Election 2025 live: new pre-poll record as 542,000 Australians cast vote on first day; Hume calls teals ‘Greens in good shoes’
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You can find more granular breakdowns of the polling on our tracking page.
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Palmer releases new HTV card after alleged ‘hack’
We’ve got an update on the how-to-vote drama for Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots. First, a quick refresher:
Palmer’s new political outfit this week sparked confusion and anger in rightwing circles after encouraging supporters to number left-leaning, Climate 200-backed candidates second or third in several seats as part of a wider strategy to punish the major parties.
The party’s candidate in the Victorian seat of Flinders, Jason Smart, took the extraordinary step of telling voters to put him last on the ballot in protest against what he described as a “shocking and sinister”.
As the backlash raged, Palmer claimed – without evidence – that Trumpet of Patriots’ how-to-vote cards had been “interfered with” and he launched a full investigation. The party subsequently removed how-to-vote cards for 18 seats from its website while it updated its advice for supporters.
The new cards have now been uploaded, showing teal-esque candidates further down the recommended ballot paper in several seats. For example, in Flinders, the Climate 200-backed candidate, Ben Smith, has been dropped to fifth, which places him below Labor but above the Greens and Coalition.
In Monash, Trumpet of Patriots is now encouraging supporters to number Liberal turned independent Russell Broadbent second on the ballot rather than Climate 200-backed Deb Leonard, who has been dropped to eighth spot.
Curiously, there hasn’t been much of a change in Wannon, where former Triple J presenter Alex Dyson – who is also backed by Climate 200 – remains third on Trumpet of Patriots’ updated card.
Sarah Basford Canales
Dutton touring defence facility ahead of press conference
Peter Dutton has arrived at the warehouse, flanked by two of his children and some of his frontbench.
The opposition leader is looking at some of the company’s satellite technology before a press conference.
Dutton’s children, Bec and Tom, are here so clearly earlier press conferences with his other son, Harry, haven’t deterred from placing his family front and centre.
Michaelia Cash, his shadow attorney general, and Andrew Hastie, the shadow defence minister, have joined the visit this morning.
Sarah Basford Canales
Dutton visits Perth defence facility
Peter Dutton is in the inner-city Perth seat of Swan this morning, where he’s visiting a defence facility to spruik today’s opposition funding announcement.
Swan is held by Labor MP Zaneta Mascarenhas on a 12% two-party margin but is being challenged by the Liberal candidate, Mic Fels.
The Blacktree Technology warehouse in Perth’s Belmont holds a lot of satellite technology but there are only a few employees hanging around awaiting the opposition leader’s arrival.
Labor and Coalition shy away from thought of falling house prices
Housing affordability is at the centre of debate in this election, but both major parties haven’t said that they want house prices to actually drop, to help get young people in to the market.
The main phrasing we’ve heard is that the pollies want to see “sustainable growth”, but they won’t put a number on that, or say how soon that growth might become sustainable.
Our economics editor, Patrick Commins, has looked into this for us, and the answer is … not great.
Coalition nuclear scheme would cost Australia up to $5.2tn by 2050 – thinktank
The Coalition’s nuclear plan would cost the economy at least $4.3tn by 2050, according to analysis by thinktank Clean Energy Finance.
The independent group says it looked at the economic implications of the nuclear pathway modelled by Frontier Economics (which was commissioned by the Coalition).
It says the pathway would hollow out Australian industry and lead to higher total energy costs, more carbon pollution and a loss in GDP.
The group says these flow-on costs to the economy would accumulate to $4.3tn to $5.2tn. The biggest cost, they say, would be $3.5tn in cumulative undiscounted lost GDP to 2050.
The modelling by Frontier Economics found the nuclear plan would cost $331bn.
CEF director and report author Tim Buckley says the nuclear plan will lead to a “weaker” economy.
