The election tea leaves for Peter Dutton are looking more wilted by the day as a new poll suggests his campaign will end with the worst coalition result in 80 years.

The opposition leader started Thursday in his home electorate of Dickson, where he’s under siege.

Labor believes the Queensland seat, which is the most marginal seat in the state, is winnable despite being held by the Liberals for 24 years.

Mr Dutton said he wasn’t in his electorate on Thursday because he was worried, but rather because he always attends a Red Shield Appeal breakfast no matter the date, which happens to fall close to election day on Saturday.

The opposition leader dodged questions about a campaign littered with missteps and controversies, saying the election was about the next three years.

“I have no doubt that there are a lot of Australians who are saying, ‘you know what, I haven’t voted Liberal before but I’m going to vote Liberal at this election because I’ve just had enough of not being able to afford to pay my bills’,” he said.

But if YouGov’s final poll before Saturday’s election is correct, this is the exact opposite of how Australians will vote, with the coalition set to suffer its worst lower house seat loss since 1946 and Labor expected to expand its majority.

YouGov’s modelling points to an 84-seat win for the government, out of 150 lower house seats, to return Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to The Lodge for a second term. The winning party needs 76 seats for a majority.

Under this scenario, the coalition will drop to 47 seats – a net loss of 11.

Liberal frontbenchers David Coleman, Michael Sukkar and Dan Tehan could all lose their seats and the coalition would lose Calare, Cowper, Wannon and Bradfield to independents, the modelling shows.

All sitting independents are tipped to retain their seats.

The Greens could lose Brisbane to Labor, dropping their lower house seat total to three.

Labor could also pick up Braddon in Tasmania, Banks in NSW, Bonner in Queensland, Menzies and Deakin in Victoria, Moore in Western Australia and Sturt in South Australia from the coalition, YouGov predicts.

However, the coalition is tipped to reclaim Aston in Melbourne, which it lost to Labor in a historic by-election in 2023.

But Mr Albanese isn’t putting his trust in the numbers, pointing to the party’s 2019 shock defeat to Scott Morrison, in defiance of the major polls.

“It’s really important to not get ahead of ourselves, on the basis of polling that just essentially answer what people think at a particular point in time, so we’re working really hard,” he told ABC radio.

Labor leads the coalition 52.9 per cent to 47.1 per cent on a two-party preferred basis, YouGov says.

The two-party vote is roughly in line with other polling, but the coalition’s primary vote has tracked as high as 35 per cent, according to the Resolve Political Monitor published in Nine newspapers.

Redbridge’s latest poll on Wednesday had the same 53-47 per cent two-party split, but also put the coalition’s primary vote higher and on par with Labor at 34 per cent.

The YouGov modelling also offers ranges for the election, with Labor scoring between 76 to 85 seats, the coalition between 45 and 53, the Greens between two to five and independents between 13 to 16.

It also predicts both major parties will get lower primary votes than in the 2022 election, with Labor down to 31.4 per cent, from 32.6 per cent, and the coalition down to 31.1 per cent, from 35.7 per cent.

Support for the Greens is steady at just over 12 per cent, while One Nation could nearly double its vote to more than nine per cent, compared to 2022.

This was similar to the Redbridge poll.

About one in four eligible Australians have already taken advantage of early voting, ahead of the election.

YouGov conducted 35,185 voter interviews between April 1 and 29, which it used to model 10,822 respondents to predict the election outcome.

Decorated veteran Ben Roberts-Smith’s bid for a second chance to clear his name is on the line as an award-winning journalist faces a judge about a taped phone call.

Nick McKenzie wrote a series of reports for Nine newspapers in 2018 describing the former soldier as a war criminal, an allegation a judge later found was true on the balance of probabilities.

Roberts-Smith is pushing to reopen his appeal against the judge’s finding that he had been complicit in the murder of four unarmed civilians while deployed in Afghanistan.

He argues there was a miscarriage of justice because McKenzie unlawfully obtained details about the former soldier’s legal strategy from his ex-wife, Emma Roberts.

The Victoria Cross recipient claims Ms Roberts accessed her ex-husband’s email accounts and leaked sensitive information to McKenzie, who used it to shape his legal strategy.

In a taped call between McKenzie and Roberts-Smith’s ex-lover, the journalist tells her Ms Roberts and her friend had been “actively briefing us on his legal strategy”.

“I shouldn’t tell you. I’ve just breached my f***ing ethics in doing that, like this has put me in a s*** position now,” the journalist said.

