LIVE: Election 2025 – Anthony Albanese is confronted by furious woman in nightmare moment that derailed the closing day of his campaign – and why Dan Andrews is in the thick of it

A rage-filled woman has accosted Anthony Albanese on mental health issues on the eve of the election, launching an expletive-laden tirade at the prime minister.

Anthony Albanese was met by voters and volunteers of all varieties as he visited one of the busiest pre-polling booths of the campaign trail.

He arrived at the southeast Melbourne suburb of Carrum Downs, in the electorate of Dunkley, to an antagonistic reception.

The booth was flanked by about 20 blue-clad coalition volunteers and three trucks emblazoned with the Liberal candidate’s face.

As Mr Albanese walked down the street, a woman went up for a handshake before launching into a diatribe on the federal government’s decision to cut Medicare-subsidised psychology sessions from 20 to 10 and his relationship with former Victorian premier Dan Andrews.

‘Answer me mister prime minister, answer me you f***ing moron,’ she yelled.

‘Where’s the help for mental health? What about my teenaged daughter?

‘No one gives a s***, thanks to your man Dan Andrews who ruined this state, your best mate – piece of s***.’

Later asked if she was a Liberal volunteer, she said ‘no comment’.

Despite the hubbub, some were glad to see the prime minister, with local Nicole Criddle asking for a photo.

‘We’re so happy it’s you and not Dutton,’ she said.

The seat of Dunkley, previously held by late Labor MP Peta Murphy, voted in her successor Jodie Belyea at a 2024 by-election and is held on a 6.8 per cent margin.

But that hasn’t stopped the Liberals throwing significant resources at the electorate before Australians take to the polls on Saturday.

It was the second time a campaign event was soured for the prime minister on Friday after local Liberal volunteers in the Tasmanian seat of Braddon pulled up with anti-Labor posters and tried to take the spotlight.

Rapping on their corflutes, they claimed Mr Albanese was telling ‘absolute lies’ as he sat at the Devonport Banjo’s Bakery Cafe with a coffee and pastries.

The prime minister started the day on the offensive in Peter Dutton’s Brisbane-based electorate of Dickson.

Asked if he was trying to ‘play mind games’, Mr Albanese said he was ‘trying to win a seat’ before expanding on the differences between himself and his opponent.

‘We’re very different people,’ he told reporters in Brisbane, alongside Labor’s Dickson candidate Ali France.

‘Hope versus fear, optimism versus talking Australia down.

‘My opponent is fearful of the present and petrified of the future.’

Mr Dutton has long fended off challengers and holds the north Brisbane suburban seat on a 1.7 per cent margin.

But Mr Albanese has maintained Labor could take the most marginal seat in Queensland from the coalition leader.

Pauline Hanson has unleashed on Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie.

The One Nation leader told news.com.au’s Political Editor Sam Maiden she is sick of Lambie ‘shrieking’ in parliament – and would love to see her booted out for good.

‘(Jacqui Lambie) votes constantly all the time with the Labor and Greens. She’s not a conservative,’ Senator Hanson said.

‘I’m not happy with her.’

The PM was asked on Friday afternoon about his final campaign press conference, where he appeared to tear up with emotion as he spoke about Labor’s vision for the future.

‘You were emotional speaking earlier today,’ Afternoon Briefing host Patricia Karvelas said.

‘Are you tearing up because you are worried you might lose?’

But Albanese hit back: ‘Not at all.

‘I know a lot is at stake in this election campaign,’ he added.

‘Building a better future under Labor, strengthening our economy… or what the Coalition has to offer, which is higher taxes, higher deficits and savage cuts.’

A sweet moment on the campaign trail was soured for the PM as Liberal supporters crashed the party.

While Albanese visited a Tasmanian bakery famous for scallop pies, local Liberal volunteers pulled up with anti-Labor posters and tried to take the spotlight.

Rapping on their corflutes, they claimed Mr Albanese was telling ‘absolute lies’ as he sat at the Devonport Banjo’s Bakery Cafe with a coffee and some pastries and spoke to Labor volunteer Syed Mahsein, who turned 70 on Friday (pictured, below).

But Albanese remained relatively unfazed, and asked if he believed Labor could win a seat on an eight per cent Liberal margin at Saturday’s election, he said ‘absolutely’.

The business is located in the northwest Tasmanian electorate of Braddon, where Labor senator Anne Urquhart is challenging Malcolm Hingston for a lower house seat held by retiring MP Gavin Pearce.

Mr Albanese brought his campaign to the Apple Isle after spending Friday morning on the opposition leader’s home turf.

Julian Assange has endorsed Anthony Albanese.

The Wikileaks founder told Nine newspapers that he had been asked by many Australians whether the Prime Minister’s role in his long-awaited release from HM Prison Belmarsh in London was overstated.

‘The truth is, in what became an impressive field of advocates, Albo did more to secure my freedom than any other politician or public figure, even more than the late Pope, whose support was both moving and significant,’ he said.

