Federal election 2025: Peter Dutton's wayward football kick injures cameraman on election trail — as it happened

We're going to call it a day here on the ABC's federal election blog — the election news cycle has well and truly calmed down. (Famous last words, right?)

We'll be back tomorrow morning with more live coverage. In the meantime, you can check out the rest of our online election stories at our Australia Votes page — and why not try the ABC's Vote Compass tool to see how your views align with those of our largest political parties?

I'll leave you once again with this footage of the opposition leader hitting a cameraman with a football.

Have a wonderful evening.

Anthony Albanese sought to largely avoid politics during his visit to flood-affected parts of western Queensland, but a late-Friday declaration that the Port of Darwin would be returned to Australian hands made that impossible.

The PM wanted his visit to Longreach to be more about support for a disaster-hit community than winning any votes.

No-one would pretend Labor thinks it could win the electorate of Maranoa (it's the safest seat in the country, held by Nationals leader David Littleproud).

That said, shots in the news of the prime minister trudging through mud also won't hurt the campaign.

But today's press conference wasn't — and much of tonight's TV news stories won't be — about the floods. It was about the Port of Darwin.

Albanese was asked a few times why the port's Chinese owners were seemingly more of a problem now that at any point in the past three years.

He said he's had concerns since 2015, and while work has been done on the issue, this decision is now a "political" one.

As for how quickly he wants to see the port sold, he won't put a six-month timeframe on it like Peter Dutton.

He says there is still more to be said about the issue — and there are likely more questions to come too.

 The Coalition says it will reinstate the 80:20 federal funding model for nationally significant road projects in regional and remote Australia.

The change means the federal government would pick up the bill from the states for a greater share of regional road funding under the Coalition, potentially kickstarting a number of road projects that have stalled since Labor shifted the model to a 50:50 split for cost reasons.

Shadow Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development Minister Bridget McKenzie officially announced the policy — a long-held Coalition position — today in a joint release with Wannon MP and fellow Coalition frontbencher Dan Tehan.

McKenzie said the government's shift to a 50:50 model, which matches the funding model for urban roads, had seen more than $30 billion in regional infrastructure projects cut or delayed.

"The government ignored warnings from an independent review of federal road funding that scrapping the 80:20 funding formula would result in reduced investment in regional roads, and that is exactly what we have seen under Labor," she said.

"The majority of the national highway network runs through regional Australia, and Labor's cuts mean these critical freight routes will be denied the funding needed to maintain efficient, safe and productive supply chains."

Tehan said the Princes Highway and the Western Highway in his electorate had both seen a reduction in federal government funding since the shift.

"The Victorian state government will simply not fund the Princes Highway and the Western Highway properly if the Commonwealth reduces its contribution," he said.

The Chinese-owned company that leases Darwin Port has issued a statement after both the government and the opposition said they would seek to put the port back in Australian hands.

Landbridge non-executive director Terry O'Connor says neither Landbridge nor Darwin Port has been involved in any discussions with the federal government, opposition or Northern Territory government concerning the lease arrangement.

"As previously stated, the port is not for sale," O'Connor says.

"Landbridge is disappointed that we are being used as a political football in the current election campaign. We are a positive contributor to the Northern Territory economy, an active supporter of community events and employer of almost 100 Darwin-based employees.

"Landbridge considers the port a long-term investment that has grown significantly under Landbridge's ownership and has reported record operational performance this year.

"We expect this growth to continue in the future."

The assertion that Landbridge hasn't been involved in any discussions regarding its lease would appear to contradict the prime minister's comments earlier today that the company was aware of the government's concerns.

"That's just a fact," Albanese said.

"We have engaged with them and individual companies have reached out about whether a sale could be got."

It's fair to say there's a bit of confusion going around at the moment regarding the Coalition's working-from-home policy for the public service.

The Coalition first floated its plans to limit working from home in early March, when public service spokeswoman Jane Hume said it would be an "expectation" of a Coalition government that "all members of the APS work from the office five days a week".

While there would be some exceptions, she said at the time, "they will be made where they work for everyone, rather than be enforced on teams by an individual".

When questioned on the policy earlier today, Liberal leader Peter Dutton said he wasn't proposing changes to existing EBAs that include work-from-home arrangements, and was in fact "very happy" for there to be flexibility.

He then accused Labor of running a scare campaign aimed at women keen to preserve flexible working arrangements due to family commitments.

"Why do they want to scare women when the policy doesn't affect anybody except for public servants in Canberra?" he said.

Asked if he doesn't think there are women with children in the public service in Canberra, he said he was "very happy for flexibility in that workplace as well".

Still confused? ABC political reporter Maani Truu lays things out in a bit more detail in the story linked below.

The deadline to enrol to vote (or to update your address on an existing enrolment) is coming up fast.

In fact, it's this Monday, April 7.

