Federal election 2025 LIVE updates: Leaders hit the campaign trail after PM announces May 3 election date

A climate protester has disrupted a Dutton campaign event at a Chinese restaurant, which is the second time today intruders have managed to find his location and heckle the opposition leader.
This time it was at an event in Moreton, just north of Brisbane.

Soon after Dutton arrived for lunch, a female protester from the Rising Tide group gate-crashed his event after posing as a member of the local media.

A similar breach happened earlier in the day at the XXXX brewery in inner-city Brisbane.

Campaign teams keep details of their events secret until the last moment to avoid such incidents.

Federal police on Thursday warned federal politicians to be careful about their safety during the campaign, as threats were on the rise.

That’s all for today’s blog. Thanks for joining us for Albanese and Dutton’s first full day on the campaign trail.

The rolling election blog will start up again early tomorrow morning.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has landed in Merimbula in the Labor electorate of Eden Monaro.

He is now travelling to Bega to make a local infrastructure announcement with Kristy McBain.

It’s day one, and the social media blunders have already started, with an independent MP caught replying to his own social media post while trying to impersonate a voter.

Independent MP Andrew Gee.Credit: Getty

Independent MP for Calare – which takes in Bathurst and Orange in NSW – Andrew Gee posted on Facebook yesterday to detail how a 79-year-old constituent had called up his office after receiving a phone call from someone purporting to be from the National Party about how Gee planned to direct preferences this election.

Gee, a National Party MP until leaving the party in 2022, stressed he had not made a decision on preferences.

The post received an emphatic reply: “Thank you Andrew Gee MP,” the reply said. “I am new to the area and have received multiple texts from the Nationals and seen nasty ads in the paper from the Teal mob, it has helped me see who is the good guy!”

But that reply was also authored by Andrew Gee’s account, almost certainly intended to have been sent from a different account by his social media team.

The reply has been deleted from Gee’s Facebook page, but the initial post that prompted it is still there.

A Climate 200 staffer has called for the boycott of Israeli businesses, as teal MPs worry that being linked with the progressive funding outfit that helped get them elected is now diminishing their brand by undermining their status as independents.

The contentious remarks from Climate 200 staffer Sean Marsh show the potential for teal MPs, particularly those representing electorates with large Jewish communities, to face unwanted scrutiny through their association with the fundraising powerhouse.

Climate 200 staffer Sean Marsh appears in some of the group’s most prominent social media posts.

Marsh, who appears in some of Climate 200’s most prominent social media posts and is a “creative strategist” for the organisation, said on Instagram in October 2024: “The horrors I’ve seen perpetrated on Palestinians, and now the Lebanese, will likely haunt me forever. I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau years ago. It changed me then, and this has changed me again.”

Later in the post, Marsh wrote: “I urge you all to boycott all Israeli businesses and write to your local MP demanding action. If they’re complicit, promise to never vote for them again #FreePalestine #FreeLebanon”.

Read the full story here.

Analysis: It’s significant that Peter Dutton has chosen to visit the Golden Lane Chinese restaurant for lunch and meet members of Brisbane’s local Chinese-Australian community on the first full day of the election campaign.

The Liberal Party suffered a backlash among Chinese-Australian voters at the 2022 election, and the party’s official post-election review identified rebuilding trust with Chinese Australians as a top priority for the party.

Peter Dutton sits down for lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Sunnybank.Credit: James Brickwood

Dutton has tried to soften his language on China by avoiding talk of a possible war and stressing the importance of trade ties between Australia and China – while still criticising Anthony Albanese regularly for being insufficiently critical of Beijing.

Peter Low, a leader of Brisbane’s Chinese-Australian community, told me the community had noticed the difference in rhetoric.

“Originally, a lot were against him because of his stance on China,” Low said, adding that the departure of Scott Morrison had helped improve relations. Dutton announced a Coalition government would provide an extra $225,000 for the Chinese Museum of Queensland.

Peter Dutton had pledged $225,000 towards the Chinese Museum of Queensland if the Coalition forms government.

The money will go towards helping the museum improve its website and to make a start on building a physical museum in Brisbane.

Dutton meeting the Chinese-Australian community in the electorate of Moreton in Brisbane.Credit: James Brickwood

He made the announcement from a Chinese restaurant in the seat of Moreton, in the southern suburbs of Brisbane, where the event was disrupted by a climate protester.

Census data from 2021 shows that 15.4 per cent of the population of the seat of Moreton reported having Chinese ancestry.

In their media appearances today, both Albanese and Dutton have been spending a lot of time reiterating their stances on a variety of issues, such as health, taxes, housing, energy and immigration.

If you’d like a succinct summary of where Labor and the Coalition stand on the key election issues, this graphic compiled by federal politics reporter Natassia Chrysanthos is a fantastic resource:

Time for a recap after a busy first morning of the campaign proper.

Albanese and Dutton have been out on the road … and both had the same thought and started off in Brisbane.

• Albanese’s first stop was in Dutton’s seat of Brisbane, attending an urgent care clinic in Murrumba Downs and spruiking the government’s health credentials. His press conference was interrupted by a heckler.
• Dutton was up next at the XXXX brewery – where he took to time to pour himself a beer – in the seat of Brisbane. A protester interrupted Dutton’s event, before he spoke more about the Coalition’s business plans.
• The Greens were also in Brisbane, where they are seeking to hold on to the three seats they won in the 2022 election.
• The leaders of the major parties then moved on to their second events for the day, Albanese in Bundaberg at the Bundaberg brewery and Peter Dutton at an afternoon tea in his seat of Dickson.

If you’ve been following the blog today you may have noticed a few graphics that display data on the margin, key candidates, voting history and demographic breakdown of particular seats.

We have this information for every electorate in Australia, and you can view data for your seat below. If you’re not sure what seat you’re in (particularly if there has been a redistribution in your area), you can also type in your address and it will find which electorate you are in.

Check it out below:

A lot of work went into this graphic to gather all the information and present it in a clear way – you may have noticed that there are seven names listed in the credits (mine included) because of the sheer amount of time and effort involved.