LIVE: Election 2025 – Why Peter Dutton believes the Coalition can still win the election despite grim poll results

The final Ipsos poll for Daily Mail Australia recorded what would represent record low primary votes for both major parties, if those sort of numbers play out tonight.

Ipsos gave the Coalition just 33 percent first preference votes, but the situation was even worse for Labor at just 28 percent.

Labor is still expected to win this election, in no small part because it gets the lion’s share of Green preferences, and the Ipsos poll gave the Greens 12 percent support.

The Ipsos two party vote can in at 51-49 percent in Labor’s favour, suggesting minority government is in the offing.

Labor won in 2022 with a record low primary vote, just 32.6 percent. Winning with 28 percent would be unthinkable if the Coalition’s support hadn’t also fallen dramatically, which it has.

So is this the end of the two party system? Will we see minor parties rise up to challenge the dominance of the major parties? No, or at least not for a while.

While independents and minor parties are doing well on first preferences, even having a preferential voting system helps keep the majors in power. And it looks like if anything there will be fewer crossbenchers represented in this coming parliament than the last one. Greens and perhaps teals look like losing seats, as well as other crossbench MPs.

The class of 2022 had more crossbenchers than ever before.

So the two party system, which has existed in Australia for more than 100 years, might not survive another hundred years, but it will certainly survive tonight, and probably for a few more electoral cycles to come.

I hear that the manager of government business in the House of Representatives – who is also the industrial relations minister – is very nervous about losing his seat of Watson to a local independent.

Burke has held the seat since switching from state politics to the federal sphere back in 2004.

Yep that’s right, he’s another lifer in parliament being paid by the taxpayer. Sigh….

Those close to Burke have passed on his fears of losing to us here at Daily Mail Australia, and he’s spent plenty of time (and money) campaigning locally, worried that a Muslim candidate running against him might be a problem.

That candidate is Dr Ziad Basyouny, a local doctor and community advocate running with the support of the grassroots Muslims Vote movement.

Labor holds Watson by a healthy 15.2 percent against the Liberals, based on what happened three years ago. But the Liberals aren’t the threat. The Dr is, and he should do better than the Libs ever have in Burke’s backyard (pardon the pun).

But I’m here to tell Tony to stop fretting, the taxpayers will continue to pay his wage for another three years at least.

That’s because the Liberals decided to preference Burke ahead of the local Dr, making it very hard for Basyouny to win the seat. He’ll do well, but not well enough to force an upset.

That leaves Burke to fight on, in a bid to fulfil his ambition to one day become PM. He sees himself as a future Labor leader. Not that voters currently agree. Our final Ipsos poll of the campaign asked voters who they think shouid take over from Albo when the PM steps aside. Penny Wong came first, Jim Chalmers was second. Albo frenemy Tanya Plibersek came in at third.

Burke was a little further back, only securing two percent support. But he’ll do better than that locally to be re-elected as the Member for Watson.

Behind the scenes Labor insiders are bullish about their chances of winning Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson.

The Brisbane suburban seat is held by the opposition leader’s on a slender margin of just 1.7 per cent, making it one of the most marginal Liberal held seats anywhere in the country.

Anthony Albanese visited the electorate on the final full day of campaigning during the week, but Labor have been bullish many times before and fallen short of kicking Dutton out of parliament.

While the opposition leader’s might have struggled with his popularity nationally during this campaign, he’s long been popular in his own electoral backyard.

But Dutton has been forced to spend most of the campaign elsewhere, trying to take votes off Labor in other marginal seats he hopes to win to form government.

Has that hurt his chances locally?

Read the full article here.

Neither Prime Minister Anthony Albanese nor Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will conduct any further public appearances ahead of their respective election night events.

After 36 days, countless campaign stops, thousands upon thousands of kilometres travelled, ballots cast, and final pitches made, all that’s left to do is wait.

While Dutton covered the most ground, the Prime Minister made the most stops.

Both criss-crossed the country several times but, given the election is widely expected to be determined in Sydney and Melbourne, the country’s two biggest cities attracted the most frequent visits from both candidates.

