Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“Ready to go?”

Audio excerpt — Camera crew:

“Yep. Are you?”

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“You bet. Born ready. My fellow Australians, this morning I visited the Governor-General, and Her Excellency has accepted my advice that an election be held on Saturday 3 May 2025.”

DANIEL:

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s re-election pitch is stark and singular, warning of cuts and chaos under a government led by Peter Dutton.

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“This election is a choice between Labor's plan to keep building or Peter Dutton's promise to cut. That is the choice. That is your choice. Your job, your wages, your child's education and, importantly as well, this thing here, your Medicare card. They're all in your hands.”

DANIEL:

For Peter Dutton, it’s a question of whether Australians are better off now than they were before.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“Australians have built their lives and our country on the belief that if you work hard you can get ahead and build a better future for your children. However right now, Australia is going backwards.”

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DANIEL:

The Opposition Leader has made a lot of promises about the cost of living, housing and immigration but with scant detail.

From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James. This is 7am.

Today, special correspondent for The Saturday Paper Jason Koutsoukis, on your choice at the election and whether having a winning personality matters for either leader over the next five weeks.

It’s Saturday, March 29.

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DANIEL:

Jason, thanks so much for speaking with us. What did you make of the Prime Minister's speech and what did it tell us about how he wants to fight this election?

JASON:

Well, the Prime Minister talked about how Australia is turning the corner - he's talking about the economy there. That inflation has come down from nearly 7 per cent to around 2.5 per cent over the last three years.

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“Today, because of all the hard work that Australians have done, inflation is down, real wages are up, unemployment is low, interest rates are falling and we're cutting taxpayers…”

JASON:

And I think the biggest moment of his press conference was when he pulled out his Medicare card and, of course, he was also able to relate that to his mother and the sort of care that she'd been able to receive courtesy of Medicare and he got quite emotional there. He teared up.

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“As an invalid pensioner, she got taken up the road after having an aneurysm and she never left RPA, but she got the same care that Kerry Packer got. They’re the Australian values, that’s what I’ll fight for.”

JASON:

He talked about the energy relief measure that the government has introduced to take $150 a year off people's power bills. And then he, sort of, compared all of that to the chaotic, dysfunctional Morrison government.

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“Less than three years ago, the chaotic and dysfunctional Morrison government left bulk-billing in free fall, aged-care in crisis and the NDIS at breaking point. A decade of the Liberals keeping wages low, sending jobs offshore and fighting about climate change, left our nation open to the worst global inflation since the 1980s.”

JASON:

But I thought the most effective line of the press conference was that everything in Peter Dutton's record tells us that he will start by cutting Medicare.

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“That he will start by cutting Medicare and he won't stop there. He will cut everything except your taxes.”

JASON:

I thought that was a very effective line.

DANIEL:

Jason, you spent the past few months speaking with Labor strategists about their plan for this election. You've also looked at the advertising campaigns that have been rolling out. So what have you found out about how they want to use Dutton as a foil?

JASON:

Well, there's no question, I think — and Labor strategists have been saying this to me for months, that there's no question that they think Peter Dutton is not very popular. And they're going to be focusing on that very much during the course of this campaign.

They don't think that Peter Dutton is ready to govern. And if you look at the last news poll, it seems like a majority of voters don't think Peter Dutton is ready to govern either. So I think we're going to see the Labor Party have some positive advertising, but I think most of it is going to be on the negative side and really attacking Peter Dutton. The other thing the ALP is going to focus on is, what has been a real lucky charm for the Labor Party ever since Bob Hawke was Prime Minister, and that is Medicare and strengthening the health system. That's always been a winner for the Labor party. Their policy that the Prime Minister announced a few weeks ago now on Medicare, that $8.5 billion that they're putting into bulk-billing. I think the ALP are getting very good feedback on that from voters and they're going to keep hammering that issue as much as they can as well.

DANIEL:

Coming up after the break — why Dutton suddenly doesn’t want to talk about nuclear.

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DANIEL:

Jason, on Thursday night we got a little insight into Peter Dutton's plans for the country when he gave his budget-in-reply speech. He followed that up on Friday once the election was called. What did we learn?

JASON:

I think the biggest surprise of the week was when we learned that the Coalition wouldn't be supporting Labor's surprise tax cuts. Angus Taylor went on The 7.30 Report straight after Treasurer Jim Chalmers had delivered the budget and called the tax cuts a cruel hoax and a bribe.

Audio excerpt — Angus Taylor:

“There are better, structural, fundamental solutions to the cost of living crisis. That's not what's being offered by Labor and so we won't support what they're doing here.”

Audio excerpt — Sarah Ferguson:

“You do not support the tax cuts?”

Audio excerpt — Angus Taylor:

“No, well look, let's be clear, they are a cruel hoax. I mean, they are not a genuine tax cut.”

