Hello readers. Welcome to today’s final election edition of Afternoon Update.
It’s Friday, the last full day day of the campaign, and after five weeks Labor and the Coalition are making their final appeals to voters ahead of polls opening on Saturday.
Anthony Albanese began the day in Brisbane, again appearing in Peter Dutton’s home seat of Dickson, where Labor are hoping to unseat the opposition leader.
The prime minister then jetted down to Tasmania to campaign in Braddon, a seat held by the Liberals on a safe margin. But with the incumbent MP Gavin Pearce retiring, senator Anne Urquhart has made the switch to become a lower house candidate to try to win the seat for Labor.
Meanwhile, Dutton began the day visiting a produce market in the seat of Makin in Adelaide, before flying to Western Australia to continue campaigning in Perth on Friday afternoon.
Here’s everything else you need to know.
Today’s big stories
Almost 7 million Australians had cast their votes by Friday, meaning of the roughly 18.1m registered voters, nearly 38% had made up their mind before polling day.
While polls predict Labor will be re-elected, Dutton has refused to write the Coalition off, noting pollsters similarly dismissed Scott Morrison’s chances days before he emphatically won in 2019.
Dutton’s pick to be treasurer in his government, Angus Taylor, also revealed a new element to the Coalition’s public sector job cuts, raising the prospect of staff being “migrated” across the country to fill roles in regional areas.
Elsewhere, freed activist Julian Assange has entered the election fray, endorsing Albanese. “The truth is, in what became an impressive field of advocates, Albo did more to secure my freedom than any other politician or public figure, even more than the late Pope, whose support was both moving and significant,” he said.
What they said
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“You do not read the entrails until you have gutted the chicken.”
This was how Jane Hume responded to questions about the future leadership of the Liberal party if Dutton exits after a Coalition loss on Saturday.
Hume insisted “we will be working for every vote up until six on election day”, echoing the Dutton’s defiant comments in the face of a slew of polls predicting his failure.
How social media saw it
It’s beginning to feel a lot like an election! As an army of amateur bakers and barbecuers across the country stock up on flour, icing and sausages, polling day can have a decidedly different feel at some of the early voting centres the Electoral Commission runs around the globe.
There’s a certain “je ne sais quoi” that Australians voting at the AEC centre in Paris will appreciate.
The big picture
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, wheeled out his giant novelty toothbrush yet again as he attempted to drum home one of his party’s key policies: adding dental to Medicare.
Bandt held the big red toothbrush and addressed the media before casting his vote at an early voting centre in Melbourne on Friday morning.
Watch
On the eve of Australia’s national poll to determine its next leader, two hunks of meat were dangled above a murky pool.
Attached to one line, a picture of Anthony Albanese; on the other, the man who would dethrone him, Peter Dutton.
In the water lurked a 36-year-old saltwater crocodile called Speckles. So whom did the gods of the tropical north ordain for electoral victory this Saturday?
And in other news …
Bakers are in a food fight over allegations of plagiarism – but who really owns a recipe?
‘World’s largest’ electric ship measuring 130 metres launched by Tasmanian boatbuilder
Victoria helicopter crash: three people rescued off coast near Melbourne
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: SEG. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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