The Australian Electoral Commision's digital engagement director, Evan Ekin-Smyth, appeared on ABC News earlier today to urge eligible voters to make sure they were enrolled and their details were up to date.

He says the AEC is estimating this election will be conducted using the most complete electoral roll in Australian history, with about 98 per cent of all eligible citizens enrolled to vote.

About 300,000 enrolment transactions have taken place since the prime minister called the election, he adds — most of which have been address updates, but there has been an uptick in new enrolments as well.

"It's a really easy process. You just go to aec.gov.au, it's a five-minute process. You need some form of identity, of course, but that can be a Medicare card, a drivers licence or a passport," he says.

"You can do it on your mobile phone, your tablet — so, please, we'd really encourage people because time is running out."

For overseas voters, the best option is to attend an overseas voting centre on election day, he adds, but if people can't manage that, there is a two-week early voting period that begins on Tuesday, April 22.

Postal voting is also an option.

The future of Australia's Same Job Same Pay laws under a Coalition government remains in doubt, despite Opposition Leader Peter Dutton saying "we're not going to" repeal them.

Business groups and big mining companies have previously lobbied hard against the workers protections legislated by the Albanese government in 2023.

Critics argue the laws unfairly force employers to pay inexperienced contract workers the same amount as workers with decades of knowledge and experience.

The Coalition promised a review of the industrial relations laws if it wins office.

But this week, Dutton told reporters a Coalition government would not repeal the controversial legislation.

You can read more via the link below

The Liberal campaign is wheels up from Darwin, readying to head to the next spot on the election campaign trail.

Peter Dutton spent the morning detailing his promise to negotiate the sale of the Port of Darwin from Chinese-owned Landbridge to a "trusted" operator.

His day also produced a likely campaign highlight after Dutton accidentally kicked a football into the head of a cameraman, causing a gash.

We toured the Palmerston Arena, where that happened, as well as a Careflight hangar — both with small funding commitments to upgrade those facilities.

Dutton also managed to squeeze in a morning refuel to spruik his 25c fuel excise cut.

Now it's onto the next place!

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt was in Brisbane earlier, sharpening the government's attacks on Peter Dutton's planned cuts to the public service.

He says the government's response to the western Queensland floods is proof of the need for a strong public sector.

"There's a view amongst some running in this election that public servants are a waste," he says.

"They are not a waste at all when you think about the important work that public sector workers do, whether it be recovering from floods or anything else.

"… right now, officers from the National Emergency Management Agency are coordinating the army getting out to help in the floods in western Queensland, the recovery efforts as well."

Watt makes the point that the Canberra-centric dialogue that sometimes accompanies discussion about the size of the bureaucracy is ignoring the thousands of public servants who live outside the capital.

"I think it's absolutely incredible that we enter this election campaign with Peter Dutton and the Coalition promising to cut 41,000 public servants from right across Australia," he says.

"We now know that if you break that down state by state, in Queensland alone, Peter Dutton will cut 5,500 public sector jobs from all around our state.

"Peter Dutton and his colleagues seem to labour under this misapprehension that all public servants are based in Canberra. Nothing could be further from the truth, especially in a decentralised state like Queensland."

Speaking of Boothby, Labor MP Louise Miller-Frost, who is defending the marginal South Australian seat, has pledged $12 million in funding for women’s sport facilities if the Albanese government is re-elected.

The funding package includes $5 million for South Adelaide Football Club and $3.5 million each for the Glenelg and Sturt football clubs.

All three clubs are located in Adelaide’s southern suburbs.

“This is a project that will enable the junior teams and the women’s teams to have top-grade facilities so that they can train throughout the year,” Miller-Frost said at a press conference at Glenelg Oval.

The investment would also support Seaview High School and Urrbrae Agricultural High School, Labor said.

Miller-Frost holds her seat on a roughly 3.3 per cent margin and is running against former Liberal MP Nicolle Flint.

Flint has also pledged $2 million for female football facilities at Seaview High School and Glenelg Football Club, as well as $2 million for Sturt Football Club and Urrbrae Agricultural High School.

In an election where every seat will count, South Australia has two that could help the major parties win or lose government.

Boothby, in Adelaide's south, is one of those.

Boothby has long been a marginal seat — it has affluent, largely Liberal voters along the coast and in the foothills, with a mortgage-belt strip of more Labor-inclined voters through the middle.

Despite its marginal footing, Boothby was held by the Liberal Party for decades.

That changed in 2022, when Labor took office and the party's candidate, Louise Miller-Frost took the seat.

You can read more via the link below. 

Returning to the opposition leader for the moment — he's been asked what he plans to do to make things right with the Channel 10 cameraman he nailed in the head with a football while campaigning in Darwin earlier today.

"We're going to do two things. One I thought that I could buy him a beer this afternoon, and second — I'm going to teach him how to mark, next time. Because it was up in the air, it wasn't just a drill, and I think he had plenty of time to take it," he says.