Dutton paid particular attention to the outer suburb seats the Coalition entered the race hoping to pick off from Labor – seats like McKewen in Melbourne, Werriwa in Sydney and Tangney in Perth.

Having stopped for photo opportunities at no fewer than fifteen petrol stations, Dutton’s fuel excise primed, outersuburban focus was clear.

Along with a one-off tax offset, it was the Coalition’s big-ticket cost-of-living measure in what many called a cost-of-living election.

But whether either managed to drown out Labor’s own tax cut and energy bill rebate offerings remains to be seen.

Albanese wasted no time shoring up support in marginal Labor seats like Boothby in Adelaide and Reid in Sydney, but he also took the offensive, making multiple visits to a number of LNP seats across the country.

Albanese’s campaign was more or less bookended by stops to Dutton’s home electorate of Dickson, taken by many as a sign of Labor’s confidence.

And while two-party-preferred polling suggests it may be well earned, the colour haunting the Prime Minister on election night may well not be blue.

Daily Mail Australia’s Political Editor Peter van Onselen has questioned if the Coalition can steal enough marginal seats to take away Labor’s majority.

Other seats closely watched will include those held by the Greens – think Moniqie Ryan in Queensland being targeted by the Liberals and Griffith (also in Queensland) being targeted by Labor) that the major parties want to win, alongside tight teal held seats the Liberals are desperate to win back.

Such as Curtin, Kooyong and Goldstein.

But if Labor can find a way to prise Coalition held seats off the opposition, the damage to its chances of taking away Labor’s majority are exponential.

The Coalition seats at risk of falling to Labor are Bonner in Brisbane, Sturt in Adelaide and Braddon in Tasmania.

Allegra are tight marginal contests.

The most at risk is Sturt, represented by James Stevens who took the seat over from Christopher Pyne when he retired two elections ago.

There are others Labor is targeting – such as Leichhardt and Bass, but if either of them are to fall all of the above three probably will too.

Independent Monique Ryan is seen casting her vote in Kooyong electorate

It was certainly no secret that Anthony Albanese had a terrible campaign back in 2022, but there is also no denying that he’s done well on the hustings this time around. Certainly better than Peter Dutton.

Why is that? For a start, getting one full campaign under your belt alongside three years in the chair as PM builds experience. The know-how not to mess up, as it were.

In contrast, this was Peter Dutton’s first campaign as a party leader, and it showed.

Three years ago Albo couldn’t remember the cash rate or the unemployment rate and often looked unsteady.

Labor’s best week on the campaign trail in 2022 was when Albo was stuck isolating at home with Covid. Those around him took over and did well.

It was different this time around. Labor’s campaign was presidential in style and as our Ipsos polls exclusively reported by Daily Mail Australia revealed, the PM was significantly more popular than Dutton.

By the end of the campaign an overwhelming majority of voters are convinced he’ll win, which Labor almost certainly will. Even if only as a minority government.

So yes, Albo was a campaign disaster three years ago, but he learnt from those mistakes and did much better in this campaign.

A Sydney public school polling booth has breathed new life into voting day food stalls with an election-themed bake sale.

Camdenville Public School in Newtown in Sydney’s inner-west has taken the time-honoured democracy sausage stall a step further.

From $4 slices of ‘Albanana Bread’ to $4 ‘Canberra Bubble Krispies’, Grayndler voters have been given countless reasons to show up and vote.

Special mentions go to the $2 ‘Jacqui Lamingtons’, foil-wrapped ‘Barnaby Joys’ and the suitably unpriced gingerbread ‘Affordable Housing’.

The largely intact $6 ‘Michaelia Cash Bounty Cake’ appeared not have caused too great a stir nor the largely untocuhed ‘Marles Bar Slice’ though the $2 ‘Dutton Cakes’ appear to have found at least one taker.

Voters will be relieved to find the ‘Make Almonds Great Again’ treats have been made gluten free.

Teal member for Kooyong Monique Ryan has been pooed on by a bird while talking to the ABC at Glenferrie Primary School in Melbourne.

In footage of the interview from outside a polling booth, the independent is seen looking up and asking the journalist ‘Was that a bird?’

