Labor victory means Murugappan family set to return home to Biloela

After four years in immigration detention, the election would produce an all-or-nothing result for the Tamil asylum seekers

About 11pm on election night in the central Queensland town of Biloela, Angela Fredericks phoned her absent friend.

“Priya, you are coming home,” she said.

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Anthony Albanese’s election victory restores the faith of Labor’s true believers

With many supporters still bearing the scars of the 2019 election loss, it was only when the Western Australian results streamed in that they dared to dream

It was only around the time the pyramid of Albo ale cans was built – red cylinders piled four rows high – that Labor supporters started daring to believe they’d gotten home.

Nine years in the wilderness of opposition and three crushing defeats had put up a wall of doubt among Labor faithful that they could pull this off. Three years of what many in the camp called “PTSD” from the 2019 election was taken down, brick by brick as the ABC’s Antony Green called another seat for Labor, or another loss for the Liberals.

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Australian election 2022: Anthony Albanese ‘humbled’ to be next PM as voters abandon Coalition

Labor leader pledges to implement Uluru statement and to end climate wars, while Scott Morrison says he will stand down as Liberal leader after defeat

Anthony Albanese will be Australia’s next prime minister, leaving the Coalition in disarray after it lost more than a dozen seats to Labor and independents in an election that has transformed the country’s political landscape.

Declaring victory shortly before midnight on Saturday, Albanese thanked voters for the “extraordinary honour” of becoming the nation’s 31st prime minister, and said he would work in government to bring Australians together.

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Anthony Albanese claims election victory over Scott Morrison in 2022 federal election – as it happened

Anthony Albanese arrives for speech; Scott Morrison to step down as leader after conceding defeat; ‘Liberal family suffered a terrible day,’ Peter Dutton says; Labor claims Reid; Zoe Daniel claims victory in Goldstein; Allegra Spender wins Wentworth from Dave Sharma. This blog is now closed

I’m a fairly big footy fan, but not sure how much all these analogies mean to the rest of voters (and I believe kicking into the wind can actually be an advantage in rugby union sometimes?)

On Weekend Today, Scott Morrison managed to turn a question about whether he has BBQ sauce on his democracy sausage into a stump speech about jobkeeper and co-funding the hospital system during the pandemic. We can’t fault him - those are more important issues than what he was asked.

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Final polls roll in as Albanese and Morrison hit campaign home stretch – as it happened

Roy Morgan poll puts Labor ahead; Greens hopeful of picking up Senate seats; eligibility for telephone voting formally changed; health authorities give monkeypox update ; Julia Gillard says Labor would be ‘a government for women’; at least 52 Covid deaths recorded. This blog is now closed

The voting issue is gaining momentum.

Between Covid, problems for some people overseas, coronavirus impacting the available workforce and the ability to open up booths, particularly in rural and regional communities, and the impact of floods in northern NSW, voting has been a very fraught issue this time round, and the AEC has been working overtime trying to plug the gaps.

That is up to them. I have always respected the decisions of Australians, those quiet Australians as I refer to them, they are out there working hard every day and they are considering their choice very carefully.

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Dugong sees red: Pig the sea cow predicts Labor will win Australian election (sort of)

In completely unscientific experiment the Sydney Aquarium resident sided with a tortoise and crocodile in predicting Anthony Albanese victory

Pig came out of the deep, a slow-moving mass in search of an answer to the question arresting the mind of the nation: who will emerge from the federal election victorious?

The dugong’s performance was precise and assured. A red and blue toy representing each major party were dropped into Pig’s enclosure, and after mere moments consulting his mystic powers, he disappeared below the water’s surface.

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Who will win? The seats Labor and the Coalition need for victory in Australia’s 2022 federal election

The magic number for majority government is 76 lower house seats. Here are the possible scenarios in the Australian election

With the polls tightening in the final days of the election campaign, both major parties are preparing for a tight contest on Saturday.

Labor, after carrying the scars of the 2019 loss which it was widely expected to win, is being more cautious about predicting wins from the Liberal party this time round.

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Australian federal election 2022 live: Plibersek says Albanese has a ‘tough job’ as polls tighten

AEC concedes some Covid-positive Australians ‘may not be able to vote’: prime minister responds after Labor announces policy costings; Covid and illness lead to drop in working hours; nation records at least 52 Covid deaths. Follow all the day’s developments live

Scott and Jenny Morrison are visiting Whitemore in the Labor-held electorate of Lyons in Tasmania this morning.