The towering Roberts-Smith fronted the Federal Court on Thursday alongside his parents, who have previously called McKenzie’s phone call “concerning”.

The information came to light after the ex-soldier’s 10-day appeal was heard in early 2024 but should be considered before the three appeal judges deliver their decision, his lawyers argue.

If his appeal is unsuccessful, only the High Court could overturn the war criminal finding.

Roberts-Smith rose to prominence in 2011 after being awarded Australia’s highest military honour, the Victoria Cross, for single-handedly taking out machine-gun posts to protect pinned-down colleagues in Afghanistan.

His reputation however was tarnished in 2018 after McKenzie’s explosive reports alleging the special forces veteran was complicit in the murder of four unarmed men during his deployment in Afghanistan.

In June 2023, Justice Anthony Besanko found the reports had been proven on the balance of probabilities – a lower standard than in a criminal proceeding.

Peter Dutton has pledged the coalition will shave billions of dollars off government debt by removing some of Labor’s signature policies, if the opposition wins the election.

As the coalition released its costings on Thursday, the party claimed it would reduce debt by $40 billion over the next four years.

These include plans to cut at least two of the Labor government’s off-budget investment funds, including the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund set up to build 30,000 new homes and the $20 billion Rewiring the Nation Fund.

Initial costings provided by the coalition said savings would also be achieved by stopping “unsustainable public servant increases” through natural attrition over five years.

But the costings did not reveal the dollar amount to be saved from a cut-back in government jobs.

The full costings will be unveiled by shadow treasurer Angus Taylor later on Thursday.

But the opposition leader said the full document will show a budget in better shape.

“Australians know from their own experiences the economy will always be better managed under a Liberal-National government,” Mr Dutton told reporters in Brisbane.

“That lower debt means interest rates come down.

“The detail will be there for people to see, and what they’ll see is that debt will be lower under us.”

The coalition’s goal is to add at least $10 billion to the budget – which is walking toward a decade of deficits under Labor – over the four years to 2028/29 while cutting government gross debt by $40 billion over the same period.

Other cuts include scrapping student debt relief worth $16 billion, and unwinding Labor’s decision to lower tax concessions for superannuation accounts with balances higher than $3 million.

Mr Taylor said higher debt levels under the government left Australians more exposed to global economic shocks.

“We will rebuild the nation’s fiscal buffers, reduce debt, and begin budget repair because that’s what economic responsibility looks like,” he said.

“Labor has delivered the longest per-capita recession on record and the biggest collapse in living standards in the developed world. That’s not bad luck, that’s bad management.”

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles criticised the coalition for releasing its costings two days before Saturday’s election.

However, Labor released its costings at the same point in the campaign when it was in opposition in 2022.

“The coalition, in terms of how they have spoken about the budget, have been an utter joke,” he told ABC Radio.

“They talk about economic surgery, they talk a big game. But when they are then questioned about how will this actually be done, they run for the hills, and we get absolutely no detail at all.”

The government released its costings on Tuesday, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers saying the cost of Labor’s election promises would be offset by more than $7 billion in savings.

This means the budget deficit would be reduced by $1 billion over the next four years, compared with pre-election forecasts.

Labor’s crackdown on the use of consultants and labour hire in favour of public servants would save $6.4 billion, Dr Chalmers said.

Federal Labor will govern with a clear majority while the coalition will suffer its worst election result in 80 years, if YouGov’s final poll before the election comes true.

YouGov’s modelling points to an 84-seat win for the government, out of 150 lower house seats, to return Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to The Lodge for a second term. The winning party needs 76 seats for a majority.

Under this scenario, the coalition will drop to 47 seats – a net loss of 11 – meaning Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will have led his party to its worst seat total since 1946.

Liberal frontbenchers David Coleman, Michael Sukkar and Dan Tehan would all lose their seats.

All of the sitting independents are tipped to retain their seats, while independent challengers are tipped to win Calare, Cowper, Wannon and Bradfield from the coalition.

The Greens could lose Brisbane to Labor, dropping their lower house seat total to three, according to YouGov.

Labor could pick up Braddon in Tasmania, Banks in NSW, Bonner in Queensland, Menzies and Deakin in Victoria, Moore in Western Australia and Sturt in South Australia from the coalition, YouGov predicts.

However, the coalition is tipped to reclaim Aston in Melbourne, which it lost to Labor in a historic by-election in 2023.