‘It was a bird… it was coming out of the tree,” she said while looking at the poo on her hand.

Ryan beat then Treasurer Josh Frydenberg at the 2022 election and she said it would be ‘a really interesting evening’ as Australia’s next leader is decided.

The MP said she was feeling nervous and excited about the outcome.

‘No one knows obviously what the outcome will be,’ she said.

‘I don’t think we’re going to have a Liberal majority, I can’t see that happening. So we’ll have to see what happens.’

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has cast his vote alongside his wife and sons at a public school in his home electorate of Dickson.

Outside the Brisbane voting booth, the Liberal Party leader said he had been bouyed by his reception among voters today.

‘It’s been a very encouraging response today at election booths,’ he said, according to The Age.

Sons Harry and Tom and wife Kirilly watched on smiling as Mr Dutton cast his vote inside the school’s assembly hall.

The Opposition Leader opened the last day of his election campaign on the offensive, asking his followers on X this morning to consider whether their lives had been made better under the Albanese government.

Cost of living, immigration, crime, housing, energy, a slump in GP bulk-billing rates and rising antisemitism were just a few of the issues he chose to hammer home.

‘The difference between a bleak future and a better future comes down to common sense,’ he wrote.

‘This Saturday, I have every confidence that the common sense of Australians will elect a Coalition Government to get our country back on track.’

A democracy sausage is currently selling for $6 at Marrickville Public School in Anthony Albanese’s electorate of Grayndler in Sydney’s inner west.

A bacon and egg roll is $7.50 and a vegan sausage is $6.50.

Meanwhile, in the city’s eastern suburbs, a ‘Double Bay, Double Pay’ democracy sausage is priced at a steep $12.

Customers can also opt to donate towards a new ‘nature playspace’ under the menu item ‘Hey Big Spender’.

Other standout menu items include the $7 ‘Albacheesy’, identical to the Democracy Sausage but with cheese, and the ‘Pork Barrell’ bacon, egg and brioche combination.

The democracy sausage is expected to appear on menus outside over 1700 polling booths across the country today, bringing home an estimated $4million for community organisations.

Pictured is the queues for a democracy sausage at Marrickville Public School, in Anthony Albanese’s electorate of Grayndler on Saturday

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been pictured casting his vote alongside son Nathan and fiancé Jodie Haydon.

The trio stopped in to Marrickville West Public School on Saturday afternoon within the Labor leader’s home electorate of Grayndler in Sydney’s inner-west.

‘It’s my local booth, if we don’t win this booth, we’re in real trouble,’ he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

With a margin of 17.3 per cent, Grayndler is among the safest Labor seats in the country, but the Prime Minister was there to cast his vote like everyone else.

Besides, an image is worth a thousand votes.

The Labor leader reportedly asked for a Senate how-to-vote card before spending less than a minute villing out his ballot.

‘I voted for him,’ Nathan said standing alongside his father as the pair slipped their ballots into the green and white boxes.

The incumbent PM was all smiles on arriving to the school, where he was pictured chatting with volunteers and holding his dog Toto.

He will now head to the nearby suburb of Five Dock on his final stop of the campaign before the vote count starts rolling in.

Peter Dutton has been depicted as Donald Trump, with his signature hairstyle, on a campaign poster at a Melbourne polling booth.

The poster with the slogan ‘Put Dutton last’ was pictured outside a booth at Balwyn Primary School in the electorate of Kooyong on Saturday.

It comes after the Opposition Leader was accused of trying to transform Australia into America with Trump-inspired policies.

From anti-DEI sloganeering, cuts to the public service and a proposed Doge-style government efficiency drive, the comparisons were there to be drawn.

But the back half of the election campaign has been dominated by attempts by the Coalition Leader to distance himself from the US President.

It’s no wonder, given polling by the Australia Institute in February found Australians viewed Trump as a graver threat to world peace than Russian President Vladimir Putin or Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Pundits have drawn comparisons between the recent electoral victory of Canadian Prime Minister incumbent Mark Carney whose favourability sky-rocketed after taking a strong anti-Trump stance.

