LIVE: Election 2025 – Peter Dutton’s tradie son, 20, takes over his dad’s press conference with a dire warning for the nation

Harry Dutton, the Opposition Leader’s 20-year-old son who is training to become a carpenter, joined his dad on the campaign trail in Brisbane on Monday morning.

The apprentice tradie proved he could follow in his father’s footsteps, if he ever wanted to down tools when asked a question by a reporter.

‘It’s been great being on the campaign trail with him,’ Mr Dutton Jr. told reporters about his dad.

‘Going all over and seeing all different people and all different industries,’ he added.

He revealed he and his sister Beck, 23, as well as a lot of their friends, were desperately saving up for a house.

‘But as you probably heard, it’s almost impossible to get in – in the current state,’ he said.

‘We’re saving like mad, but it doesn’t look like we’ll get there in the near future. But we’d love that to change.’

First-home buyers are back in the eye of the storm as the major parties tout differing policies to give young people a leg-up.

Hopeful homeowners would only need to save up a five per cent deposit and houses will be built specifically for first-time buyers under Labor’s plan.

The Coalition will let first-time buyers deduct interest payments against their taxable incomes on the first $650,000 of a mortgage on newly-built homes.

Announcements pitched at Australia’s younger generations have featured prominently in federal elections in recent times as rates of home ownership have been on the decline.

Independent economist Saul Eslake said both announcements from the major parties at their official campaign launches would push up house prices.

‘This is a bad day for aspiring home-buyers,’ Mr Eslake said.

The economist was particularly sceptical of the Coalition’s proposed saving of about $12,000 with a taxable income of $120,000 under its proposal.

‘They will take out bigger mortgages,’ he said.

‘And so house prices will go up.

Any policy allowing Australians to spend more on housing than they otherwise would leads to more expensive housing and fewer people entering the market, the economist explained.

Labor’s five per cent deposits also falls into that category, though Mr Eslake said it would be less of a burden on the federal budget.

Building new homes for first-time buyers would help ‘at the margins’, he said, assisting to boost all-important supply.

From podcasts to TikToks, we’ve seen almost every possible medium exploited by both major parties this campaign.

But now the Liberal party has gone a step further by dropping a studio-produced rap diss track called ‘Leaving Labor’, they have described as ‘Kendrick meeting Question Time’.

The minute-long beef piece focusses on the cost of living crisis and includes lines such as ‘ain’t the way it’s supposed to be / the money we’re spending on groceries / I just wanna buy some eggs and cheese / $100: you kidding me?’

The chorus states: ‘Bring them prices down / This is what we need / Cos Albo’s gotta leave.’

It is being billed by Coalition HQ as a ‘serious message in a new format’.

‘This drops harder and faster than interest rates under Labor,’ they claim.

You can listen to the song on SoundCloud and judge for yourself.

The Prime Minister has refused to say whether Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will stay in her portfolio if Labor is re-elected for a second term.

‘Will you commit to keeping Ms Plibersek in the environment portfolio for the next three years, assuming you’re re-elected?,’ a reporter asked the PM in Adelaide (pictured, below).

‘You know what I’ll commit to? Trying to win this election,’ Mr Albanese responded.

‘Tanya Plibersek has been a friend for a long time.

‘We live in neighbouring seats. We’re good mates and she’s doing a fantastic job.’

It comes after their awkward air kiss at Sunday’s official campaign launch set tongues wagging about their long-standing rivalry.

Jacqui Lambie has poked fun at both Labor and the Coalition’s housing policies.

Both parties tried to outdo one another on Sunday when they officially launched their campaigns with a range of promises designed to lure voters struggling with the cost of living crisis.

Labor promised a guaranteed five per cent deposit scheme for first homebuyers and a $1,000 standard tax deduction for work expenses.

Meanwhile, the Coalition pledged a $1,200 tax offset and a proposal to make mortgage payments tax deductible for some first-time homebuyers.

But the big-spending promises cut little ice with Senator Lambie, as she held up a blank piece of paper to symbolise the lack of detail in them (pictured, below).

‘These two leaders’ both Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton this morning become as loose as a bloody goose,’ she told Today.

‘How about you turn the first lot of soil on the first 50 or 60,000 homes that you’ve promised.’

Tanya Plibersek has laughed off any suggestion that her awkward air kiss with the Prime Minister was a symptom of their long-standing rivalry.

As Anthony Albanese approached the podium with his fiancée Jodie Haydon for his campaign launch speech in Perth on Sunday, he soaked up the adulation of the party faithful and firmly shook hands with his ministers.

The seemingly frosty exchange was noticed by many spectators and seemingly confirmed tensions between the pair were the reason for Ms Plibersek’s recent absence from other campaign events, aside from one appearance at Paddy’s Markets in Sydney.

But now Ms Plibersek has given her own version of events, claiming the air kiss was for hygiene reasons.

‘I reckon we should still all be elbow-bumping. During an election campaign, the last thing you want is to catch a cold,’ Ms Plibersek told Sunrise on Monday morning.

‘So that’s on me. I should’ve done the elbow bump I reckon.’

Despite Mr Albanese demoting her from education to environments and overruling some of her decisions, Ms Plibersek insisted the pair were ‘buddies’.

The Pirme Minister was asked about the awkward exchange in Adelaide on Monday morning.

‘Tanya Plibersek has been a friend for a long time,’ Mr Albanese told reporters.

‘We live in neighbouring seats. We’re good mates and she’s doing a fantastic job.’

But they both have a long and uneasy history.

You can read more about their tense relationship here: