Anthony Albanese has framed the federal election as a choice between Labor’s plan to “keep building” and Peter Dutton’s “promises to cut” after announcing voters will head to the polls on 3 May.
The prime minister visited the governor general, Sam Mostyn, on Friday morning to dissolve the 47th parliament, triggering a five-week race to form the next government.
Announcing the election date at Canberra’s Parliament House, Albanese later cast Labor as best placed to steer Australia through “uncertain times”.
But the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, framed the Coalition campaign as a question about living standards. “The question that Australians need to ask is: are you better off today, is our country better off today, than three years ago?” he said in Brisbane on Friday morning.
Albanese cited the government’s support for bulk billing, cutting student debts and the tax cuts announced in Tuesday’s budget as centrepieces of the campaign – at several points brandishing a Medicare card in the air.
He said the world had “thrown a lot at Australia” over the past three years but the government had chosen to face global challenges “the Australian way – helping people under cost-of-living pressure, while building for the future”, and claimed the economy was now turning the corner.
Nodding to the shadow of the Trump administration hanging over the campaign, Albanese said the biggest risk to Australia’s economy was “not what’s happening elsewhere in the world”, but “going back to the failures of the past, the tax increases and cuts to services that Peter Dutton and the Liberal party want to lock in”.
Albanese is aiming to become the first prime minister since John Howard in 1998 to win a second term.
Dutton, asked directly about comparisons to Trump in his press conference, accused Albanese of repeating “negative stuff day after day”.
“The sledge-a-thon is on by the prime minister because he doesn’t have a good story to tell about his three years in government. If [he] had done really good things for our country, [if] people were better off today than they were three years ago, he’d be talking about the plan,” Dutton said.
“So you can expect the personal sledges. I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in our positive plan to help Australians.”
Albanese denied he would run a scare campaign against Dutton in the five weeks to election day, saying he wanted “a campaign about policy substance and about hope and optimism for our country.”
Making the case for a second term, Albanese said that “it was always going to take more than three years to clean up 10 years of mess” left by previous Coalition governments.
“The world today is an uncertain place but I am absolutely certain of this – now is not the time for cutting and wrecking, for aiming low, punching down or looking back.”
Albanese strongly condemned Dutton’s plan to sack 41,000 public servants, citing the example of public servants he met in Hervey Bay helping residents affected by the Queensland floods.
Dutton defended his planned cuts, but again offered no details on which staff would go, or by what method – whether voluntary redundancies, payouts or natural attrition. He said he would “protect frontline services” but did not state which workers he considered frontline.
Defending his decision to repeal Labor’s legislated tax cuts in favour of promising fuel excise relief, Dutton said Albanese’s plan would not offer enough cost-of-living help.
“What sort of prime minister, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, promises a 70c-a-day tax cut, starting in 15 months’ time? Australian families need relief now,” Dutton said.
Labor holds 78 seats in the lower house – a two-seat majority – and Albanese is adamant the government can be returned in its own right despite most opinion polls pointing to a hung parliament.
Asked about potential power-sharing deals with the crossbench, the prime minister said he intended to form a majority government and would serve a full term if re-elected.
Dutton hopes to lead the Coalition back to power just three years after its thumping 2022 election defeat, when Scott Morrison’s government lost 19 seats, including six heartland electorates to teal independents.
The opposition leader has pitched a 12-point plan to “get Australia back on track”, featuring his proposal to replace coal-fired power stations with nuclear reactors, cut immigration to free-up housing and slash “wasteful” government spending, including in the public service.
In his budget reply speech on Thursday, Dutton also pledged to halve the fuel excise for 12 months and increase gas supply to reduce prices.
Dutton has also targeted Albanese’s character, painting the prime minister as “weak” on issues ranging from antisemitism to standing up to Xi Jinping.
In a campaign video launched on Friday morning, Dutton said Australia was at a “turning point” after three years under Albanese.
“Too many are having to make sacrifices just to afford the weekly shop and pay their bills,” he said. “This election is a choice about who can help Australians get ahead.”
The opposition holds 54 seats, meaning it has a mountain to climb to win a majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives.
The Greens and teal independents are aiming to retain the seats won in 2022, putting them in the frame to act as potential kingmakers in a hung parliament.
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, remains optimistic the party can gain ground despite a string of poor results at recent state, territory and council elections.