The opposition leader breaks character for a second to make it clear the cammo in question is in fact OK, and says: "He gave me a thumbs-up before."

Regular readers of the blog might recall that yesterday we reported polling firm Essential had determined most Australian voters would rather have a beer with Anthony Albanese than Dutton — by a pretty comprehensive 61 to 39 per cent margin.

No word on who voters would prefer marking lessons from.

If you're just tuning in, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has just wrapped his press conference in Longreach.

Here are the main points that were hit:

• Albanese announced more than $100 million in recovery funding for flood-hit communities in western Queensland;
• the prime minister was asked why he spent time travelling to one of the safest Coalition seats in the country;
• reporters asked a flurry of questions around the timing of Albanese's Darwin Port announcement;
• and the prime minister wouldn't be drawn on providing a price point for the Port of Darwin acquisition.

Both the Coalition and Labor are openly speaking about using compulsory acquisition to bring the Port of Darwin back into Australian hands.

The problem is, anyone who's seen The Castle knows that such an acquisition requires the landowner to be compensated "on just terms" — and that will likely mean a hefty bill for the taxpayer.

The PM, like Peter Dutton earlier this morning, refuses to be drawn on providing a figure that would make him reconsider the move, saying he doesn't want to undermine the government's commercial position.

"If you're going to an auction to buy a house, you don't say, 'This is how much I'm prepared to offer!' What you do is enter into commercial discussions," he says.

"Because we want to protect taxpayers. Not to just engage in speculation."

The back-and-forth on the issue also contains this slightly odd exchange:

Reporter: Peter Dutton says he contacted the Chinese ambassador prior to making his announcement. He claims you didn't. Did you have any conversations with China before?

Prime minister: Well, he's obviously got better connections with the Chinese ambassador. That's a very strange thing for him to say. I'll just leave that sitting there.

A reporter tells Anthony Albanese his political rival, Peter Dutton, expects to buy back the Port of Darwin within six months if he is elected.

Albanese is asked whether he can match that timeframe.

"That's just him talking on the run," Albanese says.

"This is the guy who sold it."

He refuses to be drawn on giving any dates despite multiple questions, citing "commercial issues".

"I'm not putting a timeframe on it."

The prime minister is asked to outline his plan for reclaiming Darwin Port, specifically, why he hasn't attempted it sooner.

Anthony Albanese says Labor opposed the lease when it was signed off in 2015.

"That was a direct result of the program introduced by the Abbott government in its 2014 budget of asset recycling, which provided an incentive for state and territory governments to flog off our assets, infrastructure assets.

"In this case, in April of 2016, the Commonwealth gave the Northern Territory government of the Country Liberal Party $19.5 million.

"A cash bonus for flogging off the Port of Darwin."

The prime minister says his government has been engaging with various stakeholders, and has had Treasury and Finance looking into the matter.

"I foreshadowed on Thursday, as you are aware, a future announcement about the Port of Darwin.

"We have a clear view, which is that it should be in Australian hands, and Peter Dutton was in the cabinet that sold it."

A reporter presses Albanese on the fact he has been in government for almost three years.

"What we did was established an inquiry and looked at those issues, and we have been engaging — we want to make sure that taxpayers' exposure is minimised— that's what you do as a responsible government."

The deficit is raised by the press pack, with one reporter asking why it no longer seems to be the case that if a government announces $70 billion  in spending commitments, it will then outline $70 billion in savings or revenue increases.

Instead, the government has announced just $2 billion in savings and reprioritisations, the reporter says.

The PM takes issue with the figures, pointing out that a range of spending commitments spoken about recently were accounted for in previous budgets.

He then launches into a spirited defence of the government's fiscal record.

"I remind you that we turned a $78 billion deficit into a $22 billion Labor surplus," he says.

"We then turned the next year — a deficit that was projected to be over $50 billion — we turned that into a surplus in excess of $15 billion.

"And this year, we have almost halved the deficit that was anticipated."

A reporter asks the PM what role he believes climate change has played in exacerbating the impact of the wild weather that has struck the region recently.

He responds, correctly, that you can't say whether any single extreme weather event is caused solely by climate change — but science has shown that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more intense.

"That is what we have seen play out, not just here in Australia but right around the world," he says.

We're onto the questions now.

First up, it's noted that Maranoa, the electorate Longreach is in, is one of the safest Coalition seats in the country.

Anthony Albanese is asked why he is in the region if it doesn't serve his political campaign. 

"I want to be the prime minister of all Australians," Albanese replies.

"I find it astonishing; I've read some reports saying we should just go to  marginal seats. One of the things I think has alienated Australians from mainstream political activity is that view."

He says his government does not look at a colour-coded spreadsheet to determine where infrastructure should go.

Longreach mayor Tony Rayner says the funding for exclusion fencing will "change the economic health of every town" in western Queensland.

"Those fences are more than just a fence around one property, they are a fence around every community in western Queensland and what that means is economic safety, health and mental health."