Federal election 2025 LIVE updates: Dutton predicts 2019-style Coalition win; nearly 7 million votes already cast
Pinned post from 3.00pm
Afternoon wrap: What has happened so far today
By Lachlan Abbott
Good afternoon.
Thanks for your company on the final day of campaigning before election day.
Here's what has happened so far:
The PM started the day in Queensland, but was in Tasmania early this afternoon to spruik the campaign of Anne Urquhart, a Labor senator who is running for the safe Liberal seat of Braddon.
Dutton has flown from Adelaide to Perth, where he held a press conference in the marginal electorate of Tangney and attacked Anthony Albanese for price rises over the past three years.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange broke his silence to endorse a second term for Albanese and praised the PM's efforts to secure his release from prison.
Adam Bandt voted early in Melbourne today. The Greens leader pledged to 'push Labor to act' and said his party was aiming to pick up five new seats.
6.08pm
In pictures: Heckler interrupts PM's final campaign stop
A heckler yelled at the prime minister as he campaigned in Carrum Downs. See the pictures below.
The suburbs that could swing Dutton or Albanese to power
Kangaroo Valley is a picture postcard piece of NSW. Surrounded by forests and waterfalls, it attracts visitors with its collection of antique dealers and cafes from nearby Sydney most weekends.
But the 600 or so voters of Kangaroo Valley will be pivotal in the battle for the ultra-marginal seat of Gilmore where sitting member, Labor's Fiona Phillips, is trying to fend off the Liberal Party's Andrew Constance.
What sets apart Kangaroo Valley residents is that, unlike much of Gilmore, which stretches along the NSW South Coast, support for Phillips has grown sharply over the past two elections.
Phillips won Gilmore by just 373 votes last election, with that support in Kangaroo Valley proving critical.
The community is an example of suburb or small population in many of the nation's 150 electorates that could dictate Saturday's poll.
5.51pm
Far-right agitators turn up at bayside Melbourne voting booth
By Sherryn Groch and Cara Waters
Far-right agitators have turned up at pre-poll voting centre in Melbourne, setting up loudspeakers directly across the road from the polling station.
Outside a booth in Brighton this evening, the men displayed a sign that said National Workers Alliance and played loud music before speaking out against Liberal candidate Tim Wilson and incumbent teal MP Zoe Daniel, who they said had failed to debate them.
Police officers were seen speaking to the men, who packed up after about an hour.
One of the men was Matt Trihey, who gatecrashed a Kooyong candidates forum earlier in the campaign and began yelling about immigration.
Trihey and his self-described 'nationalist' group, the National Workers Alliance, often hosts events frequented by neo-Nazis, though Trihey has previously denied being a neo-Nazi himself.
5.39pm
Watch: Dutton changes rhetoric towards PM
Our reporter Mike Foley is following Peter Dutton around Western Australia today as the Coalition makes a final push for votes.
Watch his analysis of the Liberal leader's change in rhetoric below.
5.29pm
Dutton travels to 19th electorate in last week of campaigning
Back in Perth, Peter Dutton's busy day continues.
He has lobbed into Pearce, northern Perth, where the Liberals are hoping to win the seat that Labor won by a fat 8.8 per cent margin in 2022.
Former state MP Jan Norberger is challenging Labor MP Tracey Roberts.
This is seat 19 of Dutton's last week of campaigning. He had set himself a target to visit up to 28 electorates.
5.24pm
The election outcome ASX investors don't want to see
By Jessica Yun
How much does a federal election campaign affect the Australian sharemarket? Not that much, but a minority government would, according to a senior economist and a billion-dollar fund manager.
AMP chief economist Shane Oliver and Ten Cap co-founder and lead portfolio manager Jun Bei Liu both told this masthead that there was not enough difference between Labor and Coalition governments to significantly shake the market on either outcome.
'If we have a minority government, then it becomes difficult. Nothing gets done. This probably would be the worst-case scenario,' said Liu. 'No policy gets done, then businesses don't want to spend, then obviously you have the confidence hit.'
Investors see the differences between the two main parties as 'quite minor', with Trump's tariffs to remain the dominant factor moving markets, said Oliver.
'If the Coalition were to win the market, you might see a slight positive reaction, because the Coalition [is seen as] more business-friendly than the Labor Party. But I think it would be trivial in the grand scheme of things.'
On the eve of the federal election, the Australian sharemarket capped off the week on a high note, finishing 1.1 per cent higher as local and global investors cheered China's announcement that it was evaluating a request from the US to open trade talks.
5.15pm
Protester gives PM an almighty spray in Melbourne
By Millie Muroi
A protester has just launched a profanity-laden spray at Albanese as he arrived at a polling booth in Melbourne's south-east.
Shortly after the PM walked towards the entrance of the polling booth in Carrum Downs, a woman approached and yelled at him about his mental health policies.
Screaming out profanities, the woman continued yelling as Albanese was swarmed by Labor and Liberal volunteers holding placards.
'20 sessions we used to get!' the person said, referring to the mental health sessions available under Medicare.
'Now we get 10! Where's the help for mental health? What about my teenage daughter?'
Albanese was swiftly escorted away as the shouting continued.
When asked by reporters if she was a Liberal volunteer, the woman said 'no comment'.
Earlier, in response to someone calling out to her suggesting she was a Liberal volunteer, the protester said she was acting, in this instance, as a constituent.
5.07pm
PM says he won't legislate Voice
The PM has repeatedly said he was committed to delivering practical reforms to ensure a better future for Indigenous Australians after the Voice referendum defeat, while Dutton has continued to claim Albanese had a secret plan to legislate the Voice if he won the election.
'Just a simple yes or no, will you legislate a Voice to parliament?' Afternoon Briefing host Patricia Karvelas asked the PM.
'No,' he said.
Asked what his message was to Indigenous Australians who had felt hurt being discussed this week, often without taking part in the conversation, he said:
'Indigenous Australians met at Uluru in 2017 and they determined they wanted a constitutional recognition through a Voice. They didn't ask for a Voice to parliament to be legislated because there have been at least three different Indigenous advisory bodies to government that have been abolished with the stroke of a pen . .. I honoured that request from First Nations people by putting it to the Australian people, it was not successful. The Australian people had their say, I respect that.'
Pressed further to answer the question directly, he said:
'That I respect them and I want to engage with them in practical reconciliation, in closing the gap, in housing, in economic empowerment, in health, in education ... We are putting in place many of those measures. '
5.01pm
Albanese gets stuck in traffic after landing in Melbourne
Even the PM, in the home stretch of an election campaign, cannot cut through traffic.
Anthony Albanese touched down in Victoria late this afternoon, but was forced to make a detour while winding through Melbourne's suburbs.
After landing in his fifth state in two days, he was driven to the Labor seat of Dunkley, held by MP Jodie Belyea on a margin of 6.8 per cent.
The prime minister had earlier planned to visit the marginal Labor electorate of Aston which is held on a slim margin of 3.6 per cent by Labor MP Mary Doyle.
Albanese and the travelling media pack instead drove directly to the suburb of Carrum Downs where, flanked by the local member, the prime minister popped into a pre-poll booth buzzing with dozens of volunteers from both major parties and a line of voters snaking around the building.
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