Thank you for joining us for another day on the campaign trail.
We’ll pause our live coverage for now, but we’ll be back bright and early tomorrow morning.
Here were today’s major developments:
- Dutton pledged to ditch what he says is a “badly designed” taxpayer-funded electric car subsidy. The announcement came after the Coalition faced questions about how it would fund a $21 billion increase in defence spending.
- Speaking of defence, Dutton travelled through Perth’s suburbs today and was joined by his defence spokesman, whom the prime minister has accused of being sidelined. Hastie said the Coalition supported women in frontline combat roles while defending his earlier, personal comments to the contrary.
- Speaking to ABC TV after that press conference, Hastie said he didn’t condemn his past comments because “people want honest answers and integrity” and he doesn’t “live for the applause” of his enemies.
- Albanese was also in Western Australia today. The PM visited a power station that is one of the Coalition’s proposed nuclear power sites. “He refuses to visit any of these sites,” Albanese said of Dutton.
- Not to be outdone, the federal energy minister declared that nuclear was the “dark lord” of policies. “The ‘Voldemort policy’ whose name cannot be mentioned by [the Coalition],” Bowen said.
- The Coalition’s health spokeswoman ruled out any cuts to Medicare, while the treasurer challenged the opposition to release its costings.
- A man in his 80s has been seriously injured during an alleged dispute over signage outside a polling booth in Albanese’s electorate of Grayndler in Sydney’s inner west.
- NSW Police are separately hunting for a Sydney election poster vandal.
- And more than half a million Australians have already cast their vote, according to the Australian Electoral Commission.