Brian Mitchell holds Lyons on a margin of 5.2%, although his buffer was inflated by the disendorsement of his Liberal opponent mid-campaign in 2019 for anti-Islamic social media posts. Morrison is still on the offence, seeking gains to offset expected losses elsewhere.

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Government claims of 7% real wage rise since in office disputed – as it happened

Katy Gallagher disputes prime minister’s claims on real wage growth; nation records at least 53 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

National party deputy leader, David Littleproud was feeling upbeat this morning while speaking to ABC Breakfast TV:

We have achieved a lot together, in fact we have done more than any other nation in the world if you look at an economic and health front. We should be proud but we need to shift gears and make sure we look after those cost of living inflation pressures and who is best to handle that and to drive the economy and to guide the economy. I think that’s where the Australian people are looking at it when the opposition won’t tell them how much of their money they’re going to spend, they’re taking them as mugs. We got to be open and honest and transparent.

We think an upward surprise of 1% q/q growth in [today’s] WPI could be enough to get the RBA over the line for 40 basis points, though if it comes in at our forecast of 0.8% q/q that prospect will recede.

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PM dismisses need for more measures to limit Covid deaths, suggests Australians dying with, not of, the virus

Scott Morrison says Australia is now ‘living with Covid’ as nation records one of the highest transmission rates in the world

Scott Morrison brushed off the need for further measures to curtail Australia’s ongoing high rates of Covid-19 transmission and deaths, and suggested many Australians are dying with, not of, Covid.

Morrison told reporters on Wednesday medical advice does not currently support a fourth Covid vaccine for the general population and asserted, without evidence, that Labor under Anthony Albanese may return to lockdowns to combat Covid.

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Real incomes shrink as wages growth of 0.7% in March quarter falls behind inflation

Labor says figures released by the ABS show gap between wage growth and cost of living increases in Australia is now the largest in more than two decades

Australian wage growth barely budged in the March quarter, with salaries increasing at less than half the headline inflation rate, stoking concerns pay packets continue to shrink in real terms.

During the first three months of 2022, the seasonally adjusted wage price index (WPI) rose 0.7% from the December quarter to be 2.4% higher than a year earlier. Economists had tipped a quarterly and yearly rise of 0.7-0.8% and 2.5%, respectively.

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Scott Morrison tells A Current Affair ‘jobkeeper saved the country’ – as it happened

Prime minister tells Tracy Grimshaw ‘I could have been more sensitive at times’; nation records 66 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

Ita Buttrose:

We will retain an internal system of editorial complaint handling. We accept the recommendations, but we have amended one already. The review recommends that the ombudsman should report directly to the board. We should report to the board and the managing director, but the directors felt that this would simply be continuing the system we already have and we wanted a different more independent approach. So the ombudsman will report directly to the board and the process will be separate from editorial management.

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Anthony Albanese defends delaying release of policy costings until two days before election

Labor leader chased by reporters asking questions on costings, while Scott Morrison challenged over refusal to appear on NITV

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has defended the party’s decision not to release the party’s costings until Thursday, saying he has been “transparent” throughout the election campaign.

But delaying until after the advertising blackout begins at midnight on Wednesday has opened Albanese up to criticism from the Coalition, and triggered a hostile press conference in Perth on Tuesday that saw reporters chase Albanese from an event asking questions.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, was also pursued after a press conference in Darwin, with a reporter challenging him on why no one from the Coalition had agreed to appear on the National Indigenous Television network while he was campaigning in the seat of Lingiari, which has the highest proportion of First Nations voters in the country.

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‘Poisonous pamphlets and pork’: what messages are cutting through to voters in this messy campaign?

Here’s what is weighing on the minds of five undecided voters before the federal election on 21 May

Undecided voters will play a key role in deciding the outcome of Saturday’s election with many waiting until the final week, days, or even hours, to make their decision.

So what in this very long, and at times messy, campaign has cut through?

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Australian federal election 2022 live: Albanese calls Coalition housing scheme ‘an attack on future generations’; AEC finds signs in breach

Anthony Albanese labels Coalition housing scheme ‘an attack on future savings’; AEC says Advance Australia ‘Greens’ signs in breach of electoral act; home price increases will be ‘marginal’ under new plan, Scott Morrison says; PM says Labor was informed about Aukus when they ‘needed to be’; NSW records four Covid deaths. Follow all the day’s news live

Labor campaign spokesperson Jason Clare has a new line.

