in our renewable energy future.”

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher says there are “lots of problems” with the Coalition’s costings.

“It’s no surprise they released them on Thursday afternoon,” Gallagher told ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, referring to the proximity to Saturday’s election.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Treasurer Jim Chalmers watch the PM speak on Wednesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“There is a difference. When we were releasing our propositions, we were releasing policies with costings attached or included in that, and so we were being much more upfront than they have been prepared to be.”

Gallagher echoed Chalmers in saying the costings included higher taxes and savage cuts, before listing holes in the detailing on nuclear, APS, housing and energy.

“I think that is a real contrast between the responsible costings the treasurer and I put out on Monday.”

Taylor was asked if he would run for the leadership of the Liberal Party if the Coalition loses the election.

“I am running for treasurer,” he replied.

Pushed on what he would do if he wasn’t successful in this bid, and if he was willing to rule out a leadership bid, Taylor said he wouldn’t entertain scenarios.

“I’m doing one scenario. Singular, not plural. That is us winning and me becoming treasurer. That has been my goal for a long while.”

Peter Dutton (right) and Angus Taylor.Credit: James Brickwood

Speaking to ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Taylor explained the Coalition’s proposed excise on vaping a little further.

Asked if this was a new tax on Australians, Taylor said there was already a tax on vaping being set by criminals.

“There is already a big vaping tax being imposed on Australians by criminal organisations, criminal gangs,” Taylor said.

“We would rather have a properly regulated sector with a sensible tax from the government.”

Taylor said the policy was not new, stating that the Coalition had long supported a regulated vape sector. He confirmed the excise would be $1 per millilitre of vaping e-liquid.

“This is not something we young people adopting naturally,” Taylor said.