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April 27, 2025
Sunday 27 April 2025
Katina Curtis
The Sunday Times
Peter Dutton will make a final-week blitz of seats in every State, including hit-ting several teal-held seats for the first time, as he insists the Coalition can still win majority government at Saturday’s Federal election.
The Opposition Leader will visit up to 28 key seats in the next six days, most
of them held by Labor. It comes as Mr Dutton reiterated just how important WA was to his chances of becoming prime minister.
“All seats across Western Australia are of vital importance this election,” he told The Sunday Times.
“You (in WA) could hold the future of Australia in your hands.”
Discovery in NT of suspected boat arrivals puts a new complexion on campaign’s final week
Border control has cast a late shadow across the election campaign after five men thought to have arrived by boat were discovered on a Northern Territory beach by a Top End helicopter operator. The men were collected by Australian Border Force late on Thursday and are expected to be sent to offshore processing, but the incident has prompted the Coalition to renew claims Labor cannot be trusted to keep the country safe.
Australian Border Force and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke have refused to confirm the discovery of the men or where they are now, saying they do not comment on operational matters.
A brief video clip posted by North Australian Helicopters hours after the intercept shows five men on a beach.
The Sunday Times has been told the pilot alerted ABF, which collected the men
about three hours later. Over the past year, Operation Sovereign Borders has intercepted 16 people-smuggling ventures — at least one in every month except January — involving between 227 and 245 people.
Of these, 154 people were sent back to the countries they came from and the rest were sent to Nauru for offshore processing.
An ABF spokesperson said the agency “does not comment on or confirm operation-al matters”. Mr Burke also said that the Government did not confirm or comment on operational matters.
“There has never been a successful people-smuggling venture under our Government, and that remains true,” he said.
“When someone arrives without a visa they are detained and then deported.” Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson said it was deeply concerning that anyone had been able to reach the Australian mainland undetected, whether people smugglers or illegal fishers.
“Once again, we have seen the Albanese Government relying on private businesses alerting the Government to serious security concerns, like when a Virgin Australia pilot was the first to alert the
Government to a PLA-N live fire exercise in the Tasman Sea,” Mr Paterson said. “Time and time again, we have seen Labor fail to keep Australia safe. Only a Dutton
Coalition government will re-store Operation Sovereign Borders and stop the boats.” While the parties have clashed during this election over immigration levels — both promising to reduce the number of people coming to live in Australia, although the Coalition wants to cut harder — the issue of people smuggling has not emerged before now.
In 2022 Scott Morrison pressured the ABF to reveal the interception of a suspect people-smuggling boat on election day and the Liberal Party subsequently sent voters text messages about the arrival.
Saturday’s revelations came as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton set a frenetic pace for the final week of the campaign, with each campaigning in multiple States.
Mr Dutton said the election would be decided this week and declared there were many votes still up for grabs.
“If you have a look at con-versations we’re having, and what we’re seeing in seats around the country at the moment, including our metropolitan electorates, there’s a very different conversation going on,” he said in Cairns, in the marginal seat of Leichhardt. “The conversation is, how do we put food on the table? How do we afford to make our mortgage repayments? How can we afford three more years of Labor?”
He then flew to Darwin for a street walk in the Labor-held seat of Solomon before ending the day in Melbourne.
Mr Albanese also started on the defensive, in Labor’s marginal seat of Chisholm, to announce $25 million for language schools, although he was flanked by his candidate for the neighbouring Liberal seat of Menzies. He later met Tasmanian Labor supporters in Bass, where Liberal Bridget Archer won a rare swing towards her in 2022, before finishing the day in his inner-city Sydney seat to announce funding for the Reverend Bill Crews Foun-dation.
It’s the third time he’s been in Grayndler during the campaign, despite its hefty 17.3 per cent margin.
Mr Albanese insisted he understood people’s anger over continued cost-of-living pressures. And he accused his opponent of copying “the Scott Morrison playbook” with short-term fixes and pre-siding over a policy shambles.
“It’s like one of those mystery tours that the airlines used to do in the 1980s where you turn up at the airport, you buy a ticket, but you don’t know where you’re going.
“Well, I say to Australians on May 3, make sure you know where the destination is, because it is destination chaos and destination shambles and destination cuts from Peter Dutton if he’s successful next Saturday.”
Both leaders will speak at campaign rallies on Sunday ahead of facing off for the final time in Seven’s live debate.
Mr Dutton’s rally will be in Hawke in Melbourne’s western suburbs. The seat, named for Labor hero Bob Hawke, is in an area that has historically been the party’s heartland but which the Liberals think they can flip this time.
Mr Albanese is expected in Parramatta in Sydney’s west, campaigning in a tight marginal Labor seat.