“YouGov’s MRP (or modelling) shows Labor will now win decisively in the outer suburban and regional marginal seats that tend to decide Australian elections,” public data director Paul Smith said on Thursday..

“It was in these types of electorates where the coalition was leading just a couple of months ago.”

Labor leads the coalition on 52.9 per cent to 47.1 per cent on the two-party preferred basis, YouGov says.

The modelling also offers ranges for the election, with Labor scoring between 76 to 85 seats, the coalition between 45 and 53, the Greens between two to five and independents between 13 to 16.

The polling also predicts both major parties will get lower primary votes than in the 2022 election, with Labor down from 32.6 per cent to 31.4 per cent and the coalition down from 35.7 per cent to 31.1 per cent.

Support for the Greens is steady at just over 12 per cent, while One Nation could almost doubled its vote to more than nine per cent, compared to 2022.

YouGov conducted 35,185 voter interviews between April 1 and 29, which it used to model 10,822 respondents to predict the election outcome.

One in four eligible Australians has already taken advantage of early voting, ahead of Saturday’s election.

Meanwhile, the Senate could also serve up some interesting results.

More than half of sitting senators are up for re-election on Saturday: six of 12 senators in each state and two in each of the ACT and Northern Territory.

The staggered terms bake in at least 12 senators for Labor, 14 for the coalition, five for the Greens and five others, who will serve with the 40 who triumph after the weekend vote.

The magic number to control the Senate is 39.

Senate races are split into two main lanes of three progressive and three conservative seats, election analyst Ben Raue said. 

Mr Raue, who runs the Tallyroom election analysis website, predicts the Greens will keep their single Senate seat up for re-election in each state.

Right-wing minor parties such as One Nation and mining magnate Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots have the greatest shot in states where the coalition vote is too low for a third seat but the progressive vote isn’t high enough for four. 

“The only other plausible party that can win a seat is Legalise Cannabis, they have a decent brand name and primary vote,” Mr Raue told AAP.

Victoria is the state to watch for the right-wing vote because it is where Mr Palmer’s former United Australia Party won its only seat in 2022.

The Liberals are in danger of losing their third seat in South Australia or Western Australia to a minor party such as One Nation.

The federal coalition plans to scrap Labor’s tax cuts and some of the government’s signature programs to improve the budget bottom line, if it wins the election.

While the opposition will release its full costings on Thursday, some details have already emerged.

These include plans to cut at least two of the Labor government’s off-budget investment funds, including the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund set up to build 30,000 new homes, according to reports in News Corp and Nine newspapers.

Labor’s recently legislated tax cuts would also be on the line to make budget savings, according to The Australian.

The coalition’s goal is to add at least $10 billion to the budget – which is walking toward a decade of deficits under Labor – over the four years to 2028/29 while cutting government gross debt by $40 billion over the same period.

Other cuts include scrapping student debt relief worth $16 billion, unwinding Labor’s decision to lower tax concessions for superannuation accounts with balances higher than $3 million, and dumping Labor’s Rewiring the Nation infrastructure fund.

“We will rebuild the nation’s fiscal buffers, reduce debt and begin budget repair because that’s what economic responsibility looks like,” shadow treasurer Angus Taylor will say, according to the reports.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said that, given the details so far, the opposition costings looked like a “con job”.

“Housing is going to be cut and income taxes are going to go up,” she told Nine’s Today show on Thursday.

“More lies from Katy,” Mr Taylor responded.

“The important point here is this: by bringing down our debt and bringing down the deficits, we bring down interest rates, inflation.”

According to the Australian Office of Financial Management, which oversees government debt raisings, gross debt currently stands at $925.9 billion.

Labor’s 2024/25 budget forecast gross debt to rise to $1 billion in the next financial year.

The government released its costings earlier this week for Saturday’s election.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the cost of Labor’s election promises would be offset by more than $7 billion in savings.

This means the budget deficit would be reduced by $1 billion over the next four years, compared with pre-election forecasts.

Labor’s crackdown on the use of consultants and labour hire in favour of public servants would save $6.4 billion, Dr Chalmers said.

This would offset the price of its election policies, such as tax cuts and more money for health services.

The government also hopes to save $740 million by increasing application charges for student visas to $2000 from July.

US President Donald Trump has urged patience in the face of a first quarter economic contraction, arguing that his tariffs will eventually lead to a boom in the United States economy.

Investors were left with little clarity on Wednesday about the health of the country’s economy despite a fresh report on gross domestic product, with the fallout from Trump’s sweeping tariffs muddying growth signals.

