Federal election 2025 as it happened: Dutton’s son joins him on campaign trail again amid housing deposit questions; PM sets sights on third term

Thanks for joining our live election coverage today. This is where we’ll end today’s coverage.

To conclude, here’s a look back at the day’s major stories:

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in Melbourne this afternoon, where he deflected questions on whether he’d help his son with a house deposit as the opposition leader admitted he’d do it for his own son.
• Meanwhile, the opposition leader and prime minister responded to reports Vladimir Putin wants to use an Indonesian air force base for long-range aircraft.
• Peter Dutton lashed claims he was similar to US President Donald Trump as a slogan from a “desperate government”.
• Greens leader Adam Bandt announced an $11.6 billion plan to provide free school lunches nationwide.
• Liberals in the Victorian seats of Goldstein and Kooyong are preferencing One Nation ahead of the teals and Greens.
• And in the markets, the Australian sharemarket lifted as tariff jitters cool.

We will be back bright and early with the latest political developments.

This week our revered economics editor, Ross Gittins, wrote an essay in which he lamented the state of the election campaign in particular, and Australian politics in general.

The essay was titled “They treat us like mugs”, and he did not miss with his critique of the timidity and cynicism of the two major parties’ campaigns.

Gittins joins Jacqueline Maley in the studio to talk through his searing critique.

Tune in below:

Staying with the opposition leader, who is being questioned about what the government should do if it has been confirmed Russia asked to base aircraft in Indonesia.

Dutton said the government needed to make clear it wasn’t in Australia’s security interests to have Russian assets “not too far from our border”.

“We don’t think it’s in the interests of stability within the region to have those assets based in Indonesia,” the Liberal leader said on ABC TV this afternoon.

He was also questioned about whether the previous Liberal government, which he was a part of, discussed the AUKUS submarine arrangement with Indonesia and other neighbours.

“We spoke to our counterparts in relation to the AUKUS deal before arrangements were made. There were details we were able to provide, some we weren’t,” Dutton said.

He said he had a conversation with his Indonesian counterpart about the situation in the Indo-Pacific and the need for Australia to have a proper defence.

“We had that conversation with Indonesia and with other countries as part of the engagement out of respect for the relationship.”

Peter Dutton has appeared on the ABC, speaking again about reports Russia asked Indonesia to base several long-range aircraft in the country.

Host Patricia Karvelas questioned the opposition leader on what he was criticising the government for, since it was seeking full details about the request.

Here’s what he told her:

If there was a functioning relationship with Indonesia, as there must be because Indonesia is an important ally and friend, we’d have been in contact at a departmental or ministerial level.

Penny Wong has set the standard very high in terms of what the engagement needs to be. And the expectation that she’s put upon others is that if there’s a decision that is taken without engagement, without some foreshadowing with the Australian government, that’s a catastrophic failure.

I think by her own standards Penny Wong has failed here.

Of course we don’t want Russian planes or other military assets in our region, based here. It’s not in our country’s best interests. It’s not in the best interests of South-East Asia, and Russia has demonstrated its capacities and President Putin’s standards in relation to the conflict with Ukraine.”

The federal election campaign map of visits made by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reveals the daunting task for the challenger, who is working at a furious pace.

But the most revealing element of the campaign, which the leaders do not want you to know, is the marginal electorates where Dutton and Albanese do not show their faces.

As J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote, “not all those who wander are lost”, and the political leaders have not missed these electoral battlegrounds by chance – it’s a strategic move to maximise the chances of victory in seats where the party believes the leader would be a drag on the local candidate’s chances.

Since the election campaign kicked off on March 28, Dutton has made 49 stops around the country, compared with Albanese’s 36.

Albanese is making only two, sometimes just one, visits a day as he seeks to minimise the risks of a damaging mishap while appealing to as many voters as possible.

Continue reading here.

In Queensland, the Electrical Trades Union is about to start directly targeting the opposition’s energy spokesman as it expands its advertising spending against Peter Dutton’s nuclear policy.

ETU national secretary Michael Wright said the union’s $2 million anti-nuclear campaign was about to launch in Ted O’Brien’s Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax, the seat once held by Clive Palmer.

“Mr O’Brien barely mentions nuclear when he’s asking locals for votes, so many people in Fairfax are not aware of the role their local representative played in cooking up this underpowered, overpriced plan,” he said.

“Australia needs new generation to keep the lights on today, in 2025. A nuclear power plan for 2045 is worse than useless – it is killing energy workers’ jobs.”

Wright said ETU members were already building Australia’s energy transition.

“But this plan kills 12,000 jobs in the transmission sector alone,” he said.