Peter Dutton begins final stretch in Far North Queensland
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is kicking off the final seven days of the campaign in Far North Queensland, defending the seat of Leichhardt.
Popular LNP member Warren Entsch is retiring from politics leaving Labor hopeful it can flip the seat red next Saturday.
Entsch has held the seat since 1996, except for one term, in 2007, when he didn’t run.
That saw the seat change hands, before he returned to politics the next election and successfully got voted back in. All up, he’s been in the job for the best part of 30 years.
This is Dutton’s first visit to the electorate this campaign.
Running for the LNP is Jeremy Neal. In recent weeks, Neal has apologised for a series of old tweets that resurfaced, including one that reportedly claimed Victoria’s COVID-19 restrictions would have made fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proud.
Earlier in the campaign, Labor leader Anthony Albanese swung by to support his candidate, former basketballer Matt Smith. He also proposed a Great Barrier Reef school tourism scheme.
The reef is central to the economy and environment here in Cairns, but it continues to face the consequences of climate change and coral bleaching.
PM takes the election campaign to Victoria
With the Easter and Anzac Day holidays behind him, the prime minister’s campaign will step up a gear from today as Labor seeks to maintain its lead over the Coalition all the way to polling day.
In fact, a Labor staffer could be overheard warning journalists their “bums would barely hit a seat” for the next seven days.
Anthony Albanese will begin campaign day 29 in Victoria — it’s THE state to watch on election night and just happens to be the state that Labor is perhaps most nervous about.
Just look at state Labor’s near (political) death experience in the Werribee by-election earlier this year and you’ll see why they’re not taking this state for granted.
Federally, Labor holds 24 of 38 seats here but is facing threats from the Greens in inner-city seats and fending off Liberal challenges in electorates on the urban fringe (have you noticed how many times Peter Dutton’s visited the Labor-held seat of McEwan?)
While campaigning in Melbourne — one of the most culturally diverse cities in the country — Albanese will announce a funding boost of $25 million for Community Language Schools.
These schools provide out-of-hours classes for preschool and school-aged children to learn or maintain their mother tongue language.
👋 Good morning
Hi everyone and welcome to another day of the federal election campaign. Not much longer to go now until election day!
Anthony Albanese will begin the day in Victoria where the Labor campaign is expected to step a gear now that we’re seven days away from May 3.
Peter Dutton is expected to kick off the final stretch of the campaign in Far North Queensland.
I’m Josh Boscaini from the ABC’s Parliament House team here and ready to bring you all the latest election campaign updates.