While Mr Dutton has made clear attempts to stand firm in support of Ukraine against the hostilities of President Trump, the Australian public clearly understood the ‘Temu-Trump’ line of attack was capable of drawing blood.

The well-heeled Sydney neighbourhood of Double Bay has long been jokingly referred to as ‘Double Bay, Double Pay’.

The local school has taken it one step further and is selling ‘Double Bay, Double Pay’ sausages today – they’re exactly the same as a $6 ‘Democracy Sausage’… but cost twice as much at $12.

Democracy has never come cheap.

If the $12 Double Bay, Double Pay sausage is not dear enough, customers can also opt to donate towards a new ‘nature playspace’ under the menu item ‘Hey Big Spender’.

Other standout menu items include the $7 ‘Albacheesy’, identical to the Democracy Sausage but with cheese and the ‘Pork Barrell’ bacon, egg and brioche combination.

With a median house price just shy of $7million and an average salary of $354,000, it’s difficult to imagine Double Bay residents will be lining up to order the sad ‘Cozzie Livs’ cost-of-living option which features only a snag in white bread.

The democracy sausage is expected to appear on menus outside over 1700 polling booths across the country today, bringing home an estimated $4million for community organisations.

If the Double Bay price point is prohibitive, hungry voters can find a more affordable option at democracysausage.org.

Peter Dutton remains confident Aussies will defy polling and push the Coalition over the line in today’s federal election.

Asked by reporters in Melbourne this morning whether he expected to secure victory, the Opposition Leader answered: ‘Absolutely, I do.’

Earlier, he told Nine’s Weekend Today program a grand final contender can’t afford to entertain the chances of failure.

‘You can’t go to the grand final talking like that. You can only talk about winning,’ he said.

‘I think there are a lot of quiet Australians out there who may not be telling their neighbours how they’re voting, but I think they’re going to go into the polling booth and say, you know what, I’m not going to reward Anthony Albanese for the last three years,’ he said.

Whether his certainty is genuine or an instance of game day posturing is not clear but one thing is for sure: the outcome is anything but guaranteed.

Polling would suggest the real money is to be made betting on the size of Labor’s victory, rather than the likelihoood of the victory itself.

But Mr Dutton knows better than to bet the house on opinion polls.

In an interview with ABC Radio on Friday morning, he suggested a repeat of Scott Morrison’s unlikely 2019 electoral win could be on the cards.

‘I think we’re seeing a 2019 situation, where you’ve got a lot of interesting contests playing on the ground,’ he said.

The Prime Minister also acknowledged on Friday the 2019 election demonstrated the ‘folly of pretending that you know the outcome of an election before the ballots are counted’.

Asked whether he feared a similar fate to then-Labor leader Bill Shorten, Mr Albanese said: ‘I certainly take nothing for granted.

‘I have a mountain to climb.’

A famous US social media influencer has called on Australians to vote against the Liberal Party after claiming it had blocked him before copying his unique style.

Ray William Johnson, 43, made the allegations in a video posted across his well-followed social media profiles on Saturday morning.

With a combined nearly 40million followers across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, the video has already attracted millions of views.

The influencer claimed his ‘style’ had been copied in a video posted to the Liberal Party’s official TikTok page on Friday captioned ‘This guy is in real trouble’,

‘It’s clearly a tribute to my video style, which is cool and flattering… However, this isn’t some regular TikToker,’ he said.

‘This video was made by the Liberal Party of Australia which, I had to look this up, they’re one of the major parties in Australian politics.’

Mr Johnson said things got ‘weird’ when he realised his account appeared to have been ‘pre-emptively’ blocked by the Liberal Party’s TikTok page.

‘What kind of government political party are you?’ he asked.

‘You know what, the next election you guys have, I hope you lose. I hope everyone goes out and votes for the other guy.’

The video has attracted thousands of comments, including one user who wrote: ‘The elections today. Well they lost my vote now.’

Another wrote: ‘I’m disappointed in my own country… deepest apologies from Australia.’

The Liberal Party of Australia has been contacted for comment.

Some Aussies have been waiting up to an hour and a half to cast their vote in today’s federal election.

Voters in the Docklands area of Melbourne’s CBD are waiting more than an hour to vote at The District shopping centre, according to reports from The Sydney Morning Herald.

