LIVE: Election 2025 – Why Peter Dutton believes the Coalition can still win the election despite grim poll results

Peter Dutton’s Coalition needs to gain more than 20 seats to win today’s federal election.

He heads into the election with 54 seats and requires an extra 22 to reach the magic number of 76 required to form majority government.

The Coalition must pick up seats Labor holds by slim margins including Bennelong which is held by Labor’s Jerome Laxale, but is notionally a Liberal seat after redistribution.

Gilmore on the NSW South Coast is another must-win seat after it was the closest seat in the country last time and the Coalition has the well-known candidate in Andrew Constance.

Lyons in Tasmania and Lingiari, which covers most of the Northern Territory, are also big targets for Mr Dutton.

Tagney (2.85 per cent), Paterson (2.6 per cent) and Hunter (4.78 per cent) are the other marginal seats the Coalition have identified as crucial wins.

If it wins five of those seven seats it will make nearly a quarter of the ground it needs for a majority government.

Mr Dutton wants to chart a course back to government through Australia’s outer suburbs.

“All I want to do is to make sure that we don’t forget about those in the suburbs, and I do think they are the forgotten people,” he said in 2022.

There’s also a number of seats in Victoria which Mr Dutton and the Coalition will be eying off.

Bruce (5.31 per cent margin), Holt (7.11 per cent), and Hawke (7.62 per cent) as well as Chisholm (3.33 per cent) and McEwen (3.82 per cent), are Victorian seats the Coalition will be trying to flip in their favour.

Independent MP for Calare Andrew Gee has slammed the NSW Liberal Party over its alleged decision to expel his elderly mum from supporting him at a polling booth.

Mr Gee, a former Nationals MP, said his mother had received a letter from the Liberal Party advising her she had been expelled from the party after being pictured assisting her son at a polling booth in Orange.

‘Today, my mum was expelled from the Liberal Party for helping me out on a polling booth in Orange. They sent her a letter after somebody took a photo and sent it to them,’ he wrote on Facebook.

‘They have a general election tomorrow and they have time to send my mum (who is in her eighties) an expulsion letter. Wow. You can’t make it up.’

The letter, dated May 2, said the expulsion had been made pursuant to the party’s constitution.

‘I have been made aware of your public support and assistance of the independent candidate for the House of Representatives Electoral District of Calare, Andrew Gee, against the endorsed candidate for the Nationals – NSW, the Division’s Coalition partner,’ state director Chris Stone wrote.

Attached was a photo of Ms Gee along with a statement her behaviour was likely to result in ‘damage to the reputation of the Division or the Organisation’.

It added her conduct could reduce the ‘Division’s or Organisation’s prospects of success at the upcoming federal election’.

Ms Gee was informed she had the right to appeal the decision with the state council.

Her son has held the seat of Calare since 2016, first representing the Nationals before standing as an independent.

It is understood he left the party to oppose its stance on the Voice referendum.

Independent MP Andrew Gee is pictured

Ms Gee is pictured at a polling booth in Orange

Anthony Albanese said Peter Dutton was a ‘good family man’ when asked by Sunrise host Monique Wright to say ‘one good thing about your opponent’.

‘I get on very well with Kirilly. Kirilly has been by his side during the campaign as well. It’s tough on families… and Peter is clearly very close to his, and that’s a good thing,’ he told the breakfast program on Sarturday.

‘We don’t take this personally, but we have very different views about the country.

‘We have different values and that comes out in an election campaign. But isn’t it good that in a democracy tonight, whoever wins, the person conceding will make a phone call and we’ll have a peaceful transition?

‘That doesn’t happen in every country.

‘That’s something that Australians should be really proud of.

‘We are a strong democracy.’

Peter Dutton and his wife Kirily are pictured.

Anthony Albanese and his fiancée Jodie Haydon are pictured on Saturday.

Anthony Albanese was quick to correct ABC News host Dan Bourchier during a discussion about the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

The host questioned the Prime Minister, who started his day at the MCG on Saturday, over Labor’s commitment to implementing the statement.

‘No, Dan, I will correct you there,’ Mr Albanese interrupted.

‘I will correct you there because you and I have discussed this issue many times. The idea that that came out on election night is, of course, absurd.

‘That is just spin from the other side.

‘I committed to that in the 2019 campaign.

‘The entire time I was Opposition Leader. Every time I gave an acknowledgement of country… we put that to the Australian people and that was a missed opportunity.’

Mr Albanese said his party had accepted the defeat of the Voice but was still committed to practical reconciliation.

‘I think it’s outrageous, frankly, that those opposite have tried to run a scare campaign on this during the election,’ he said.

‘It beggars belief, but then again, if you can walk out on an apology, as Peter Dutton did, then that says a lot about your character.’

Anthony Albanese is seen at the MCG on Saturday, election day morning

Peter Dutton has urged voters not to lose hope, claiming there are many ‘quiet Australian’s’ not reflected in last-minute Labor-positive polling.

The final Newspoll of the federal election campaign released on Friday night put Labor well ahead of the Coalition on a two-party-preferred basis at 52.5 and 47.5 per cent, respectively.

Mr Dutton told voters not to underestimate the share of ‘quiet’ voters holding out hope for the Coalition.

‘We’ve got a united team, and I think there are a lot of quiet Australians out there who may not be telling their neighbours how they’re voting, but I think they’re going to go into the polling booth and say, you know what, I’m not going to reward Anthony Albanese for the last three years,’ he told Nine’s Weekend Today this morning.

‘And I think the other mob can manage the economy more effectively, can keep us safe in a really uncertain time.

‘And can try to bring the crime rates down in our local suburbs as well. I think they’re all, you know, the thoughts that are going through people’s minds at the moment.’

While Labor was no doubt heartened to know it was well out ahead as the prime candidate to secure government, the polling gave it reason to fear it might not be doing so in majority.

The combined share of the primary vote held by both major parties has dropped to a record low as voters increasingly look towards minor parties and independents.

At the last federal election, battered by the so-called ‘teal wave’, the major parties secured a combined 68.3 per cent of the primary vote.

If the latest Newspoll prediction holds true, their share will have dropped to 67 per cent – with a three per cent gain in primary share vote for One Nation and two per cent for The Greens.

The two minor parties are on track to secure 13 per cent and eight per cent of the primary vote, respectively.

Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots and the teals are expected to account for a further 12 per cent combined.

Voting is now underway in all but one state as Australians line up to make their pick for the next prime minister.

A record number of Australians had already cast their votes before polls opened at 8am across the country but the results won’t start showing until 6pm.

According to the Australian Electoral Commission, 6.7million Australians had cast their ballots at pre-polls before polling booths officially opened at 8am this morning.

Another 1.6million had already submitted a postal vote, bringing the share of early voters to about 40 per cent.

With all major opinion polls pointing to a Labor victory, the question most punters will be asking is whether Albanese has plead his case for a majority government.

Most recent polling suggests that, while Labor has managed to elbow its way to two-party-preferred dominance, its primary vote share has been diluted by independents.

Mr Dutton meanwhile has referred to the polling against him as overly-pessimistic, urging voters to remain open-minded.

Both leaders began their days in Melbourne – the city and its surrounds in which many punters expected the election to be decided.

Later in the day, Albanese will cast his vote in his home seat of Grayndler along with his fiance Jodie and dog, Toto.

The Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, meanwhile, began his day in the safe Labor seat of Macnamara in Melbourne’s south.

Despite a healthy 12.2 per cent margin, the Coalition is looking for an upset after Labor revealed it would preference the Liberal candidate ahead of the Greens in the seat.