LIVE

Tue 29 Apr

Australia Institute Live: Day 32 of the 2025 election campaign. As it happened.

Amy Remeikis – Chief Political Analyst

This blog is now closed.

Key posts

The Day's News

07.34 AEST

Election 2025: Outer suburban stories, told by inner city journalists

It’s widely predicted that Saturday’s federal election will be decided by voters feeling the cost-of-living squeeze in the outer suburbs of our capital cities.

However, it is likely that those voters’ stories are being told by journalists who cannot relate to the struggles of Australians living in the commuter belt.

New analysis by The Australia Institute reveals that more than half of Australia’s eight and a half thousand journalists live in electorates classified by the Australian Electoral Commission as “inner metropolitan”.

The report, Where Do Journalists Live?, concludes that Australia’s news media – which has already seen a sharp decline in local outlets – is not well placed to cover an election that is likely to be decided in key battleground seats where so few of its journalists reside.

Key findings:

  • Inner-metropolitan electorates are home to an average of 111 journalists, followed by provincial (41), rural (35) and outer-metropolitan (31) electorates.
  • Seats held by Liberal and Nationals MPs have the lowest average number of journalists living in them, with Labor seats slightly above average and seats held by Greens and Independents having more than double the average.
  • Few journalists live in electorates where most people speak a language other than English at home.
  • The electorates with the most journalists are all in inner Sydney. They are: Sydney (411 journalists – Labor), Wentworth (394 – Independent), Grayndler (366 – Labor) and Warringah (268 – Independent).
  • The electorates with the fewest journalists are all outer-metropolitan. They are: Calwell (4 journalists – VIC, Labor), Brand (7 – WA, Labor), Spence (9 – SA, Labor) and Holt (9 – VIC, Labor).

“It seems unlikely the Australian media is adequately prepared to cover an election fought in the outer suburbs where few reporters live,” said Stephen Long, Senior Fellow and Contributing Editor at The Australia Institute.

“The decline in local media has exacerbated the skewing of where journalists live to the inner city. 

‘The death of news outlets in the outer suburbs and regions is not healthy in a democracy – and we need to look at new models to counter this trend.

“Australians need news that tells local stories and reflects the diversity of the country. To achieve that, they need journalists who live in a range of diverse locations.”

07.30 AEST

Q: Have you done enough to speak to Indigenous people post the referendum in the last 18 months? There’s some evidence of a high level of distress about the level of racism and abuse in the community. Are you speaking to that enough in the campaign?

Gallagher:

Look, I think so. I think the Prime Minister’s speech at Garma following the referendum was a really important one which sort of put out our Government’s view of the next steps, acknowledging the hurt and trauma that came with the referendum and the result that, you know, I think provided a lot of distress to many communities around Australia and so the focus really is on, I think, working with communities, First Nations communities, about the supports and investments that support their self-determination, whether it be in economic opportunities or in health or in education and that’s the work that’s under way now, led of course by that amazing woman, Malarndirri McCarthy and her team. There’s more to do, clearly, Bridget, but we remain deeply committed to it.

07.27 AEST

A reminder that we are only talking about Welcome to Country ceremonies because literal Nazis gatecrashed a dawn Anzac Day service and yelled over the Welcome to Country and then journalists asked politicians about it and Peter Dutton and co started saying that they thought the ceremonies were ‘overdone’ and now we are having a national conversation about questions asked by literal Nazis.

So yeah. Well done all involved. Way to legitimise Nazis.

Gallagher is asked if Labor will defend Welcome to Country ceremonies and says:

The Government has a position that this is a measure of respect to support Welcome to Country. The Prime Minister has been clear on that. I think, you know, the issue that Peter Dutton has raised in the last couple of days is to distract away from the train wreck of a campaign they’re having and also the fact that they don’t want to talk about nuclear and he’s got form on this. We see it as a measure of respect.

We’re very proud of the fact that we share this land with the world’s oldest continuous culture and I see that organisations, you know, who do make their own decisions about whether to have a Welcome to Country ceremony at the beginning of events, you know, have come out and, you know, not only did Peter Dutton verbal the Indonesian Prime Minister, it now appears the many RSL organisations as well. I think most Australians are generous of spirit and see this as an important part of acknowledging our history.