Lord Mayor Nick Reece said the lack of pre-polling stations in the CBD was a ‘baffling decision’ that ‘goes against our democratic ethos’.

There was only one polling station opened in North Melbourne.

Older voters and people with access issues have reportedly been able to jump the queue and go straight to the front.

The extensive wait times are occurring despite a record number of people voting early before election day.

When early voting opened last Tuesday, about 542,000 people lined up and cast their vote compared with 314,000 on the first day of early voting ahead of the 2022 election.

By Monday afternoon, 2.95million Aussies already cast their vote out of the 18million enrolled to vote, according to the Australian Electoral Commission.

Peter Dutton’s Coalition needs to gain more than 20 seats to win today’s federal election.

He heads into the election with 54 seats and requires an extra 22 to reach the magic number of 76 required to form majority government.

The Coalition must pick up seats Labor holds by slim margins including Bennelong which is held by Labor’s Jerome Laxale, but is notionally a Liberal seat after redistribution.

Gilmore on the NSW South Coast is another must-win seat after it was the closest seat in the country last time and the Coalition has the well-known candidate in Andrew Constance.

Lyons in Tasmania and Lingiari, which covers most of the Northern Territory, are also big targets for Mr Dutton.

Tagney (2.85 per cent), Paterson (2.6 per cent) and Hunter (4.78 per cent) are the other marginal seats the Coalition have identified as crucial wins.

If it wins five of those seven seats it will make nearly a quarter of the ground it needs for a majority government.

Mr Dutton wants to chart a course back to government through Australia’s outer suburbs.

“All I want to do is to make sure that we don’t forget about those in the suburbs, and I do think they are the forgotten people,” he said in 2022.

There’s also a number of seats in Victoria which Mr Dutton and the Coalition will be eying off.

Bruce (5.31 per cent margin), Holt (7.11 per cent), and Hawke (7.62 per cent) as well as Chisholm (3.33 per cent) and McEwen (3.82 per cent), are Victorian seats the Coalition will be trying to flip in their favour.

Independent MP for Calare Andrew Gee has slammed the NSW Liberal Party over its alleged decision to expel his elderly mum from supporting him at a polling booth.

Mr Gee, a former Nationals MP, said his mother had received a letter from the Liberal Party advising her she had been expelled from the party after being pictured assisting her son at a polling booth in Orange.

‘Today, my mum was expelled from the Liberal Party for helping me out on a polling booth in Orange. They sent her a letter after somebody took a photo and sent it to them,’ he wrote on Facebook.

‘They have a general election tomorrow and they have time to send my mum (who is in her eighties) an expulsion letter. Wow. You can’t make it up.’

The letter, dated May 2, said the expulsion had been made pursuant to the party’s constitution.

‘I have been made aware of your public support and assistance of the independent candidate for the House of Representatives Electoral District of Calare, Andrew Gee, against the endorsed candidate for the Nationals – NSW, the Division’s Coalition partner,’ state director Chris Stone wrote.

Attached was a photo of Ms Gee along with a statement her behaviour was likely to result in ‘damage to the reputation of the Division or the Organisation’.

It added her conduct could reduce the ‘Division’s or Organisation’s prospects of success at the upcoming federal election’.

Ms Gee was informed she had the right to appeal the decision with the state council.

Her son has held the seat of Calare since 2016, first representing the Nationals before standing as an independent.

It is understood he left the party to oppose its stance on the Voice referendum.

Independent MP Andrew Gee is pictured

Ms Gee is pictured at a polling booth in Orange

Anthony Albanese said Peter Dutton was a ‘good family man’ when asked by Sunrise host Monique Wright to say ‘one good thing about your opponent’.

‘I get on very well with Kirilly. Kirilly has been by his side during the campaign as well. It’s tough on families… and Peter is clearly very close to his, and that’s a good thing,’ he told the breakfast program on Sarturday.

‘We don’t take this personally, but we have very different views about the country.

‘We have different values and that comes out in an election campaign. But isn’t it good that in a democracy tonight, whoever wins, the person conceding will make a phone call and we’ll have a peaceful transition?