US gross domestic product fell at a 0.3 per cent annualised rate last quarter.

Imports jumped at a 41.3 per cent rate, resulting in a large trade gap that chopped off a record 4.83 percentage points from GDP.

On its face, the first-quarter data showing the first US economic contraction since 2022 was alarming and brought immediate pressure on US stocks.

But some economists had braced for an even deeper contraction and were encouraged by the data.

The weakness stemmed from a surge in imports as businesses sought to avoid higher costs from the new tariffs, a phenomenon that many analysts said was poised to reverse in coming months.

Investors faced a similar position as they had before the highly anticipated report, vulnerable to twists and turns in Trump’s very much unresolved trade war that stood to keep markets on edge and the potential for a recession still on the table.

Republican Trump blamed his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, for the poor showing.

“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” he said on Truth Social.

“Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang.’

Trump added: “This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”

US President Donald Trump says Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is looking to make a trade deal and will visit the White House within the next week.

Trump said he congratulated Carney on his election victory when the Canadian leader called on Tuesday.

“He called me up yesterday – he said let’s make a deal,” Trump told reporters at the White House after a televised cabinet meeting.

Trump said Carney “couldn’t have been nicer and I congratulated him”.

He said the Canadian leader would come to the White House within a week.

Trump said this week’s Canadian election sends a “very mixed signal because it’s almost even, which makes it very complicated for the country. It’s pretty tight race”.

Australian home values have continued to soar and an expected post-election rate cut is likely to fuel further growth.

Defying economic uncertainty caused by US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, the national median dwelling price rose 0.3 per cent in April to $825,000 according to Cotality, formerly known as CoreLogic.

Dwellings in Darwin saw the biggest spike, climbing 1.1 per cent to $526,000.

Cotality’s research director Tim Lawless said the Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision to cut interest rates by 0.25 in February might have juiced the market.

But he added the pace of price growth had eased compared with the previous month, with auction clearance rates also slumping.

“The rate cut in February supported an upwards inflection in housing market conditions, but the positive influence from lower rates seems to be losing some potency,” he said.

“Household confidence slipped in April, with the US ‘Liberation Day’ tariff announcements and the upcoming federal election causing uncertainty … this may be causing some buyers and sellers to delay their decisions.”

Another rate cut is expected in May in the aftermath of the federal election, which should fuel a “modest” rise in dwelling values throughout the rest of the year.

Wednesday’s underlying inflation figures, which saw the trimmed mean fall to 2.9 per cent in the year to March, has paved the way for another round of RBA intervention.

Economists at CBA, ANZ and Westpac expect a 25 basis point rate cut, which would bring the cash interest rate down to 3.85 per cent.

The nation-wide pace of gains in the year to April slowed to 3.2 per cent, which is the slowest rate since August 2023.

“Given the softer trajectory of growth through last year, it’s likely the annual pace of gains will continue to soften over the coming months, despite the positive inflection in values since February,” Mr Lawless said.

Regional house prices grew at a quicker clip than the capitals in April, at 0.6 per cent compared with 0.2.

A similar report from PropTrack found house prices in Sydney – Australia’s most expensive capital – grew 0.1 per cent in April to hit a record high median mark of $1.12 million.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic commenced in March 2020, home prices in Sydney have sky-rocketed a whopping 40 per cent.

Weed smokers, anti-wokers and coal cokers could all have a seat at one of the nation’s top tables as the Senate serves up a menu of unpredictable combinations.

As pundits posit over who will form government in the lower house, battle lines in the upper house could ultimately determine which policies become a reality.

More than half of the Senate is up for re-election on Saturday: six of the 12 senators in each state and two in each the ACT and Northern Territory.

The staggered terms bake in at least 12 senators for Labor, 14 for the coalition, five for the Greens and five others, who will serve with the 40 who triumph after the weekend vote.

The magic number to control the Senate is 39.

Senate races are split into two main lanes of three progressive and three conservative seats, election analyst Ben Raue said. 

Mr Raue, who runs the Tallyroom election analysis website, predicts the Greens will keep their single Senate seat up for re-election in each state.

Right-wing minor parties such as One Nation and mining magnate Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots have the greatest shot in states where the coalition vote is too low for a third seat but the progressive vote isn’t high enough for four. 

“The only other plausible party that can win a seat is Legalise Cannabis, they have a decent brand name and primary vote,” Mr Raue told AAP.

