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Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamio.

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Speaker 1: It's Monday, March thirty one, twenty twenty five. Students from

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Speaker 1: Papua New Guinea are being strongly encouraged to study climate change,

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Speaker 1: gender studies and disability policy if they want to receive

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Speaker 1: a scholarship funded by Australian taxpayers. That's in contrast to

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Speaker 1: previous rounds when the focus was on agriculture, medicine and education.

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Speaker 1: That exclusive story is live right now at the Australian

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Speaker 1: dot com dot au. The election campaign is officially on

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Speaker 1: and new data from Newspoll has Labor in pole position.

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Speaker 1: That's despite a huge fail grade from voters on last

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Speaker 1: week's budget. They've ranked it as the worst budget for

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Speaker 1: the economy in a decade. Today, our chief political correspondent

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Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers unpacks who's pitching, what and where?

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Speaker 2: Ready to go?

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Speaker 3: You bet born ready?

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Speaker 1: After months of voe campaigning and at the end of

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Speaker 1: an intense budget week, it's now on.

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Speaker 2: The date is set and Australia will go to the

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Speaker 2: polls on the third of May.

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Speaker 3: It'll mark the beginning of a five week campaign centered

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Speaker 3: around the cost of living the Prime.

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Speaker 2: Minister around in the Albaneze. He's looking to become the

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Speaker 2: first prime minister since John Howard in two thousand and

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Speaker 2: four to be re elected.

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Speaker 3: Now you choose the way forward. Your vote has never

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Speaker 3: been more important and your choice has never been more clear.

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Speaker 1: On Saturday morning, Anthony Albanezi popped up in northwest Brisbane,

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Speaker 1: in the heart of Peter Dutton's electorate of Dixon, where

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Speaker 1: he was heckled in the middle of his very first

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Speaker 1: official campaign. Pres con friends, well about the fact that

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Speaker 1: people my age can't get any housing, we can't get

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Speaker 1: rentals anymore. We have no future in this country anymore.

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Speaker 1: Everythink that's kind of ridiculous. Just down the road in Milton,

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Speaker 1: at Brisbane's famed for Ex brewery, Peter Dutton targeted Labour's

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Speaker 1: performance on energy and was targeted himself by anti nuclear

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Speaker 1: energy protesters. Mister, why you like the people? That's cost

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Speaker 1: of nuclear and gas.

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Speaker 3: It's going to cook the country.

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Speaker 1: So, Jeff, what do you make of Anthony Albanese's decision

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Speaker 1: to kick off his election campaign in enemy territory.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so the Prime Minister is feeling very confident.

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Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is the Australian's chief political correspondent.

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Speaker 5: You'll recall before tropical cyclone our for it emerged that

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Speaker 5: in the polls Labor and the Prime Minister were going

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Speaker 5: not great and he made that big decision to hold

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Speaker 5: off plans that have been put in place for an

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Speaker 5: April twelve election and decided to press on for a

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Speaker 5: March twenty five budget. And in that time we've seen

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Speaker 5: Peter Dutton lose a fair bit of momentum that he

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Speaker 5: had post the Voice all the way up to probably

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Speaker 5: February and March this year, and we saw it last

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Speaker 5: week just ahead of his budget reply he announced a

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Speaker 5: halving of the fuel excise and that has been observed

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Speaker 5: as a very populous move. That was an attempt to

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Speaker 5: try and regather some of that momentum and he is

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Speaker 5: now trying to play catch up. Because that is the

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Speaker 5: power of incumbency for a government. They can decide the

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Speaker 5: election timing and Anthony Albanezi has used that to his advantage.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Peter Dutton wasn't exactly home free either. He made

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Speaker 1: his start in the Greens held seat of Milton, which

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Speaker 1: is one of the three Queensland seats the Greens won

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, So what's the calculus there for him?

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Speaker 4: That's Southeast Queensland corner.

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Speaker 5: There's a few seats that are up for grabs and

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Speaker 5: for lab they really want to put the pressure on

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Speaker 5: Peter Dutton in his own seat of Dixon, which for

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Speaker 5: a long time has been a marginal seat, but at

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Speaker 5: that twenty twenty two election it became one of the

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Speaker 5: most marginal seats in Queensland. You've got the climate two

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Speaker 5: hundred tiers running there, You've got a Labor candidate running

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Speaker 5: for i think the third time, and then you've got

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Speaker 5: all the unions. Will just pump a lot of resources

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Speaker 5: and money into the seat of Dixon. And the reason

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Speaker 5: that they do that is to distract a leader. The

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Speaker 5: leader has to spend some time at home and has

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Speaker 5: to do some sandbagging of his seat. So I don't

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Speaker 5: think that Labour think that they can win it, but

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Speaker 5: they just want to really distract Peter Dutton from the

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Speaker 5: broader competition.

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Speaker 1: On Sunday, the campaign bus is headed south Albo to

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Speaker 1: the Canberra suburb of Downer by way of Beager and

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Speaker 1: Peter Dutton to the Western Sydney seat of Fowler. It's

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Speaker 1: there that the battle lines are being drawn. Fowler was

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Speaker 1: a safe Labor seat until twenty twenty two when Independent

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Speaker 1: daily former Liberal flipped it in a race against Christina Kinnely,

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Speaker 1: who'd been parachuted in by Labor. These days, it's held

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Speaker 1: on the slimmest of margins. There's just two percent in it.

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Speaker 1: What are the key battlegrounds in your view?

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Speaker 5: I think that Victoria is really important for Peter Dutton.

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Speaker 5: It's a seat that Labor thought that Peter Dutton would

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Speaker 5: never have a chance in. But the state of play

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Speaker 5: there for Victorian Labor, as we've seen in some of

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Speaker 5: the recent state by elections, show that there is a

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Speaker 5: mood against the Labor brand down there. But in saying that,

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Speaker 5: the best case scenario would be for Peter Dutton to

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Speaker 5: pick up seats like Aston, which they lost in that

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Speaker 5: by election in twenty twenty three, seats like McEwen and

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Speaker 5: seats like Chisol which has a high Chinese Australian population.

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Speaker 5: So there's a handful of seats that they want to win.

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Speaker 5: And they also have some really super marginal seats down

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Speaker 5: there and Deacon and Menzie, so they have to hold

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Speaker 5: their seats and win. But this election will be one

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Speaker 5: all lost in the big state of New South Wales.

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Speaker 5: The issues vary depending on where you are. I think

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Speaker 5: that Labor now resigned to the fact that they'll lose

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Speaker 5: that New South Wales South Coast seat of Gilmour, which

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Speaker 5: is super marginal. And then there's other battlegrounds like the

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Speaker 5: New South Wales Hunter region, particularly the seed of Patterson

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Speaker 5: which is based around Port Stephens and in the redistribution

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Speaker 5: lost Curry to Hunter next door and that's the site

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Speaker 5: of where Chris Bowen was looking to put the Hunter

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Speaker 5: offshore wind zone, which is really if you're aated some

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Speaker 5: locals there.

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Speaker 4: So there'll be some pressure.

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Speaker 5: For the labor there in the Hunter and also on

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Speaker 5: the Central Coast in the seats of Robertson and Doebell,

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Speaker 5: but it's not going to be easy for Peter Dutton

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Speaker 5: and they're the seats he has to win. Then you

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Speaker 5: go into Sydney, and in Western Sydney it's a huge

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Speaker 5: battleground seats like Benelong. Redistributions have made that notionally a

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Speaker 5: liberal seed. That's the former seat of John Howard and

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Speaker 5: it looks like the Liberals will win there, but they're

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Speaker 5: also facing challenges with the Teals.

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Speaker 4: And then you look at labor.

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Speaker 5: Seats in Western Sydney, particularly those with high Muslim Australian populations.

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Speaker 5: So Tony Burke's seed of Watson, Jason Clare seed of

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Speaker 5: Blaxland Labor hold those traditionally by a massive margin, but

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Speaker 5: there has been this Muslim vote movement, so you'd expect

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Speaker 5: some of those senior ministers having to really work very

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Speaker 5: hard to make sure that whatever swing is coming against them,

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Speaker 5: that they can retain their seeds.

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Speaker 1: Coming up Labor and the Liberals make their pitch to voters,

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Speaker 1: So what's the selection actually about?

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Speaker 3: Healthcare is so important and what this election is about

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Speaker 3: is strengthening the economy, strengthening Medicare versus Peter Dutton's plan

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Speaker 3: for cuts to everything except your taxes. They realize that

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Speaker 3: at this election the contest really is about whoop and

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Speaker 3: lower petroprisis. By the end of this year, we will

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Speaker 3: introduce legislation to make supermarket price gadging illegal in Australia.

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Speaker 5: He is it's weitness word and the supermarkets in Australia snow.

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Speaker 5: We're not seeing any sort of really deep and meaningful,

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Speaker 5: comprehensive bold, courageous, whatever you want to call it. Economic reforms.

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Speaker 5: We're looking at fairly big spending populist type of policies

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Speaker 5: like cheaper medicines, urgent care, clinics, mental health funding important areas.

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Speaker 5: But ultimately both sides know that the top tier issue

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Speaker 5: who remained are still cost of living and housing, and

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Speaker 5: then you have health, national security, defense or sitting under that.

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Speaker 5: So the onus is on Peter Dutton and this will

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Speaker 5: happen soon, I believe, to start rolling out some substantive

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Speaker 5: policies in areas that he wants to have a fight on.

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Speaker 4: Because without that.

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Speaker 5: And once that sort of real blow torch of the

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Speaker 5: campaign trial really amplifies, you don't want to be sitting

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Speaker 5: there talking about things that happened months ago or responding

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Speaker 5: to what the other party is doing. You have to

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Speaker 5: start setting out your own agenda and start to try

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Speaker 5: and reclaim the narrative.

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Speaker 1: In last week's federal budget, the government pulled off a

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Speaker 1: genuine surprise, announcing a teeny tiny tax cut of two

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Speaker 1: percent for all Australians. The Coalition says it won't support

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Speaker 1: the cuts if it wins on May three, but it's

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Speaker 1: small businesses who say they need all the help they

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Speaker 1: can get.

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Speaker 5: There's about two point six million small businesses across Australia

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Speaker 5: and when you look at insolvency statistics since the twenty

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Speaker 5: twenty two election, there's been i think up to now

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Speaker 5: around twenty nine thousand companies that have plunged into insolvency,

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Speaker 5: and the vast majority of those are small businesses and

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Speaker 5: through COVID and then beyond, it's been really tough with

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Speaker 5: the cost of living crisis and it's becoming really hard

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Speaker 5: for these mum and dab operators to keep their doors open.

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Speaker 4: And one of the pushes that they're going to really.

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Speaker 5: Amplify in this election campaign is around a reduction in

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Speaker 5: the corporate tax rate for small businesses, which the focus

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Speaker 5: is generally on personal income tax cuts, but given their

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Speaker 5: importance often described as the engine room of Australia, they

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Speaker 5: believe that measure, along with other measures that they're calling for,

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Speaker 5: would provide some help and relief to try and keep

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Speaker 5: the doors open for small businesses that really do prop

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Speaker 5: up commune.

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Speaker 4: It is in the suburbs and the regions across the country.

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Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is the Australian's Chief Political correspondent. You can

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Speaker 1: keep up with all the laters from the campaign trail

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Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au