He told ABC TV:

The next week is really important. Australians have a big choice to make this weekend. It is a choice between a better future under Labor and more Scott Morrison.

As Australians think about this, they would be thinking “Do you want to wake up on Sunday morning and roll over and see Scott Morrison?”

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Morrison hails close ties with India and Albanese pledges $970m for Medicare – as it happened

Scott Morrison reiterates new pitch to voters, promising a ‘gear change’, and Anthony Albanese reveals plan to boost primary healthcare. This blog is now closed

Morrison has unfurled his famous boomer dad vibes, snorting at young people using “devices”:

I still remember the mates are used to play with when I was a kid, when I used to go play sport, I used to look forward to it every Saturday and be there with mum and dad, come and be on the sidelines, it is those great
experiences of family life which creates strong families and strong communities.

And by investing in a healthy lifestyles of our children, and doing that with the highly successful sporting schools program, this means we can get more and more about into healthy lifestyles, we need to get them off those phones and get them on the field. I hear some noise from parents who know exactly what I am talking about. And sure, they can have fun with their devices, that has to be on the timing at all the rest of it, you guys struggle without as much as I am sure we all do, but we want them out there running around, we want them living healthy lifestyles.

We have had to come through and toughed it out and push through as hard as we possibly can, and as a Prime Minister and as a government we have had to do that as well.

But as we go into this time of opportunity, and that is exactly what it is, and the kids reminded me of that again this morning, as we go into that time of opportunity, as a government, we change gears, as a Prime Minister, I change gears, and we go and secure those opportunities ahead.

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Albanese says Morrison broke faith with US by delaying Labor’s Aukus briefing

Biden administration reportedly said defence alliance needed bipartisan support, but opposition was not told until day before it was announced

Anthony Albanese says the prime minister, Scott Morrison, broke “faith and trust” with the US by waiting four-and-a-half months to brief Labor on the Aukus deal, a claim the Coalition has criticised as “misleading” and “reckless”.

Albanese was responding to a report in Nine newspapers that the Biden administration would only consider the project if it had bipartisan support.

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Australian federal election 2022: Albanese seizes on PM’s ‘bulldozer’ admission; Chinese spy ship off WA coast ‘an act of aggression’, Dutton says

Opposition leader says ‘bulldozers wreck things’ after prime minister blames pandemic for how he has governed country; Chinese spy ship spotted off Western Australia; Marise Payne and Penny Wong debate foreign policy at National Press Club; nation records at least 52 Covid deaths. Follow all the day’s news

On what Anne Ruston said, here is some of what Scott Morrison said about the 5.1% figure on 11 May:

Anthony Albanese says that he wants wages to go up by 5.1% and he thinks that Australians don’t know what the impact of that would be on their interest rates, on unemployment or on inflation in the cost of living.

He thinks Australians don’t get the link between these things. He thinks he can just say what he likes and you can have your cake and eat it.

I think you’ll find that the government has been very clear in its condemnation of the comments by Mr Albanese, not because of the figure that he put out there specifically, but the fact that he’s just chosen to put a figure out there you know, without bothering to consult, take advice, you know, there’s no science around it.

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Builders and bulldozers: Anthony Albanese rubbishes Scott Morrison’s late attempts at change

Prime minister says ‘I haven’t got everything right’ as opposition leader urges ‘if you want change, change the government’

A buoyant Anthony Albanese declared himself a “builder” on Friday as he scoffed at Scott Morrison’s pledge to learn from mistakes he made as a “bulldozer” throughout the pandemic – a late attempt by the prime minister to recast his character in the final days of the election campaign.

With his personality and record under siege from Labor, Morrison has promised to change his leadership style and admitted he had lessons to learn from his first term as PM.

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Chinese-speaking voters critical of Coalition’s ‘militaristic’ stance on China in lead-up to 2022 election, WeChat study shows

Labor also faces criticism, but Albanese is gaining ground in news coverage on Chinese social media platform, research finds

The Coalition’s muscular position toward China is not going down well with Chinese-speaking voters, while Labor is facing criticism over its more generous approach to humanitarian immigration, an analysis of WeChat audience comments reveals.

The study of more than 3,000 political news stories and associated comments appearing on the Chinese social media platform, WeChat, has been undertaken by researchers at Monash and Deakin Universities over the past 11 months, including during the election campaign.

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