JASON:

And it also gave the government the opportunity to, kind of, wedge the Coalition on the tax cut. They weren't expect Peter Dutton to oppose them. It's been an enormous political gift for the government and they really pounced on that on Wednesday morning when they suddenly decided to introduce legislation to really lock the Opposition into that promise to oppose the tax cuts. But we also learned about the Coalition's promise to halve petrol excise for 12 months if they win the election. And I think that is popular with a lot of, obviously, people who are spending a lot of money each week on petrol.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“We're saying that we want to help now. Pensioners and families and small businesses right across the economy with a $0.25 cent reduction in fuel excise. So when you go to the bowser and you fill up your car, fill up your ute, you're going to be paying about $14 less…”

JASON:

But we also learned a little bit about the Coalition's plan to try to lower energy costs for households with this policy to force domestic gas producers to keep some of the gas that they take out of the ground and put it into the domestic market.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“Gas is used to create and generate electricity and under our policy, we're putting gas back into the energy system and we're doing it for Australians…”

JASON:

It's quite a complex policy and it's not clear to me that it's going to lower gas prices. Peter Dutton also talked about getting rid of the Housing Australia Future Fund and the Rewiring the Nation Fund. And of course, Peter Dutton's promised to implement large cuts to the public service in Canberra, I think that's also risky for the Coalition because it does remind voters very much of what Donald Trump is doing over in Washington. Donald Trump is something that the Labor Party are going to be trying to link Peter Dutton to very much during the course of this campaign. They think Trump is a big negative for Dutton and they're going to try to remind voters of that as much as they can, I think, over the next five weeks.

DANIEL:

So the last couple of days, we've got a bit of an insight into some of Dutton's plans but like you've just said, he has talked a lot about cutting the public service. Do you think that's going to resonate at all with the broader electorate?

JASON:

I don't think so because during the last three years of the Morrison government, yes on the one hand, they reduced the size of the public service but they massively increased the number of consultants that were needed. So I'm not sure that Peter Dutton's gonna be able to square this circle of, he's on the one hand saying, well, we'll cut public servants and we'll save money, but then who's gonna deliver all the services that people expect the government to deliver? And then, you know, what we probably see if we're going on the Coalition's record in government is that they'll have to turn around and employ consultants and that's probably going to cost Peter Dutton a lot more than he saves by sacking 41,000 public servants.

DANIEL:

What was interesting to me was some of the stuff Dutton isn't talking about. I mean, he's been Defence Minister, he's been Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration and yet, in his budget reply speech, he wouldn't get into specifics on the Coalition's position on defence spending or immigration numbers. Why do you think that is, Jason?

JASON:

Well, it's a great question, Daniel, and I think the answer is that Peter Dutton probably has not worked it out himself yet. They've been all over the place when it comes to what the migration target will be. They haven't been very clear whether they're talking about reducing the permanent intake of migration, which is around 190,000 a year, or whether they are talking about reducing net overseas migration, which is, of course, a completely different number. If he's going to cut permanent migration by as much as he's said he will and they're talking about reducing, I think, taking it down from 190 to 160, then that's really going to harm the economy because the only reason the Australian economy has been able to stay out of recession over the last five to ten years is because we've had this quite high migration number. And on defence, I wonder whether the reason he held back on that is because he knew Anthony Albanese was gonna call the election, and he probably thought, well, I'm going to not get as much coverage of my speech tonight as I would normally, I have to save something for a quieter news day. And so, I wonder whether he held back for that reason when it comes to the commitments around defence.

DANIEL:

There was also only one mention of nuclear in his budget reply speech and the first question he was asked by journalists on Friday was, why is that?

Audio excerpt — Journalist:

“Mr Dutton, the Coalition has a $300 billion plan for nuclear energy but it barely got mentioned last night in your budget reply. Why is that? Are you walking back from nuclear because the electorate doesn't like it?”

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“Well, we spoke extensively about our energy plan last night…”

DANIEL:

Does it seem to you like Peter Dutton doesn't want to speak about what was, until recently, his flagship policy?

JASON:

I think no question, Daniel. Jason Clare, the Minister for Education who is going to be the Labor campaign spokesman, I think, for the next four or five weeks, he gave a press conference last night after the budget-in-reply speech, and he said, well, he thinks Dutton's nuclear policy is about as popular as a fart in an elevator. The Coalition have basically stopped talking about their nuclear policy. Instead, Peter Dutton's talking about this new gas policy that they're going to try to implement. Peter Dutton knows that nuclear is not polling well, people aren't buying it, and I think we're probably gonna start to see the Labor campaign strategist trying to put more pressure on him about that. There's also this confusion about what it's gonna cost. As we saw on Insiders last Sunday, not even Angus Taylor, the Shadow Treasurer, really seems to understand how much this coalition's nuclear policy is going to cost and I think it's a real weak point for them.

DANIEL:

So Jason, over the next five weeks, you're going to be out on the campaign trail. Last election, Albanese wasn't all that crash hot on the trail. Dutton is largely untested. So what's your read on how they'll connect with voters and do you expect they'll try and kiss as many babies as possible?

JASON:

Well, always, politicians will try to kiss babies and hug whoever they can. I do think Anthony Albanese, he is very patchy when it comes to campaigning. He does tend to drift off and he gets into this mode where he starts to list all the things he's done in government and it, I think, has the effect of turning listeners off. But I think in the last four or five weeks, there are signs that Anthony Albanese has learnt something, he's getting better. His legacy is really on the line now. If he loses this election it will be the first time a government has lost an election after just one term and, I think, that is a huge incentive for the Prime Minister to campaign as hard as possible. Peter Dutton is untested and we have seen the evidence of that in the last few weeks. He's started to make mistakes. You know, Albanese, of course, has been through an election campaign so that experience is going to matter and I think Peter Dutton is going to struggle, I think, a bit more than perhaps the Prime Minister will.

DANIEL:

Well Jason, thank you for joining us, thank you for your insights and look after yourself over the next five weeks.

JASON:

Thanks, Daniel. I hope we talk again before election day.

DANIEL:

Every chance.

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DANIEL:

7am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper.

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