Voters offered ‘clear’ choice as election campaign begins

AUSTRALIANS have been asked to choose between their futures or more cuts as the prime minister fired the starting gun on an election campaign.

Voters will go to the polls on May 3, setting candidates up for a five-week campaign after Anthony Albanese asked the Governor-General to dissolve parliament on Friday morning.

In his opening pitch to Australians earlier today (Friday, March 28), the prime minister drew contrasts between his Labor Government’s policies and those of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

He urged voters to reflect on how his government had helped lay foundations for the future, ahead of a campaign destined to be dominated by cost-of-living issues.

“The world has thrown a lot at Australia in uncertain times – we cannot decide the challenges that we will face, but we can determine how we respond,” Mr Albanese told reporters in Canberra.

“Your vote has never been more important and your choice has never been more clear: this election is a choice between Labor’s plan to keep building or Peter Dutton’s promise to cut.

“The very best reason to be optimistic for our nation remains the courage, kindness and aspiration of all Australians.”

Mr Albanese will vie to be the first prime minister since John Howard to win back-to-back elections.

Cheaper medicines, a boost to Medicare and fair funding for all schools were all first-term achievements that showed Labor was working in the interests of all Australians, the prime minister said.

Mr Albanese also appeared to highlight similarities between Mr Dutton and US President Donald Trump, in reference to the opposition leader’s vow to slash public servant jobs.

“We live in the greatest country on earth, and we do not need to copy from any other nation to make Australia even better and stronger, we only need to trust in our values and back our people,” Mr Albanese said.

“Now is not the time for cutting and wrecking, for aiming low, punching down or looking back.

“The biggest risk to Australia’s future is going back to the failures of the past – the tax increases and cuts to services that Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party want to lock in.”

No party has been booted from government after one term for nearly a century, but Mr Dutton is hoping for a shift.

Mr Dutton has led the Coalition through three years of opposition to be within striking distance of the government.

While the election was expected to be held earlier in April, the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Alfred in Queensland and northern NSW meant the prime minister held off making an election call due to the natural disaster.

The delayed election call also led to the government handing down a budget, which unveiled tax cuts for all workers from July 2026.

Mr Dutton used his budget reply on Thursday to roll out a halving of the fuel excise for one year as a cost-of-living measure.

Announcing the election on Friday has allowed the government to steal the spotlight from the opposition’s budget reply.

Polls have shown a tight contest is on the cards, with a hung parliament looming as a likely outcome.

THE PRESENT HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

• Labor – 78 seats (including seat redistributions)
• Coalition – 57 seats (including vacant seats after retirement, former MPs who defected to crossbench and seat redistributions)
• Independents – nine seats
• Greens – four seats
• Katter’s Australian Party – one seat
• Centre Alliance – one seat

CHANGES SINCE THE 2022 ELECTION

• The Victorian seat of Higgins and the NSW seat of North Sydney have been abolished after a redistribution
• Western Australia has gained an electorate with the seat of Bullwinkel in Perth’s outskirts
• Nationals MP Andrew Gee left the party to become an independent, while coalition MP Russell Broadbent and Ian Goodenough also defected to the crossbench.
• The former Liberal safe seat of Aston fell to Labor at a 2023 by-election

HOW DO YOU WIN?

• 76 seats are needed in the House of Representatives for a party to form a majority government
• A net loss of just three seats will force Labor into minority and the party would need to negotiate with the crossbench to form a minority government
• The Coalition would need a net gain of 19 seats to govern in its own right, or a uniform swing of about 5.3 per cent
• Polls are forecasting a close contest and a hung parliament is likely. If neither party makes it to the requisite 76 seats, whichever party has the most would enter into negotiations with the crossbench first.
• A minority parliament would be the first since 2010 and only the third since 1943.

WHERE WILL THE PARTIES BE BASED?

Labor will have its campaign headquarters in Surry Hills in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, the same base it used for the 2022 election; while the Coalition has moved its election headquarters since the last poll from Brisbane to Parramatta in western Sydney.

 – WITH AAP