LIVE: Election 2025 – Anthony Albanese FINALLY comes clean on what really happened in the ‘worst moment’ of his campaign… then angrily backtracks during fiery press conference

In what is perhaps the biggest backflip of the campaign, the PM finally admitted he fell off stage – before seeming to walk back his comments in a tense exchange with reporters.

Speaking at The West Australian’s Leadership Matters forum on Thursday morning, Mr Albanese admitted the worst moment of his campaign was ‘probably falling off the stage’.

Infamously, the PM denied that he fell moments after, er, falling off a stage in full view of the cameras at a mining union conference in the Hunter Valley a week into the campaign.

‘I stepped back one step. I didn’t fall off the stage,’ Mr Albanese told ABC Newcastle in the aftermath.

But at least the PM can now seemingly laugh about it – or so it seemed until he was asked about it again.

At the forum he joked that he was taken aback by the substandard occupational health and safety standards at the event in the Hunter Valley, given it was hosted by a miners union.

And playing a word association game, he was shown a picture of himself falling off the stage.

‘Funny,’ was his one-word response.

However, when asked about his comments at a press conference later in the day, Mr Albanese snapped back at a reporter.

‘Why is it important to you to say it was a step and not a fall?’, the reporter asked.

Mr Albanese said he had ‘no idea’ why journalists were interested in it ‘compared to the big picture’.

The reporter hit back: ‘In 2022, you said during the campaign that you would always front up if you got things wrong … (but) it’s become this huge thing that the Liberals are saying is emblematic of the way…’

But the PM cut her off in rage.

‘It says something about their character, frankly….The same thing that was said when a cameraman got hurt …it was treated, I think, in an interesting way.

‘I stepped off the stage – I didn’t fall over on my backside. I stumbled. That’s what happened.’

‘I laughed about it at the time. I laughed about it since. It’s no big deal.’

He slammed the Coalition for ‘spending time of memes and media’ about his fall.

Mr Albanese was, of course, referencing when the Opposition Leader Peter Dutton split a cameraman’s head open with a misjudged footy kick.

The woman gunning to unseat Peter Dutton shared social media posts depicting the Opposition Leader as a Nazi and has claimed Israel is an ‘openly racist apartheid regime’.

Ali France (pictured with the PM), Labor’s candidate for the seat of Dickson in Brisbane which has been held by Mr Dutton since 2001, shared a post in 2017 depicting Mr Dutton and former PM Malcolm Turnbull wearing SS uniforms.

‘It’s getting grim at Lib HQ,’’ the post she shared on X states (pictured, below).

In another post, which was unearthed by the Liberal dirt unit and published by news.com.au, she described Mr Dutton as a ‘monster’ and suggested those who work for him have to ‘park (their) morals at the door’.

In another post, she retweeted a comment describing Israel as an ‘openly racist apartheid regime’.

Ms France, who ran against Mr Dutton in 2022, told the website she should ‘have chosen my words more carefully in the past’.

‘But I have always felt extremely passionately about the Liberals’ systematic dismantling of the NDIS,’ she added.

‘I want to see peace and believe in a two-state solution, with Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace and security.’

Mr Dutton was asked about the posts at a press conference on Thursday morning but said he hadn’t seen the story.

The PM was asked about resurfaced posts made by Labor candidate Ali France.

Ms France, Labor’s candidate for the seat of Dickson in Brisbane which has been held by Mr Dutton since 2001, shared a post in 2017 depicting Mr Dutton and former PM Malcolm Turnbull wearing SS uniforms.

‘It’s getting grim at Lib HQ,’ the post obtained by news.com.au read.

Mr Albanese described her as an ‘extraordinary Australian’.

‘Ali France is someone who lost her leg saving her child life when she pushed a pram forward and was hit by a motor vehicle,’ he added.

The PM poured beers for the punters at the Gage Roads Brewery on the waterfront in Fremantle, WA, on Wednesday night.

The Labor leader was received warmly, with some youngsters reportedly shouting out: ‘Albo, pour us a beer!’

A video shared to his official X account showed cameras flashing as Mr Albanese poured a beer behind the bar.

But a conversation with a barmaid and a tourist in the foreground made for hilarious listening.

‘We are tourists so we don’t know (who he is),’ the thirsty patron says.

‘That’s our Prime Minister,’ the barmaid explains.

Apparently completely unbothered by the PM’s presence, the tourist immediately asks: ‘What’s on the menu today?’, as the barmaid starts listing beers.

While Mr Albaense looked relaxed and happy with beer in hand, it is highly unlikely the PM had a sip himself.

A ‘Friends of the ABC’ gathering in a community library in Kew, in Melbourne’s north east, descended into chaos on Wednesday night when it was interrupted by three gate-crashers.

Footage shows three protesters storming into the room, with one of the men identified as Matt Trihey, a member of neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell’s Lads Society, but he has denied being a neo-Nazi himself.

‘You people are destroying this country because you will not address civic safety!’ he shouted.

Extraordinary footage captured an elderly woman marching up to Mr Trihey before she threw a wild punch at his jaw.

Monique Ryan, the teal MP for Kooyong who spoke at the gathering, condemned the gate-crashers.

‘It was stupid, pointless posturing, basically by these right-wing bullies,’ Ms Ryan told ABC Radio Melbourne on Thursday morning.

‘I was just answering a question from the audience when I saw three men enter the back of the room, and it felt a bit strange.

‘They clearly weren’t there to attend the forum. I’m not sure that they had any great interest in the media diversity in this country, and they looked a bit menacing, and they pretty much immediately started shouting and disrupted the meeting for about 20 minutes.’

Ms Ryan said the woman who threw the punch was a ‘little lady, pretty frail’ but she did not explicitly condemn her actions.

You can watch the Haymaker right hook below:

The Prime minister found himself in a spot of bother yesterday when he claimed not to know the name of his Greens challenger in his seat of Grayndler.

The Greens are fielding Hannah Thomas (pictured, below) for the electorate in Sydney’s inner west, a former international student and lawyer who grew up in the area.

Asked about Ms Thomas on Wednesday, Mr Albanese said he wouldn’t ‘promote the name of the candidate of the Greens Party’.

‘I wouldn’t have been able to tell you (her name) if you’d have asked me who the candidate was,’ he added.

This is despite the PM directing voters to put Ms Thomas second on the ballot paper.

And now it has emerged that Ms Thomas has been one of the architects of the blockade outside the PM’s electorate office over the Israel-Gaza war, The Australian reported.

The long-running demonstration, which started in mid-2024, has forced the PM and his staff to avoid the office on safety grounds.

Ms Thomas, who moved to Australia in 2009, can be seen in one picture addressing demonstrators in front of a huge sign that reads: ‘Cut ties with genocide: no arms trade with Israel, sanctions now!’

Ms Thomas told the paper Mr Albanese’s comments smacked of arrogance.

‘The Prime Minister’s comments are arrogant and confirm how much he takes the Grayndler community for granted,” she said. .

‘I’ve been knocking on doors across the inner west, and people here, just like millions across Australia, know you can’t keep voting for the same two parties and ­expect a different result.’