‘That doesn’t happen in every country.

‘That’s something that Australians should be really proud of.

‘We are a strong democracy.’

Peter Dutton and his wife Kirilly are pictured.

Anthony Albanese and his fiancée Jodie Haydon are pictured on Saturday.

Anthony Albanese was quick to correct ABC News host Dan Bourchier during a discussion about the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Bourchier questioned the Prime Minister, who started his day at the MCG on Saturday, over Labor’s commitment to implementing the statement.

‘No, Dan, I will correct you there,’ Mr Albanese interrupted.

‘I will correct you there because you and I have discussed this issue many times. The idea that that came out on election night is, of course, absurd.

‘That is just spin from the other side.

‘I committed to that in the 2019 campaign.

‘The entire time I was Opposition Leader. Every time I gave an acknowledgement of country… we put that to the Australian people and that was a missed opportunity.’

Mr Albanese said his party had accepted the defeat of the Voice but was still committed to practical reconciliation.

‘I think it’s outrageous, frankly, that those opposite have tried to run a scare campaign on this during the election,’ he said.

‘It beggars belief, but then again, if you can walk out on an apology, as Peter Dutton did, then that says a lot about your character.’

Anthony Albanese is seen at the MCG on Saturday, election day morning

Peter Dutton has urged voters not to lose hope, claiming there are many ‘quiet Australians’ not reflected in last-minute Labor-positive polling.

The final Newspoll of the federal election campaign released on Friday night put Labor well ahead of the Coalition on a two-party-preferred basis at 52.5 and 47.5 per cent, respectively.

Mr Dutton told voters not to underestimate the share of ‘quiet’ voters holding out hope for the Coalition.

‘We’ve got a united team, and I think there are a lot of quiet Australians out there who may not be telling their neighbours how they’re voting, but I think they’re going to go into the polling booth and say, you know what, I’m not going to reward Anthony Albanese for the last three years,’ he told Nine’s Weekend Today this morning.

‘And I think the other mob can manage the economy more effectively, can keep us safe in a really uncertain time, and can try to bring the crime rates down in our local suburbs as well. I think they’re all, you know, the thoughts that are going through people’s minds at the moment.’

While Labor was no doubt heartened to know it was well out ahead as the prime candidate to secure government, the polling gave it reason to fear it might not be doing so in majority.

The combined share of the primary vote held by both major parties has dropped to a record low as voters increasingly look towards minor parties and independents.

At the last federal election, battered by the so-called ‘teal wave’, the major parties secured a combined 68.3 per cent of the primary vote.

If the latest Newspoll prediction holds true, their share will have dropped to 67 per cent – with a three per cent gain in primary share vote for One Nation and two per cent for The Greens.

The two minor parties are on track to secure 13 per cent and eight per cent of the primary vote, respectively.

Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots and the teals are expected to account for a further 12 per cent combined.

Voting is now underway in all but one state as Australians line up to make their pick for the next prime minister.

A record number of Australians had already cast their votes before polls opened at 8am across the country but the results won’t start showing until 6pm.

According to the Australian Electoral Commission, 6.7million Australians had cast their ballots at pre-polls before polling booths officially opened at 8am this morning.

Another 1.6million had already submitted a postal vote, bringing the share of early voters to about 40 per cent.

With all major opinion polls pointing to a Labor victory, the question most punters will be asking is whether Albanese has plead his case for a majority government.

Most recent polling suggests that, while Labor has managed to elbow its way to two-party-preferred dominance, its primary vote share has been diluted by independents.

Mr Dutton meanwhile has referred to the polling against him as overly-pessimistic, urging voters to remain open-minded.

Both leaders began their days in Melbourne – the city and its surrounds in which many punters expected the election to be decided.

Later in the day, Albanese will cast his vote in his home seat of Grayndler along with his fiance Jodie and dog, Toto.

The Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, meanwhile, began his day in the safe Labor seat of Macnamara in Melbourne’s south.

Despite a healthy 12.2 per cent margin, the Coalition is looking for an upset after Labor revealed it would preference the Liberal candidate ahead of the Greens in the seat.