Assange made a rare public appearance to attend the funeral of Pope Francis last week with is wife and two young sons (pictured, below), having stayed out of the limelight since his release from prison last year.

Until then, Assange had not made any known public appearances, and had taken a break from activism after years in prison.

‘Against all expectations for an Australian politician, once elected, he kept his word,’ he said, referencing the promise Albanese made while he was Opposition Leader.

‘Albo did right by me, and he is worlds apart from (Scott) Morrison. You don’t need to be a bully to have a backbone.

‘Does this mean Albo will put Australian interests first and skilfully navigate tensions between the US, EU, and China? I can’t say for sure.

‘But I do know this: He can.’

Assange had faced 175-years in jail accused of disclosing military secrets until pleading guilty to one count of breaching the Espionage Act. He was subsequently allowed to return to his native Australia.

The PM was close to tears during his final press conference before Aussies head to the polls.

If he had lost any of his passion or fight in the gruelling, 35-day campaign, he did not show it.

Asked about his previous claims of Labor needing two terms to enact its vision for the country, Albanese started to give his stock response.

But then he appeared to abandon his carefully-worded script and evoked a binary choice for all Australians between ‘hope versus fear’.

‘Optimism versus talking Australia down,’ he told reporters.

‘My opponent is fearful of the present and petrified of the future.’

The PM said the Coalition had done ‘bugger all’ to invest in energy security when they were last in power.

He accused the Opposition of being a threat to urgent care clinics, to education funding and for not having come up with a credible plan for its nuclear policy.

But, most critically, he accused Peter Dutton of not being prepared and of treating Australians with ‘contempt’.

‘These people are just not ready,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

‘They are just not ready for government. Australia deserves better and I’ll give them better.’

With just one full day of campaigning left before federal election day, opinion polls are pointing to Anthony Albanese’s Labor government winning a second term.

That is, unless Peter Dutton and the Coalition can mount one of the most remarkable comebacks of all time to snatch an unlikely victory.

Daily Mail Australia’s Political Editor Peter Van Onselen breaks down the five possible scenarios that Australians could wake up to on Sunday morning.

For a lifelong political tragic like Anthony Albanese, you might assume that rising to the highest public office in the land would be considered his ‘dream job’.

But the Labor leader has revealed his sights were not set on becoming PM in primary school.

‘Certainly not, I wanted to play half back for South (Sydney Rabbitohs),’ he told reporters on Friday morning, adding: ‘I wasn’t good enough.’

In an energetic press conference, the PM did not betray any nerves.

Instead, he sought to criticise comments Peter Dutton made earlier in the campaign about preferring to live in Kirribili House in Sydney over the Lodge in Canberra.

‘It was the moment where he (Dutton) showed that he’d measured up the curtains and was thinking about his position as prime minister that he assumed,’ Albanese said.

‘I’ve never done that. I don’t take the Australian people for granted.

‘I’m working my guts out to ensure there’s a majority government tomorrow.’

He insisted Labor had a ‘mountain to climb’, noting that no PM has been re-electd since 2004.

A party-hopping wannabe MP gave a glowing reference for an Iraqi refugee – but didn’t mention his VERY sickening past.

The wives and partners of political leaders are often seen but not heard.

But the better halves of both men vying for the keys to the Lodge have outlined why they think they should be the next PM in a revealing piece in the Daily Telegraph.

Kirilly Dutton, Peter Dutton’s wife (pictured below) and the mother of their three children, has insisted ‘Above all else, Peter is a listener’.

‘He isn’t one of those politicians who speaks over people or tells people how it is,’ she writes.

‘He asks questions. He wants to hear other people’s stories and perspectives. And that’s what makes him attuned to the views and values of everyday Australians.’

Kirilly, who ran a chain of successful childcare centres, stressed her husband of 22 years had ‘strength of character’, but insisted he was ‘fair and compassionate too’.

‘From his time as a police officer through to today, he is driven by a desire to protect others and a clear sense of morality,’ she wrote.

‘He knows there is right and wrong, and good and evil, in the world.’

Meanwhile, Anthony Albanese’s fiancée Jodie Haydon, namechecks former Labor PM Julia Gillard as an ‘important trailblazer in public life and a woman I very much admire’.

Jodie, a woman’s advocate and financial adviser, stressed her partner’s feminist credentials – and took a sly dig at the Coalition’s abandoned policy of ‘ending’ WFH in the process.

‘There can be a lot of noise in politics. But I’m confident women can spot a prime minister who respects and values them,’ she wrote.

‘Anthony understands the importance of conditions like flexible work so that families can balance their work demands and see their kids, families and friends.’

Like Kirilly, Jodie highlighted how her partner was ‘tough’ but also ‘kind and empathetic’.

‘He listens. He’s tuned in. He is loyal. He is confident enough to be who he is – and he’s never forgotten where he came from,’ she added.