Federal Election 2025: Campaign travel diary reveals targets for Albanese, Dutton

Past the halfway mark of the campaign, a clear picture is emerging of where Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton think voters — and ultimately the election — will be won or lost.

The leaders have now spent 22 days travelling thousands of kilometres across the country with television cameras and reporters in tow, visiting doctors’ clinics and petrol stations, community groups and construction sites.

With between 20 and 30 seats seriously in play, analysis by The West Australian reveals the pair are heading to the ones they really need to win and largely avoiding safer seats or those where their standing with voters might prove a liability.

The Prime Minister has now visited every State and Territory, while his opponent has been everywhere except the ACT — despite how frequently he mentions Canberra in his complaints about public servants.

Both have been to WA twice and have spent most of their time in NSW.

And both have visited 34 electorates so far, although their priorities are different.

Unsurprisingly, given Labor’s slim majority in the previous Parliament, both have spent more than two-thirds of their time in Labor-held seats.

These are where the Coalition needs to win numbers.

Mr Dutton headed into the campaign 22 seats short of a majority — while Mr Albanese doesn’t have a big enough buffer to be able to afford to lose anything already in his column.

The key target seats emerging for both sides are WA’s Labor-held seat of Tangney, Lyons in Tasmania, McEwen in Victoria, Paterson in NSW and Solomon in the NT.

The importance of the Liberal-held seat of Sturt in South Australia and Mr Dutton’s own Queensland seat of Dickson has also become apparent.

Intriguingly, both leaders have visited the seat of Fowler in western Sydney, which was previously Labor heartland until independent Dai Le won it in 2022.

Ms Le has said in the event of a hung parliament, she’ll back whoever offers the most to her constituents.

Mr Dutton has made more repeat appearances in electorates than Mr Albanese, hitting up half of the 34 seats he has visited at least twice.

This includes WA’s Hasluck, Swan and Perth, despite Labor confidently insisting they aren’t in play.

He’s also done more media opportunities, although less than half have included press conferences, whereas Mr Albanese has taken questions from reporters at more than half of his appearances.

More interesting is where the conservative leader has decided not to show his face.

He has sporadically insisted over the past six months the Liberals must win seats back off independent MPs if they are to have a hope of winning government.

But the only teal-held seat he has been to during the campaign is Curtin, although he did fill up Goldstein candidate Tim Wilson’s campaign truck at a petrol station on the border between that electorate and neighbouring Macnamara.

Nor has he been to Bradfield or Wannon, where Liberals are facing serious challenges from community independents.

He did make a quick dash down to Busselton, where the party has been surprised by the strength of independent Sue Chapman’s campaign to take Forrest.

However, Mr Dutton has visited all four of the Greens electorates, while Mr Albanese has only been to Brisbane and Griffith.

Campaign itineraries are as much about the psychology than about winning voters though. The Prime Minister led the charge on this front, making a big statement by heading to Mr Dutton’s seat for his first stop after calling the election.

He also dropped in on a construction site this week where three homes are being built out of existing Government funds, which just happened to be in Deakin, held by shadow housing minister Michael Sukkar who has been insisting Labor isn’t building anything.

Both are justifiable visits for their marginal status, too.

The Prime Minister hasn’t been to Bullwinkel — although candidate Trish Cook has been with him at other stops in WA — Werriwa, or Aston, all marginal Labor seats that Mr Dutton is targeting.

Neither leader has visited a slate of electorates that should be in play.

Those include Gilmore on the NSW South Coast which was Labor’s most marginal seat after the 2022 vote (redistributions now put it second), Robertson, Blair, Reid or Dunkley.

On the Liberal side of the ledger, both have also kept away from Melbourne-based Casey, Chisholm and Menzies — despite the latter becoming a notionally Labor seat with the new boundaries.

They’ve also avoided Bass, where Bridget Archer was the only Liberal incumbent to win a swing towards her in 2022, Banks, Canning and Moore.

And while Good Friday is a time when election campaigns are paused the two leaders nonetheless managed to find a way to front the cameras.

Both were in Sydney, although took markedly different approaches to the the religious holiday.

The Prime Minister took his nine-year-old cavoodle Toto for a walk through a Lane Cove park, which just happened to be in Labor’s most marginal seat of Bennelong (so marginal that it is in fact notianally Liberal after the redistribution) on Sydney’s north shore.

Some 20km away, on the other side of the harbour, Mr Dutton and his wife Kirilly attended the Good Friday service at St Charbel’s in Punchbowl.

Former prime minister Scott Morrison, his wife Jenny, Liberal frontbencher David Coleman who holds the neighbouring seat of Banks, and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, the local MP, also attended.

Any campaigning over Easter could prove crucial with early voting officially open from Tuesday.

But the pace of travel will only get more frenetic over the final two weeks of the campaign as the leaders seek to convince those who haven’t already made up their mind.