The largest share of the Frontier-modelled ‘savings’ in energy transition investment comes at the cost of delivering much weaker outcomes for Australia, including an assumption the Australian economy’s GDP is $300bn lower annually by 2051.
This represents an astonishing $3.5tn in cumulative GDP forgone.
Early voting eclipses last election as polls open
More than half a million voters have already handed in their ballots, according to the Australian Electoral Commission.
It beats pre-poll numbers back in 2022, when 310,000 people had put in their ballots on the first day of early voting.
The AEC also says they’re sending millions of postal vote ballots, with 2.39 million people applying for a postal vote with 2.2m packs distributed so far. They’re encouraging any Australians who still need a postal vote pack to apply this week.
Yesterday was a busy start to the voting period.
Nationally, around 542k votes were cast at early voting centres. This compares to 314k for day 1 in 2022.
Around 19k votes were cast with mobile voting teams & so far, approximately 2.2m postal votes have been distributed. pic.twitter.com/yzFWOp7DW2
— AEC ✏️ (@AusElectoralCom) April 22, 2025
Teals are ‘Greens in good shoes’ – Hume
Laura Jayes asks Jane Hume about what it means for the Coalition that many of the Teal independent candidates fighting in blue ribbon seats would have been in the Liberal party just a couple of years ago, and what that means for the trajectory of the party.
Hume co-wrote the Liberal review into the 2022 election, which found that the party was quickly losing support from Australian women and needed to preselect more women in winnable seats.
But Hume pushes back, saying none of the so-called teal independents would have been in her party.
I think that that is a convenient excuse of the teals, that they were disaffected Liberals. But they’re not. They’re simply greens in good shoes. Really, absolutely, you could not possibly say that Zoe Daniel was a Liberal…
They went into the last election with three abstract nouns as their campaign slogans: gender, integrity and climate. Well, if you’re serious about supporting climate, well, why would you not support a nuclear energy future with zero emissions?
Coalition to release election-pledge costings next week – Hume
Liberal frontbencher Jane Hume has promised the Coalition’s costings will come “next week” as the party is put under more pressure to reveal how it will pay for its multibillion-dollar promises.
Sky News host Laura Jayes is hammering Hume for details on what the Coalition will have to cut to pay for policies like the $21bn for defence promised today. Hume won’t budge.
On the issue of the 21 billion for defence, let’s face it, the most important responsibility of any government is to keep its citizens safe…
There is a concerted effort to go line by line through the budget as much as we can to see where that wasteful spending is occurring.
Chalmers challenges Coalition to identify cuts and trade-offs funding $21bn defence and nuclear plans
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is demanding answers from the Coalition to release their costings, after the opposition announced an increase in defence spending by $21bn.
We heard the shadow defence minister on the radio this morning, when asked how he will pay for this defence spending, say that there will always be trade-offs.
The problem is that the Coalition is not telling the Australian people where the cuts will come from to pay for their nuclear reactors, or where the trade-offs will come from when it comes to this defence spending that they have announced late in the campaign.
The treasurer is pushed by reporters on when Labor’s own costings will be released for some of the new announcements that have been made during the campaign. Chalmers remains coy on the timing.
Labor has said that a lot of their costings have already been budgeted for – either in the March budget or midyear update released in December. Chalmers adds:
We’ve only made about $5 billion or so of additional commitments since the Pefo (pre-election economic and fiscal outlook) that weren’t budgeted for in the budget. And so we will tally that up or reconcile that, and we’ll release that before long.
Pushed again for when we can expect those numbers, Chalmers says that “our costings will be released in plenty of time”, and then shifts the focus to the opposition, saying they still haven’t released their costings for the tax-free lunch policy.
Nationals MP accused of sidestepping Victorian constituents
Darren Chester had called for “conversation” around Peter Dutton’s nuclear policy, but several constituents say their attempts to raise concerns have been ignored.
