Hello readers. Welcome to today’s election edition of Afternoon Update.
With just a handful of days until election day, Peter Dutton abandoned a planned presser at a football club near Nowra on the New South Wales south coast. Trade union protesters had interrupted Dutton’s appearance dressed in hazmat suits and holding a fake Geiger counter, in an attack on the Coalition’s nuclear energy policy.
While Dutton did not take questions at the event in the electorate of Gilmore, which the former NSW transport minister Andrew Constance is trying to win for the Coalition, he did tour small businesses and community organisations across electorates in the region.
Dutton gave one of the shortest press conferences of his campaign in Moss Vale, barely getting beyond 15 minutes, when he faced questions about members of the Exclusive Brethren volunteering for the Coalition.
He also stumbled over a gotcha question about inflation, and refused to say when the Coalition would provide the costings for its election policies, after Labor released its costings on Monday.
Today’s big stories
Anthony Albanese began Tuesday with a string of appearances in electorates across Brisbane, including his second visit of the campaign to Bonner, a sign that Labor believes it can snatch the marginally held Liberal seat.
Elsewhere, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has referred to its integrity taskforce a video which showed two people wearing Monique Ryan T-shirts and saying a community organisation – which has historical links to the Chinese Communist party’s foreign interference operation – told them to vote for the teal MP.
Ryan said she had contacted the AEC and the Department of Parliamentary Services about the issue, and told them to investigate if there were any concerns.
What they said
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“I’m disappointed with anybody who doesn’t take the time to understand the importance of friendship, welcoming and acknowledging that you are part of the community and you’re being welcomed into somebody’s home country.”
The former Liberal minister Ken Wyatt issued a blunt rebuke to Peter Dutton and others who have been raising concerns about welcome to country ceremonies, during an interview on ABC radio.
Wyatt, who quit the Liberal party during the voice referendum over its stance, said politicians should “stay out of it”. “The political debate on this issue does not help with the harmony of this country,” he said.
How social media saw it
Social media has a tendency to bring out the childish in some, and it appears the Liberals’ latest online ad is appealing to that instinct.
Here, they have turned Albanese into a literal muppet, as they try to drum home the point that they believe his government has amounted to “a muppet show” in its three years in power.
The big picture
Keen followers of the prime minister’s campaign will have noticed he is on a two-day streak of posing for cameras holding babies and dogs.
Neither today’s dog nor baby could be contacted for comment on their thoughts for preferred PM, so we’ll let the face of Walter from Albo’s Tuesday tour of Sunnybank Market Square in the Brisbane electorate of Moreton do the talking.
Watch
With the fourth and final leaders’ debate over, we’re in the final sprint. More than 2.4 million Australians have already cast their vote, as the leaders try to squeeze in as many visits to electorates as they can.
And while the debate was, from the policy side of things, your usual fare, Dutton’s comments about welcome to country ceremonies were just one catalyst for a cavalcade of headlines today. Krishani Dhanji explains where things stand at the beginning of this frantic final week.
And in other news …
Erin Patterson no longer accused of attempting to kill husband as mushroom murders trial begins
ABC chair says email criticising staff for declining to interview comedian was ‘inappropriate’
Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy calls Putin’s offer of brief ceasefire ‘manipulation’
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: GRAD. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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