After five weeks of chaotic press conferences, four leaders’ debates, dozens of petrol station visits and one fall/step off a stage, we’ve almost made it to the end of the Australian election campaign.
It’s been a lot – if you can remember why we were talking about“scamphlets”,struffoliorAnthony Albanese’s “undeniable everyman charisma”, well done for staying hyper-alert (or maybe try logging off for a bit). As polling day approaches, let’s take a look at some of the many other weird moments that got us here.
Anthony Albaneseupholding a dare made by podcastersto use a popular TikTok phrase in parliament wasn’t written in the tea leaves for 2025. But it makes a kind of sense –politicians love rhymes, especially when you can relate to the cool kids.
The PM went full gen Z the day before calling the election, telling parliament the Coalition was“delulu with no solulu”in reference to its energy and economic plan. A basic translation of the phrase is “delusional with no solution” and, if you feel as though you’ve lost brain cells by reading this, you’re not alone.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Is it really a campaign if there are no novelty props? The Greens’ giant toothbrush has become a key pillar of their campaign, going everywhere from Luna Park in Melbourne to Canberra’s National Press Club and ABC Breakfast television to tout the party’s policy for dental treatment to be included in Medicare.
Peter Dutton and Bridget McKenzie must have thought they were on to a winner in the first week of the election campaign when they took reporters to a lovely winery on a hill, overlooking a valley north of Melbourne. They were there for a picture opportunity related to the airport rail link – but they were along way from the airport, and the link.
Observing a map of the proposed link, the media asked where they were, leading to an awkward moment before one of the candidates conceded that their physical location was not on the map. Asked why they were there, McKenzie replied: “Because that’s what our advancers told us to do.”
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The teal independent candidate for Bradfield, Nicolette Boele, enjoyed a hair wash so much that she made a sex joke about it and got herself banned from a Sydney salon – probably not what anyone was expecting from one of the integrity and respect-oriented independents. Boele later apologised for telling the teenage worker that the experience was “amazing, and I didn’t even have sex with you”, describing it as a “poor attempt at humour”.
Politics can be a bloodbath – literally. A drop punt from the opposition leader during a visit to Darwin had alittle too much heat in iton the second week of the campaign, striking the camera of a Channel 10 operator, Ghaith Nadir. He got bandaged up and shook hands with Dutton, who (perhaps wisely) hasn’t been pictured playing football since.
You don’t have to be an extremely tall man to gain Labor pre-selection for a regional seat, but it does seem to help. In 2022 Dan Repacholi (Big Dan Reps)towered over the competitionto become the federal member for Hunter. But now the 2m-tall (6ft 8in) man-mountain has a rival on his hands – in the form of the Labor candidate for Leichhardt, Matt Smith. A self-described 7ft tall man, Smith could be crowned the tallest person in parliament if elected – an informal and meaningless title that I just made up.
Stranger danger! The Liberal candidate for Bennelong, Scott Yung, received a flurry of complaints from teachers and parents when he was seen handing out chocolate eggs outside a primary school in his electorate.
TheNew South Waleseducation department said it was “unacceptable” for any member of the public to hand Easter eggs to children – not to mention the fact that they are ineligible to vote. A NSW Liberal party spokesperson said Yung had sought parental permission and was merely wishing families a happy Easter.
Talk about backing the wrong horse. Official social media accounts for the Coalition were quick todeclare Dutton the winner of the first leaders’ debatebefore the actual results were released. When they were, they showed Albanese winning the support of more undecided voters on the Sky News panel.
TheCoalitionwas undeterred after the final leaders’ debate, which aired on Seven, with the National party scoring the debates 4-0 to Dutton – ignoring the fact he had again lost based on the panel of undecided voters.
Albanese wants to set the record straight – hedid not fall off a stageon day six of the campaign. He “stepped back one step” and “just one leg went down”, he said at the time, later clarifying he had “laughed about it” and it was “no big deal”. Masculinity remains intact.
Later in the campaignhe reclarified the situation, first nominating “falling off the stage” as his worst moment of the campaign, before telling reporters: “I stepped off the stage and I didn’t fall over on the backside. I stumbled. That’s what happened. I laughed about it at the time, I’ve laughed about it since, it’s no big deal.”
Glad that’s all been cleared up.
“You know what this election campaign is missing? Raps”, is something no one but Coalition HQ was thinking. Week three of the campaign marked therevival of the Liberal party’s SoundCloud account and the release of Leaving Labor, described by a campaign spokesperson as “Kendrick [Lamar] meeting Question Time – lyrical, direct and as with all the best raps, political”. With lyrics like “I just wanna buy some eggs and cheese”, it will be hard to forgetthis timeless classic, as much as we may wish to.