The Victorian Nationals MP in a region earmarked for a nuclear reactor by Peter Dutton has failed to meet with key constituents and community groups despite calling for “conversation” on the issue.
The Loy Yang coal-fired power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, in Chester’s Gippsland electorate, is one of seven locations shortlisted for nuclear reactors under the energy policy the Coalition will take to the 3 May election.
You can read the full story by Benita Kolovos and Lisa Cox here:
Tradie qualifications to be accelerated under Labor pledge
Labor has announced $78m this morning to fast-track the qualifications of 6,000 tradies, continuing its focus on the housing crisis.
The government says the money will help experienced but “unqualified” workers get qualifications through additional training, and help them get recognition if they’ve done prior work.
Labor says it’s based on a similar and successful program in NSW, which has seen more than 1,200 students get their trade qualification in an average time of seven months, and they’ve cited research from Master Builders Australia that shows an extra 2.4 homes would be built each year for every new qualified tradie.
No doubt the PM will have more to say on this when he addresses the press this morning (perhaps even out the front of a housing construction site).
If you need a light recap of where things are at with just a week and a half left until polling day, I’ve got you covered.
You can have a little look back at what’s happened and what’s to come, here:
Anthony Albanese is in Sydney this morning following last nights leaders’ debate.
He made a quick stop in his own electorate of Grayndler at a women’s community health centre.
Meanwhile, Peter Dutton will be off to a slightly later start this morning, over in Perth.
Seems fitting to make the defence announcement in the west, which would base the Virginia class submarines.
Coalition defence boost to include new fighter jet squadron – Hastie
Earlier on during his interview with RN Breakfast, shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie laid out the Coalition’s new defence commitment.
To recap – the Coalition says it will spend $21bn to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP over the next five years, and then increase it to 3% of GDP over the next decade.
How will the money be spent? Hastie says it will go to an additional F-35 fighter squadron, which the Coalition announced last month, and to increase recruitment and retention in the defence force.
We need to build our general purpose frigates, and we’re going to boost sustainment, which has been run down under Labor as well.
The Coalition hasn’t said how this will be paid for, and promised costings will be released before the election (so within the next 10 days). Hastie says:
There will always be trade-offs when you’re making decisions of state…
But what price do we put on defence? And I think, with the growth of authoritarian powers, with the war in Ukraine, with the changes in the Indo-Pacific region, with the Trump administration moving deeper into an America First perspective and position, we need to be able to defend ourselves.
Coalition defence policy a ‘pathetic whimper’ – Marles
Richard Marles is continuing his scathing response to the Coalition’s defence pledge, appearing on all the morning shows and using mostly the same lines.
The deputy PM and defence minister accuses the opposition of having promised defence spending during their terms in government without budgeting it.
They were the ones when they were in government who gave us $42bn worth of defence announcements without putting a cent behind them. Literally a quarter of what defence was expected to procure, the Liberals had no money for, and when they did spend money, there were 28 different projects running a combined 97 years…
This [promise] is a pathetic whimper.
Coalition backs having women in ADF combat roles – Hastie
Shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie says he and the Coalition support women serving in combat roles in the defence force.
Hastie tells ABC RN Breakfast that he spoke to Australia’s secretary of the defence and the ADF chief and conveyed the Coalition supports that position.
Questions on the issue were raised when it was revealed the now disendorsed candidate Benjamin Britton had said women shouldn’t serve in combat roles.
Hastie had made similar remarks back in 2018.
This morning he said:
The Coalition has a strong position, and that is that all combat roles should be open to men and women. I signalled that to the secretary of defence, Mr Greg Moriarty, and the chief of defence force last week in my caretaker brief, as part of the caretaker conventions. They have a very clear picture of where the Coalition stands.
Pushed on whether this means women should meet the same physical standard as men, Hastie says:
It’s one standard for all the combat roles in the ADF [that] are open for men and women, and the Coalition will insist on one standard for all, which is fair and equitable.
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