Yes, but given that organisations like the Melbourne Storm (knew I was right to never like them) didn’t hold a Welcome to Country on Anzac Day (which it later claimed was an “administrative oversight” will the Albanese government continue to fund them?

Also a reminder – we are talking about this because of Nazis. NAZIS.

Gallagher:

We haven’t made any changes to the way that we would be operating in the first term to how we would operate in the second term.

FFS.

07.22 AEST

Is Katy Gallagher worried about Australia’s AAA credit rating?

Gallagher:

We released our costings yesterday afternoon which show that our responsible economic management – and we are offsetting all the commitments we’ve made since the pre-election fiscal outlook was released at the beginning of the campaign – and I think that’s in line with the concerns that S&P have raised because it’s responding to that and ensuring the Budget is in better shape at the end of the campaign for Labor than it was in the beginning, just slightly improved, and that shows how seriously we take this. We do need to find savings across government. We are putting them on the table. We’re being upfront. We’ve released our costings and now it’s time for Peter Dutton and his team to release their costings and secret cuts they’ll need to make for nuclear reactors.

As Grogs said yesterday – stop worrying about the AAA:

A lot is being made about S&P warning that big spending may make Australia’s AAA rating at risk.

I’ll just overlook that S&P was one of the ratings agencies that help cause the Global Financial Crisis and just note that ratings agencies always say this and then well… not much happens.

The reality is the best way to gauge the risk of Australia’s debt is to look at the 10 year bond yield on Australian government bonds. In effect this is the interest rate the government pays when it borrows money. At the moment the rate is around 4.4%. Back when S&P gave Australia a AAA rating and back when Australia had budget surpluses due to the mining boom, the rate was around 5.5%.

Australia is seen as less risky now to lend money to than it was when we had no net debt.

07.16 AEST

Does Katy Gallagher think that the Canada election can predict what might happen in Australia? (After being written off, the Canadian Liberals (its more progressive mainstream party) have staged a comeback under new leader former central banker Mark Carney, who took a strong stance of standing against Donald Trump very early in his leadership)

Gallagher:

I don’t think so, necessarily. Obviously different countries, different issues. I think the contest here – and people are pretty switched onto it – is between Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton and I think there’s a…there’s certainly a feeling around the need for stability in these uncertain times, if you were to look at international events. I think that’s probably an issue and the need to hold the course and continue to, you know, build on the work that government has done in the last three years. I think when it comes to the Trump influence or the American influence, I think certainly in policies where we’ve seen, particularly from the Opposition, the Americanisation of, say, Medicare or working from home, those types of things, naive definitely been a factor in this campaign.

07.12 AEST

Finance minister Katy Gallagher is speaking to ABC News Breakfast this morning and is asked about pre-poll:

The pre-polls are busy. I think as you’ve been tracking this week, you know, lots of people voting early as we’ve seen in previous elections. I don’t think it’s any surprise that cost of living is the main focus, certainly in the discussions I’ve been having, and you wouldn’t be surprised to hear in Canberra that there’s concerns about Peter Dutton and cuts and nuclear basically. They seem to be the three issues that keep continuously being raised.

07.10 AEST

Good morning!

Hello, good morning, welcome.

We start the day with Anthony Albanese in Brisbane and Peter Dutton in Melbourne.

Both major parties are now spending their resources where they matter – seats it is possible to win and seats they absolutely must defend.

Labor think they can take Brisbane from the Greens, while the Coalition have remembered the teal seats exist and that they once held them. So it is Kooyong and Goldstein on the list today (which means more Amelia Harmer and Tim Wilson. Huzzah.)

After releasing costings yesterday, Labor will spend the day pointing out that the Coalition is still to say how it will pay for its election promises, while both continue to accuse the other of a spendathon (which is basically the spiderman pointing at each other meme).

We will cover the day for you, with fact checks where needed, as it happens.

You have Amy Remeikis on the blog, with Greg Jericho jumping in, along with the rest of the Australia Institute brains trust. Coffee number two is on the stove and almost ready (it is so necessary) and my stress eating is reaching new heights, so RIP to that block of chocolate I tried to hide from myself.

Ready?

Let’s get into it.

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