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Tariffs may be causing chaos in the global economy but the Vegemite trade stoush between Canada and Australia washandled with the firm fist of the prime minister. To refresh – a Toronto-based cafe owner was unable sell the spread after the Canadian government initially ruled it did not comply with local food laws. Asked about it at a press conference, Albanese declared: “I stand with the Aussie cafe owner … I can confirm here today that I am pro-Vegemite.”
Fast forward to 19 April and, while brandishing a jar of Vegemite like a trophy, the PM said he had achieved a “win for Australian industry” after discussions with the Canadian government.
Campaign posters, affectionately known during election time as corflutes, have copped a beating in the past five weeks. It began with Monique Ryan, the member for Kooyong, getting trolled by the Liberal party after her husband was filmedremoving their candidate’s signfrom what he thought was public property.
Things quickly escalated, with corflutes for a string of candidates across party lines ripped, discarded and defaced. The independent MP Allegra Spender was on of those apparently in line of fire, with a spokesperson telling Nine newspapers her team had faced an “organised campaign … in the dead of night”.
Joining a site known primarily for pornography could normally be a career-ending move, but not so for the Greens MP Stephen Bates, whojumped on to the platformto push to make the HIV prevention drugs PrEP and PEP free. Bates is the first known Australian politician to have become an OnlyFans creator, though with the caveat that he does not intend to post not-safe-for-work content.
This is the third campaign since the 1950s that has coincided with Easter, giving politicians a rare chance to deliver an Easter election message. The member for Kennedy, Bob Katter, had a field day this year,slamming Woolworth and Colesfor declining to display a nativity scene he offered to all supermarkets in Cairns.It’s hard to summarise but hit lines from his address included “Let me remind you what happened to the money changers in the temple. They burnt in hell” and Jesus “went into the temple and bashed the living daylights out of the bankers and money changers”.
Which publisher is game to sign him up for a retelling of the whole Bible?
When you’re running for parliament, not making fun of a town in your electorate is a wise first step to getting elected. Unfortunately for the independent candidate for the NSW seat of Gilmore, Kate Dezarnaulds, News Corp reported in the final week of the campaign on emails she had sent including some less-than-glowing reviews of the rather delightful village of Berry. “I cannot wait to get the hell out of this miserable, backwards retirement village,” she reportedly wrote to Shoalhaven council employees last year. Dezarnaulds, following the increasingly popular sex-with-hairdresser-joke response, admitted the comment was “poorly worded”.
No petrol station has been safefrom Dutton this year, nor the glee he has taken from clutching a bowser pump for a photo opportunity. The opposition leader has visited more than two dozen fuel stops on his campaign tour, from the Hunter to the outskirts of Melbourne, to tout the Coalition’s fuel excise policy. Sadly, the enthusiasm has not extended to visiting the proposed sites of nuclear power stations.
The billionaire politician’s Trumpet of Patriots party launched an investigation afteralleged “tampering” of its how-to-vote cardssomehow directed preferences to Climate 200-backed independents in several seats. Palmer said it wasn’t the first time his party’s operations had been “hacked” – without providing evidence.
The how-to-vote card so irked the Trumpet of Patriots candidate for Flinders, Jason Smart, that he urged voters to put him last at the ballot box. “My wife and I have been sitting here at home in utter disbelief since Friday morning”, hetold the local newspaper. “I’m nobody’s chump.”
Dutton’s campaign hit quite a road block in the last week of the campaign, when a bus carrying his media contingent became stuck on a bike lane barrier in Sydney’s city centre, blocking traffic.
Incredibly, this was the third time a vehicle-related mishap had hit the Coalition. On 19 April, a Liberal party-funded advert truck hit the Skyrail overpass in Melbourne and became stuck. Three days later, an early voting centre in Sydney’s west was closed after another Liberal party-branded truck crashed into a community centre.
Metaphors were inevitably invoked.
Not for the first time, Guardian Australia got a shoutout from Peter Dutton. Entering the last week of the campaign, hetold supporters at a Liberal party rallyto “forget about what you have been told by the ABC, in the Guardianand the otherhate media”.
It’s not a far cry fromhis 2018 comments, when he accused “crazy lefties at the ABC, Guardian [and] the Huffington Post” of drawing “mean cartoons” about him. “They don’t realise how completely dead they are to me,” he said at the time. Or indeed his 2022description of Guardian Australia as “a trashy publication”.