Victoria is the state to watch for the right-wing vote because it is where Mr Palmer’s former United Australia Party won its only seat in 2022.

The field in Queensland was already crowded, with either One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts or LNP defector Gerard Rennick and his People First party most likely to claim the third conservative seat, the analyst said.

Senator Rennick conceded it would be hard for him to retain his seat but said there needed to be a minor-party alternative to the coalition, which lacked conviction to uphold conservative values.

“Our ground game is as good as their ground game but One Nation has a better-known brand for all those booths you can’t get to,” he told AAP.

The Liberals are in danger of losing their third seat in South Australia or Western Australia to a minor party such as One Nation.

Firebrand senator Jacqui Lambie is likely to retain her Tasmanian seat, although that wasn’t guaranteed, Mr Raue said.

South Australian Jacqui Lambie Network candidate Rex Patrick said he had a good chance at returning to the Senate, but the minor party didn’t have the capacity to poll so the results wouldn’t be known until election day. 

“I don’t think anyone could give an accurate prediction of the outcome,” he said.

There was a chance Labor could take a third seat in Victoria or WA or a second in Queensland if there was a big enough bump in its vote, Mr Raue said.

But one party insider conceded that was unlikely and the last Senate seat would be a scrap between the coalition and a minor party.

A celebrity bakery owner accused of recipe plagiarism has doubled down on her innocence, insisting she did “not copy other people’s recipes”.

Brooke Bellamy has been called out for allegedly stealing recipes for use in her bestselling cookbook Bake With Brooki.

The allegations were levelled against her by RecipeTin Eats’ Nagi Maehashi and Sally McKenney, author and blogger behind Sally’s Baking Addiction.

The recipes in contention include caramel slice and baklava recipes by Ms Maehashi, and Ms McKenney’s Best Vanilla Cake recipe. 

Ms Bellamy, who owns the popular Brooki Bakehouse in Brisbane, has staunchly denied the accusations.

She described the allegations as “deeply distressing” for her colleagues and family.

“The past 24 hours have been extremely overwhelming. I have had media outside my home and business, and have been attacked online,” she says.

Ms Bellamy maintains she did not copy any recipes.

“Like many bakers, I draw inspiration from the classics, but the creations you see at Brooki Bakehouse reflect my own experience, taste, and passion for baking, born of countless hours of my childhood spent in my home kitchen with Mum,” she says. 

Recipe plagiarism can be murky territory in the culinary world, prominent cook and author Melanie Persson told AAP.

The author of The Very Hungry Coeliac and Gluten-Free Feasts cookbooks did not address the specific allegations against Ms Bellamy but said plagiarism could feel “gut-wrenching”.

As someone who develops recipes specifically for the gluten-free community, Ms Persson has come across dishes that bear “uncanny resemblances” to her own original creations.

“It is usually pretty identifiable,” she said. 

“Creating recipes for social media or for cookbooks can feel quite thankless. If someone rips that off without crediting you, it can really suck.”

Isabella Alexander, a law professor at University of Technology Sydney, said while you can copyright a recipe, you can’t copyright the idea or the food item itself, such as a caramel slice.

The legal issues arise when someone directly copies the method and presentation of the recipe.

While copyright occurs often, it can become a contentious issue when money is involved. 

“When another publisher or another recipe author copies those recipes and starts making money from them, that tends to be when people try and stop that from happening,” Professor Alexander told AAP.

“It affects the market for the recipes and the profits that the recipe owner can get from the work that they’ve put into developing and selling those recipes.”

Lines continued to form outside Ms Bellamy’s bakery on Wednesday.

Ms Bellamy quickly became a global sensation after sharing “day in the life” videos on TikTok, which receive millions of views each day.

She is best known for her cookies and has opened pop-up stores in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Bake With Brooki is a bestselling cookbook published by Penguin in October 2024 that retails for $49.99.

Both Penguin and Ms Bellamy deny the allegations.

The Brisbane baker said she had offered to remove both the recipes referred to by Ms Maehashi from future reprints “to prevent further aggravation”.

In Ms Maehashi’s Instagram post on Tuesday, she accused Ms Bellamy of “profiting” from the alleged plagiarised recipes. 

She claims she first raised concerns with Penguin in December.

“I put a huge amount of effort into my recipes. And I share them on my website for anyone to use for free,” she said.

“To see them plagiarised (in my view) and used in a book for profit, without credit, doesn’t just feel unfair. It feels like a blatant exploitation of my work.”