Federal election 2025 LIVE updates: More than $140 billion wiped off the ASX; Dutton forced to defend public service axings backflip

The prime minister’s travelling campaign caravan is making a flying stop at Wallan, on the outer edge of Melbourne’s urban growth, to visit a family with work from home parents.

Albanese’s blood is up as he attacks Peter Dutton’s policy backflip. The opposition leader today declared public servants would not be forced back into the office or sacked under a Coalition government – in a bid to halt political damage from his controversial vow to end flexible work rules and slash bureaucrats’ jobs.

Albanese is all smiles as he chats with Matt Delaney, a finance worker, and Milly Muhrer a TAFE teacher who often works from home, as well as their kids Lawrance and Winny.

But he’s quickly down to business, nailing down his political advantage, accusing Dutton of flip-flopping on policies and “pretending” he supports popular work from home arrangements.

“Working from home suits so many families. Peter Dutton has said that they’ll end that flexibility. He now wants to pretend that that policy hasn’t existed. It was thought through.”

Never mind Dutton had said his previous policy was targeted at Canberra public servants, Albanese linked the move to another Dutton blunder.

“The sort of anti-Canberra rhetoric is frankly a bit unbecoming from a bloke who we know he doesn’t want to live in Canberra, we know he wants to live at Kirribilli House,” Albanese said.

Advantage Albanese for now, but with global markets in free fall the PM must answer on broader issues.

The Australian dollar has dropped below 60 US cents for the first time since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Earlier this morning the dollar was trading at around 59.72 cents against the greenback.

Diana Mousina, deputy chief economist at AMP, said today’s drop was not completely surprising coming off the back of Donald Trump’s tariff blitz which she said was “worse than the market was expecting”.

For Australian consumers the brunt of the hit to the dollar will be felt by those travelling internationally.

“Things are going to, unfortunately, be more expensive overseas. Which isn’t great because it already costs a lot to travel overseas for Australians,” said Mousina.

Mousina said that the dollar is expected to rise again once the “dust settles” from a tumultuous market. She is forecasting the dollar will climb to between 70 and 72 US cents over the next two years.

She said the fall in the dollar would likely see a boost to Australia’s export market, but that may be offset by the cost of imported goods inflating for domestic customers.

It has been a busy morning, watch a clip of Dutton and Albanese responding to the public service backflip.

Dutton has faced a further grilling on the technicalities of his backflip on public servants, as his statement yesterday said the hiring freeze would not apply to the military or reserves but did not say if the Department of Defence would face a freeze.

Our own Political Reporter Natassia Chrysanthos asks: “On the hiring freeze, the Coalition statement said yesterday that this wouldn’t apply to the military or reserves. Does this mean there will be a hiring freeze on the Department of Defence?”

“And just last week, you were signalling the federal education department as an example of government waste. Now that you can’t sack [public] servants, what will you do to cut down on that department and spending there?”

Dutton said the hiring freeze would “address the positions that are surplus” to what the government needs.

Asked by Chrysanthos if this meant there would be further carve-outs and whether the opposition would announce it before the election, Dutton did not answer.

“Where we have a freeze and where we have those natural attritions, that’s where we’ll find the savings across the public service,” he said.

The Australian sharemarket is a sea of red on Monday, with shares plunging more than 6 per cent at the opening bell.

The ASX200 lost 481 points, or 6.3 per cent, by 10.09am AEST, wiping more than $150 billion off the value of the index. All 11 industry sectors are in negative territory.

BHP also lost 8.8 per cent as the big miners plummeted.

Asked if there were more women in his party and whether the Liberals still had a woman problem, Dutton said he did not have an issue with representation.

“We have the same amount, same number of women in the shadow cabinet as Labor does, exactly the same number.

“I have some incredible colleagues, not just sitting around that table, but behind me and in our party room as well. And we have, I think, demonstrated in our policies that we want to help families, we want to help women.

“So are we going to be a better government for women and for families? Absolutely, because we’ll manage the economy more effectively, and we’ve demonstrated that over time, and we’ll do it again after the next election.”

Dutton says winning seats like Boothby and others in South Australia is key for him to form government.

“I think it’s absolutely integral to our success that we win seats here in South Australia and [Boothby candidate] Nicolle [Flint] has demonstrated [that],” he said.

“I think Nicolle is seen as a hard worker, she is out seven days a week at the moment and think she can win … but we need to win Boothby and other seats in South Australia.”

The prime minister and the Victorian premier have hit the campaign trail together for the first time in Sunshine, in western Melbourne. Here’s a pictorial view of their press conference.