The prime minister spent his 61st birthday morning meeting voters in Dunkley in a last-minute bid to keep the seat in Labor’s hands.
The prime minister said the criminal justice system should be able to operate without fear that potential arrests and charges will be seized upon by political leaders.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it was extraordinary that the deputy opposition leader had refused to delete her social media post.
For all the highs that come with a victory on election night,there are long-term risks in winning the seat of Dunkley so close to a federal election.
Anthony Albanese this week declined to commit to the full,phased-in ban on sports betting ads recommended in Peta Murphy’s landmark report.
Highlighting the consequences of a worse-than-expected result for the pair,political hardheads from both parties are positioning themselves as the underdog.
Labor rubbished the claims on car costs,which it compared to previous Coalition scare lines about $100 lamb roasts and electric vehicles heralding the end of the weekend.
The byelection pits two candidates against each other who both have hard-scrabble stories.
Labor is cautiously optimistic it will hold on to the seat of Dunkley even as a ring-wing activist group’s scare campaign sends a shiver through the crucial byelection.
Federal politics has changed over the past 20 years. It’s been a dog’s breakfast. It’s now conducted in a permanently febrile atmosphere.
The coastal electorate in Melbourne’s south-east is the sort of territory marked out as future Liberal heartland to replace the inner-urban seats lost to independents and the Greens.